In 1814, Mr. Soulange-Bodin retired to France after the first exile of Napoleon. His Beauharnais service subsequently recommended him for superintendence of the gardens at Empress Josephine's Malmaison. He purchased the 70 hectare château de Fromont at Ris-Orangis (Essonne), where he laid out what was virtually a botanical garden, which gained him the breadth of horticultural experience that informed his publications. He planted an arboretum of exotic trees and amassed a collection of brooms, which were at the time little employed in horticulture. He then assembled every new vegetable he could find, raising the quality of the gardens to the highest level set by the English at Kew. founded an "Institut horticole", which Charles X declared "royal" on the occasion of a state visit in 1829; it dissolved with the Revolution of 1830, but Soulange-Bodin remained a member, and then perpetual secretary of the "Société royale d'agriculture". He was a founder of the "Société d'horticulture de Paris", and organised the first of the floral expositions at the Louvre (1832).