A member of the Greek community of Corsica, in 1782 he received letters patent from Louis XVI recognizing him as the descendant and heir of David Komnenos, the last Emperor of Trebizond, after which he was known in French as Démétrius Stephanopoli Comnène.

[2] Like the rest of the Greek community, which had sided with Genoa in the Corsican Revolution of 1729–1731,[3] the family had lost their lands and were subsisting in Ajaccio on Constantino's salary and pension as a captain in a cavalry unit of the French army.

[7] Georges-Marie advocated the establishment of a new Greek settlement at Cargèse (close to the site of Paomia), a project which Constantino and Demetrio vehemently opposed on various grounds, for fear of losing their traditional influence.

[8] Demetrio also came into conflict with the French authorities, who insisted that the lands allocated to the Greek community in Cargèse were to be equally distributed among its members.

[10] In 1779, he secured a brevet as a cavalry captain, under the name of Démétrius Stephanopoli Comnène, des Protogeros de Lacédémone.

[10] His claim to the surname Comnène, referring to the Komnenos dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, first appears in this document,[10] but it apparently reflects a well-established tradition: in his Istoria del Regno di Corsica, the Florentine historian Gioacchino Cambiagi devoted an entire chapter (Vol.

The French invasion of Egypt put an end to Napoleon's plans for a Greek insurrection, and Stefanopoli returned to France, where he published his Voyage en Grèce in 1800.