Tone left Paris for Rennes on the afternoon of 17 September 1796, having taken his farewell of Madgett and Aherne and written formal letters of thanks to Carnot and Delacroix. For three days and nights they travelled without stopping to avoid attack in Chouan country. The journey took its toll. Illness caused Tone to miss a grand ball given by Hoche at the Hotel de Ville in Rennes. Not that he thought the ladies of the town attractive; on the contrary he considered them ‘villainous ugly’. But he was robbed of his first chance to show off that uniform which had been the object of his youthful ambition.

Indeed Tone's career as a French officer is an indication of how very different things might have been had his father accommodated his military leanings. The ease with which he settled into military life is remarkable, considering his lack of previous experience. His natural sensitivity would have picked up any criticism of his inexperience and rapid promotion to adjutant-general. Yet he was readily accepted as one of the General Staff and lodged with Hoche and the other officers at headquarters in the former Bishop's Palace. It was ‘a superb mansion’, notes Tone, ‘but not much the better of the Revolution’, with its chapel now serving as military stables. The veteran Colonel Henry Shee, uncle and guardian to Clarke, was to become a particular friend. Tone worked closely with him planning troop dispositions and routes for the forthcoming landing.

He loved the camaraderie, indeed the very carelessness, of military life. He even accepted the need sometimes to go without a bed and without sleep – a great sacrifice for Tone – as one of the conditions of military life. The comradeship more than compensated for it, and he recounts with obvious pleasure how he and Hoche's aide-de-camp, Privat, ‘lay awake half the night laughing and making execrable puns’, though sleeping rough on a floor in Montauban. ‘I like this life of all things’, Tone admitted. ‘There is a gaiety and a carelessness about military men, which interests me infinitely.’ Since the French army now looked after his material needs, there was none of the nagging financial worry which had infused his Paris journal with its ill-ease.