In fact, after some fruitless attempts to save his brother, variously related by his biographers, Joseph became aware that André's only chance of safety lay in being forgotten by the authorities, and that ill-advised intervention would only hasten the end.

Joseph Chénier had been a member of the National Convention and had voted for the death of Louis XVI; he belonged to the committees of general security, and of public safety.

He had allowed himself to be reconciled with Napoleon's government, and Cyrus, represented in 1804, was written in his honour, but he was temporarily disgraced in 1806 for his Épître à Voltaire.

In 1806 and 1807 he delivered a course of lectures at the Athéne on the language and literature of France from the earliest years; and in 1808 at the emperor's request, he prepared his Tableau historique de l'état et du progrés de la littérature française depuis 1789 jusqu'à 1808 ("Historical view of the state and progress of French literature from 1789 to 1808"), a book containing some good criticism, though marred by the violent prejudices of its author.

; tragedies which never reached the stage, Brutus et Cassius, Philippe deux, Tibère; translations from Sophocles and Lessing, from Thomas Gray and Horace, from Tacitus and Aristotle; with elegies, dithyrambics and Ossianic rhapsodies.