Two years later, on 26 August 1755, listed as passengers on the ship L'Aimable Rose, Bologne de Saint-Georges and his favorite Nanon landed in Bordeaux. In Paris, reunited with their son Joseph, they moved into a spacious apartment in the 6th Arrondissement at 49 rue Saint André des Arts. At the age of 13, Joseph was enrolled by his father in a fencing school run by . "At 15 his [Bologne's] progress was so rapid, that he was already beating the best swordsmen, and at 17 he developed the greatest speed imaginable." Bologne was still a student when he beat Alexandre Picard, a fencing master in Rouen, who had been mocking him as "Boëssière's mulatto", in public. That match, bet on heavily by a public divided into partisans and opponents of slavery, was an important coup for Bologne. His father, proud of his feat, rewarded Joseph with a handsome horse and buggy. In 1766 on graduating from the Royal Polytechnique Academy, Bologne was made a Gendarme du roi (officer of the king's bodyguard) and a chevalier. Henceforth Joseph Bologne, by adopting the suffix of his father, would be known as the "Chevalier de Saint-Georges". As an illegitimate son, he was ineligible to inherit his father's title. In 1764, at the end of the Seven Years' War, Georges Bologne returned to Guadeloupe to look after his plantations. The following year, he made a last will and testament where he left Joseph an annuity of 8,000 francs and an adequate pension to Nanon, who remained with their son in Paris. When his father died in 1774 in Guadeloupe, he awarded his annuity to his legitimate daughter, Elisabeth Benedictine. Long before her death, Saint-Georges's mother would also record a testamentary deed dated 18 June 1778, in which she gives and bequeaths all her belongings. However, according to biographer Pierre Bardin, she signed "Anne Danneveau," and refers to her son as "Mr De Boulonge St-George," reflecting her desire to distance herself from her son thus further conceal Saint-Georges's African origins. According to Bologne's friend, Louise Fusil: "... admired for his fencing and riding prowess, he served as a model to young sportsmen ... who formed a court around him." A fine dancer, Saint-Georges was also invited to balls and welcomed in the salons (and boudoirs) of highborn ladies. "Partial for the music of liaisons where amour had real meaning... he loved and was loved."