Born in Paris (his father was a former secretary of Étienne François, duc de Choiseul), and considered in retrospect the most import member of the Bertin family, he began his journalistic career by writing for the Journal Français and other papers during the French Revolution. After the Napoleon Bonaparte's 18 Brumaire Coup he founded the conservative paper with which the name of his family has chiefly been connected, the Journal des Débats. Guided by the contributions of figures such as Joseph Fiévée, Julien Louis Geoffroy, Jean François Joseph Dussault, François-René de Chateaubriand, Charles-Marie-Dorimond de Féletz, Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie, Conrad Malte-Brun, François Benoît Hoffmann, and Charles Nodier, the Journal soon became a major authority in French press and literature. Bertin is credited with the invention of the feuilleton, a supplement to the political section of a newspaper, usually in smaller type, which carried gossip, fashion, criticism, epigrams and charades, and which fostered a culture of literary gamesmanship.