of the French head of state. Nevertheless, he was ranked as a sub-lieutenant and served in India from January 1888 to March 1889, where he was a staff-officer to Lord Roberts, then Commander-in-Chief in India. In October 1889, Philippe went to Switzerland to complete a course in military theory. While there he fathered a son, Philippe Debien, by Nina, an actress working in the casino at Lausanne. On his 21st birthday in February 1890 he left Switzerland by train with his friend Honoré d'Albert, 10th duc de Luynes, and entered Paris in violation of the law of exile of 1886. There, he offered to perform his military service, as required by law. Instead he was arrested and confined in the Conciergerie. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment at Clairvaux, but was released after a few months and expelled back to Switzerland. Drawn to explore the "unknown", Philippe asked Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, to send him to a military post in the Himalayas. While in the East, he undertook a hunting and exploratory expedition in Nepal with his cousin Prince Henri of Orléans, went mountain-climbing in Tibet, and visited Afghanistan, Ceylon, and the Persian Gulf, before being posted back to Britain. Prior to his imprisonment in France, Philippe had been unofficially engaged to his first cousin Princess Marguerite of Orléans, but the engagement was cancelled when Philippe's involvement with the Australian opera singer Nellie Melba was revealed. Melba was still married to Charles Nesbitt Armstrong, although they had lived apart for some years. Armstrong filed for divorce from Melba on the grounds of adultery, naming Philippe as co-respondent; the case was eventually dropped. In September 1890, Philippe accompanied his father on a two-month trip to the United States and Canada. They visited the battlefields of the American Civil War, in which his father had fought, as well as Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia, Manhattan, New York, New York County, New York, and Quebec. On 12 November 1890, while in Philadelphia, Philippe joined the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) - a military society composed of officers who had served the Union in the American Civil War and their descendants - by right of his father's service in the Union Army. He joined as a companion of the 2nd class - a membership category for the eldest sons