His father was a grandson of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano and thus a descendant of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain.

He was doubly descended from the latter pair, as his mother was a legitimated daughter of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia and his mistress Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes.

Heavily in debt in Piedmont, and sued by his sisters whose dowries he had gambled away, he had fled to France where he lived so luxurious a life that his son was forced to sell significant family assets in that country.

The fief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, but the fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty km south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance.

[1] On 4 May 1740, Louis Victor married Princess Christine of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg, a sister of the Sardinian king's deceased wife Queen Polyxena (1706–1736).