He was appointed in 1858 to a command at home, and at the close of 1859 was selected to lead the French troops in the Anglo-French expedition to China.

[1] In 1865 he was appointed to the command of the IV army corps at Lyon, in the training of which he displayed exceptional energy and administrative capacity.

He claimed to have raised Marshal MacMahon's force at Châlons to 140,000 men, to have created three new army corps, 33 new regiments and 100,000 gardes mobiles, and to have brought the defences of the capital to a state of efficiency – all this in 24 days.

The scheme depended on a precision and rapidity of which the Army of Châlons was no longer capable, and ended with the disaster of Sedan.

After the capitulation of the emperor the dictatorship was offered to Palikao, but he refused to desert the empire, and proposed to establish a council of national defence, with himself as lieutenant-general of government.