[1] After that event he took his discharge from the regular army and returned to Chartres, but the opposition of his family soon compelled him to seek new military employment.

[1] He took part in the defence of Verdun later in the year, and it was his troop that was ordered to bear the proposals of capitulation to the Prussian camp.

The defenders' lack of morale provoked the anger of the revolutionary authorities, and Marceau was fortunate to find re-employment as a captain in the regular service.

Marceau in turn became a général de division on 10 November; then succeeded to the commander-in-chief ad interim.

Around this time Marceau became engaged to Agathe Leprêtre de Châteaugiron, but the marriage was prevented by his constant military employment, his broken health and the opposition of both Auguste-Félicité Le Prestre de Châteaugiron and Marceau's devoted half-sister Emira, wife of the Republican politician Antoine Joseph Sergent.

[3] After spending the winter of 1793–94 in Paris, Marceau accepted a command in the army under Jean-Baptiste Jourdan alongside Kléber and took part in the various battles near Charleroi.

[3] He took part in the 1795-1796 campaign with the armies of the Sambre and Meuse, fighting on the Rhine and the Lahn and distinguishing himself alongside Kléber and future king of Sweden and marshal of France Charles XIV John (Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte) near Neuwied and Sulzbach.

At Neuwied he held Kléber and Bernadotte's rear, going so far as to threaten to "shoot himself from mortification" if his men were to fail to hold.