After the second restoration of the Bourbons the career of Courier as political pamphleteer began. He had before this time waged war against local wrongs in his own district, and had been the adviser and helpful friend of his neighbours. He now made himself by his letters and pamphlets one of the most dreaded opponents of the government of the Restoration. The first of these was his _Pétition aux deux chambres_ (1816), exposing the sufferings of the peasantry under the royalist reaction. In 1817 he was a candidate for a vacant seat in the Institute; and failing, he took his revenge by publishing a bitter _Lettre à Messieurs de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres_ (1819). This was followed (1819-1820) by a series of political letters of extraordinary power published in _Le Censeur Européen_. He advocated a liberal monarchy, at the head of which he doubtless wished to see Louis Philippe. The proposal, in 1821, to purchase the estate of Chambord for the duke of Bordeaux called forth from Courier the _Simple Discours de Paul Louis, vigneron de la Chavonnière_, one of his best pieces. For this he was tried and condemned to suffer a short imprisonment and to pay a fine. Before he went to prison he published a _compte rendu_ of his trial, which had a still larger circulation than the Discours itself. In 1823 appeared the _Livret de Paul Louis_, the _Gazette de village_, followed in 1824 by his famous _Pamphlet des pamphlets_, called by his biographer, Armand Carrel, his swan-song. Courier published in 1807 his translation from Xenophon, _Du commandement de la cavalerie et de l'équitation_, and had a share in editing the _Collections des romans grecs_. He also projected a translation of Herodotus, and published a specimen, in which he attempted to imitate archaic French; but he did not live to carry out this plan. In the autumn of 1825, on a Sunday afternoon (August 18th), Courier was found shot in a wood near his house. The murderers, who were servants of his own, remained undiscovered for five years.
The writings of Courier, dealing with the facts and events of his own time, are valuable sources of information as to the condition of France before, during, and after the Revolution. Sainte-Beuve finds in Courier's own words, "peu de matière et beaucoup d'art," the secret and device of his talent, which gives his writings a value independent of the somewhat ephemeral subject-matter.