The education and experience that Rivail underwent during the years he spent at Yverdon primed him for the next stage in his life that would begin when he left the Institute and returned to France.Rivail settled in Paris in 1823, where over the period of the next thirty years he became a successful educational writer, publishing a total of 22 textbooks on French grammar, mathematics, and educational reform.  He spoke Spanish and Italian fluently,  was very knowledgeable in German, English and Dutch, and knew some Latin, Greek, and Gallic. He even translated a number of books into French. 

From 1826 to 1834, he ran his own school, the Rivail Technical Institute, where teaching methods were based on those of Pestalozzi.  There he taught chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, comparative anatomy, and rhetoric.  The school was closed in 1834 due to financial losses stemming from his uncle’s gambling habit.   Two years prior, Rivail was married to Amelie Gabrielle Boudet, a writer, fine arts teacher, poet, and artist.

Following the school’s closing, Rivail and his wife lived on a modest income from work that Rivail did as an accountant, as well as the sale of his diverse works to the University of France.  He and his wife also continued to tutor students with free private lessons in their home.

 Despite his well developed and growing success in the educational arena, his pedagogical career was not his ultimate mission, as Kardec would discover in the years ahead.  It was in 1854 that his life began to take a turn which would lead him to eventually become the codifier of Spiritism.