He was attached for service to the King's Royal Rifle Corps, which was then serving in British India, but never held an actual commission in the British Army, in order to respect a French law forbidding Frenchmen from holding commissions in foreign armies without the permission of the French head of state. Nevertheless, he was ranked as a sub-lieutenant and served in India from January 1888 to March 1889, where he was a staff-officer to Lord Roberts, then Commander-in-Chief in India.