 At an early age, her family moved to Madrid.To the annoyance of the Spanish, she showed an independence of mind from an early age and records indicate that she was a persistent nuisance, hanging around the Army barracks at the age of 13.Although popular history records that she married for love at the age of 16, the age of her son at his death is disputed, suggesting that she might already have been pregnant at the time of her marriage to an artillery gunner by the name of Joan Roca Vila-Seca.