Finding himself destitute, and without resources, Lacy enlisted in the 6th Regiment of light infantry of the French line, as a private soldier; but his previous military knowledge, which was soon discovered by his comrades and officers, obtained for him, in one month, the rank of sergeant. About the same time General Clarke (who was afterwards, in 1809, created Duc de Feltre) having heard of him, related the history of Lacy, of his father and uncle, to the Emperor Napoleon. Struck by a narrative so singular, Napoleon sent for the sergeant, and being charmed by his manner and bearing, in virtue of the rank he had previously held, generously gave him the commission of captain in the Irish Legion, which was then being organized at Morlaix, under Arthur O'Connor, for the service of France. General Clarke, Minister of War under Napoleon, being of Irish descent, had the idea of gaining over some of the old Irish aristocracy; and Nadgett, another Irishman in the Foreign Office, had a scheme for enlisting Irish prisoners in the French prisons; a scheme which proved, however, unsuccessful. Arthur O'Connor had been M.P. for Philipstown, but rebelled in 1798, and after being imprisoned at Dublin, and tried for high treason at Maidstone, he was acquitted. In France he became a general, married the daughter of the Marquis de Condorcet, and died at Bignon in 1852. From Morlaix Lacy marched with his regiment to Quimper-Corentin, an old manufacturing town in the departement of Finisterre; and while there became acquainted with a pretty French girl, Mademoiselle Guermer, to whom he became attached, and whom he married, in June, 1806, although her parents--old royalists probably--were bitterly opposed to her espousing a soldier of fortune in the Legion of Exiles. Lacy was then in his thirty-first year. Three days afterwards the Irish Legion marched for Antwerp, and he took his wife with him. From Antwerp the Irish went to the pestilential Isle of Walcheren; there also his young wife accompanied him, and he obtained a majority. In 1807, he was appointed _Chef-du-Battailon_ of the Irish attached to the army which Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, was to command in Spain, for the purpose of accomplishing Bonaparte's unjustifiable scheme of usurpation and conquest.