It was founded in 1828 by Félix Lacoste with the help of Joseph Bonaparte (Napoleon's older brother), who was living in New Jersey.

In 1850, it had more than 11,000 registered readers[2] and was distributed from Quebec to Río de la Plata, and from New York to San Francisco.

When news of the French Revolution of 1848 reached New York, Gaillardet returned to France to participate in the construction of the new republic and defend his conservative ideas.

He sold the Courrier to Paul Arpin, a French translator for the Louisiana newspaper L'Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orléans.

Arpin turned it into a republican newspaper, attacking the royalists of the Parti de l'Ordre and Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.