At the assault on the Malakoff (8 September 1855) he greatly distinguished himself at the head of a battalion.
During the 1859 campaign he won promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and as a colonel he served in the French intervention in Mexico.
[1] At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Clinchant led a brigade of the Army of the Rhine.
[1] The Government of National Defense made him general of division and put him at the head of the 20th corps of the Army of the East.
[1] He was intercepted by the German Army under Von Manteuffel in an attempt at retreat,[2] and thus driven with 84,000 men over the Swiss frontier at Pontarlier.