In 1755, he accompanied the French ambassador, the duc de Choiseul to Italy, where he spent three years in archaeological research. Choiseul had a great regard for Barthélemy, and on his return to France, Barthélemy became an inmate of his house, and received valuable preferments from his patron. In June 1755 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.[5] In 1789, after the publication of his Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece, he was elected a member of the Académie française.[3]