Devotees of the posthumous Johann Strauss operetta Wiener Blut (Vienna Blood, 1899) will recognise the opening melodies of the composer's French polka Postillon d'amour from Act 1 of the stage work: calling to the housemaid, Anna, the Count's personal valet, Josef, emerges on-stage singing "Ich such' jetzt da, ich such' jetzt dort¡¨ (No. 1A), which is based on themes 1A and 1B of the orchestral polka. In constructing this aria, the arranger of Wiener Blut, Adolf Müller junior (1839-1901), turned to an orchestral polka which the Waltz King had composed at the height of his creative powers more than three decades earlier, in 1867. 

Overshadowed by the events of summer 1866, when the army of the Danube Monarchy had been decisively defeated at Königgrätz by the might of Prussian military forces, the Vienna Carnival of 1867 had opened in lacklustre mood. For their part, the three Strauss brothers strove magnificently to overcome this public malaise, and for 10 March 1867 announced their annual "Carnival Revue" of all the compositions they had written for that year's carnival festivities. The tally of newly-composed dances was impressive: from a total of twenty-five works on the programme, Johann contributed five, Josef eleven and Eduard eight. Not content with this already enormous offering, both Johann and Eduard had supplemented their cache of dances with brand new compositions - Johann's bonus works being the quick polka Leichtes Blut (op. 319) and the French polka Pastillon d'amaur (op. 317), the latter almost certainly having being composed expressly for his forthcoming concerts at the Paris World Exhibition. It seems, however, that there was insufficient time during the concert to perform all the advertised pieces, the more so since (according to the Neues Fremdenblatt, 11.03.1867) "everything had to be repeated", and Pastillon d'amaur remained unbaptised. The work is next announced as being on the programme of a concert in the Volksgarten on 17 March 1867, given by the Strauss Orchestra under Johann, Josef and Eduard Strauss, although there is no specific mention of this being the polka's first performance. Perplexingly, however, we learn from the notes of the usually reliable Pranz Sabay, a horn-player with the Strauss Orchestra, that Pastillon d'amaur received its première at the orchestra's concert in the Volksgarten on 24 March 1867. The situation grows still more confused with the disclosure in Josef Strauss's diary that the polka was first played by the Strauss Orchestra under Johann's direction at a concert in the Volksgarten on 31 March 1867. Since, however, Josef also gives the same date for the première of the polka Leichtes Blut (see above), it seems he may have been mistaken. Johann's publisher, C.A. Spina, delivered the first piano edition of Pastillon d'amaur (with a cover illustration portraying a love letter and Cupid's bow and quiver of arrows) to the music dealers on 1 May 1867, and its orchestral edition a few days later, on 7 May 1867.

Pastillon d'amaur was among the dances which Vienna's Waltz King took with him to the French capital for his appearances during the World Exhibition. Johann had made arrangements with the 'Royal Prussian Director of Music', Benjamin Bilse, to share the conducting of the latter's excellent 60-man orchestra, and on 29 May and 31 May 1867 the two men joined forces to give a pair of concerts at the Theatre Italien in Paris. It seems to have been at the second of these concerts that Johann introduced his polka Postillon d'amour for the first time in France: writing in Le Figaro on 2 June 1867, the reporter Eugène Tarbé described the novelty as being "among the successes" of the evening, alongside Strauss's polka-mazurka Lob der Frauen op. 315 ("Hommage aux dames") and the waltz Nachtfalter op. 157 ("Les Phalènes de la nuit").