He was promoted brevet colonel (7 February 1889), and was posted to India in September 1891.
There, at cavalry camp during an exercise in November 1891, he first met Captain Douglas Haig, with whose career his own was to be entwined for the next twenty-five years.
French became Assistant Adjutant-General of Cavalry in 1893.

In India serving initially at Secunderabad and Bangalore, French worked closely with George Luck, a noted trainer of cavalry, albeit with perhaps an excessive emphasis on parade-ground drill.
French commanded a brigade of Indian Cavalry on manoeuvres near Lahore in January 1893.
 He seems not to have acquired the deep affection for India common in officers who served there.

French's wife did not accompany him to India (they seem to have lived apart for a while after his return from Egypt, although if so they must have been reconciled as his daughter Essex was conceived in 1886).
When commanding the 19th Hussars in India, French was cited for adultery with the wife of a brother officer during his leave (inevitably christened "French leave" by his colleagues) in the Indian hills; he was lucky this did not terminate his career.
There were also unsubstantiated rumours that French had had affairs with the daughter of an Anglo-Indian railway official and also, earlier in his career, with his commanding officer's wife.
A later tale, that he had once been the lover of the Irish nationalist Maud Gonne, appeared in Mary Colum's "Life and the Dream" (1947), although his biographer comments that it "lacks firm evidence."

He was on half-pay in 1893–95, possibly as a result of the Indian divorce scandal, and reduced to bicycling with his sons as he could not afford to keep horses.
According to his son Gerald he would hop alongside the bicycle as he never mastered the art of mounting it.
He was promoted brevet colonel (7 February 1889), and was posted to India in September 1891. There, at cavalry camp during an exercise in November 1891, he first met Captain Douglas Haig, with whose career his own was to be entwined for the next twenty-five years. French became Assistant Adjutant-General of Cavalry in 1893.
In India serving initially at Secunderabad and Bangalore, French worked closely with George Luck, a noted trainer of cavalry, albeit with perhaps an excessive emphasis on parade-ground drill. French commanded a brigade of Indian Cavalry on manoeuvres near Lahore in January 1893.  He seems not to have acquired the deep affection for India common in officers who served there.
French's wife did not accompany him to India (they seem to have lived apart for a while after his return from Egypt, although if so they must have been reconciled as his daughter Essex was conceived in 1886). When commanding the 19th Hussars in India, French was cited for adultery with the wife of a brother officer during his leave (inevitably christened "French leave" by his colleagues) in the Indian hills; he was lucky this did not terminate his career. There were also unsubstantiated rumours that French had had affairs with the daughter of an Anglo-Indian railway official and also, earlier in his career, with his commanding officer's wife. A later tale, that he had once been the lover of the Irish nationalist Maud Gonne, appeared in Mary Colum's "Life and the Dream" (1947), although his biographer comments that it "lacks firm evidence."
He was on half-pay in 1893–95, possibly as a result of the Indian divorce scandal, and reduced to bicycling with his sons as he could not afford to keep horses. According to his son Gerald he would hop alongside the bicycle as he never mastered the art of mounting it.
John French, 1st Earl of Ypres