In 1836, he was appointed as an assistant to Jean-Jacques Baude, Royal commissary in Algeria, and worked at Alger, and then at Tunis, Bône and Constantine. He was present at the failed siege of Constantine by the French army in November 1836, before turning back to France and reassuming his functions at the Conseil d'État. In 1838 he was appointed a councillor at the Conseiller d'État.