 He was born Gontran-Marie Garrigou Lagrange on 21 February 1877 in Auch, near Toulouse, France.While studying medicine at Bordeaux he experienced what he described as a religious conversion after reading "Life, Science, and Art" by the Breton writer Ernest Hello (1828–85).He joined the French Dominicans and studied and taught at Le Saulchoir before moving to Rome, where he lectured at the "Angelicum" from 1909 until his retirement in 1960.