Daughter of a tsarist general of Hungarian origin and a polish mother. She was educated as a Polish nationalist. Her parents divorced and her father died in 1858. She was arrested in 1861, but escaped with the help of friends. She lived in with a soldier family, where she was taught to fight. She took the name Michal Smok, returned to Poland and fought under Marian Langiwicz. Whether people knew she was a woman is uncertain. She was arrested by Austrians and then after her release traveled to Switzerland. She later settled in Paris in 1865. Here she sold artificial flowers, taught music in a monastery and, in 1871, worked as a nurse. She married, had four children of her own as well as rearing the children of her dead sister-in-law.