His father was a political economist who had been elevated to the nobility in 1784 by letters patent granted by King Louis XVI, allowing him to carry the honorable de Nemours suffix.

Growing up on his father's estate, "Bois des Fossés", near Égreville, young du Pont was enthusiastic about his studies in most subjects, and showed particular interest in explosives.

Two years later, he was accepted by the friend of his father and noted chemist Antoine Lavoisier as a student in the Régie des poudres, the government agency responsible for the manufacture of gunpowder.

[4] He studied "advanced explosives production techniques"[5] After a brief apprenticeship, he took a position at the government-owned powder works in Essonne but quit after Lavoisier left.

However, on 20 August 1792, both du Pont and his father participated in protecting the escape of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette when the Tuileries Palace was stormed.

These events led his father to lose hope in the political situation in France, and so he began making plans to move their family to America and aspired to create a model community of French émigrés.

They reached Rhode Island on 1 January 1800 and began to settle in the home the eldest du Pont had secured in Bergen Point, New Jersey.

Du Pont's gun misfired as he attempted to shoot a bird, which caused him to reflect on his powder-making apprenticeship with Lavoisier as a youth in France.

He quickly deduced that the saltpeter being used was of good enough quality; however, the American refining process was poor and inefficient compared with the techniques he had learned in France.