Michaud was born at Albens, Savoie, educated at Bourg-en-Bresse, and afterwards engaged in literary work at Lyon, where the French Revolution first aroused the strong dislike of revolutionary principles which manifested itself throughout the rest of his life. In 1791 he went to Paris, where, at great risk to his own safety, he took part in editing several royalist journals. One of those was the "Gazette universelle" that he founded together with Pascal Boyer and Antoine Marie Cerisier. It was very successful until it was suppressed in August 1792 and its editors had to flee to escape arrest. In 1796 he became editor of "La Quotidienne", for which he was arrested after the 13th of Vendémiaire; he evaded his captors, but was sentenced to death "in absentia" by the military council. Having resumed the editorship of his newspaper on the establishment of the French Directory, he was again proscribed on the 18th of Fructidor, but after two years returned to Paris, when the Consulate had superseded the Directory.