In 1717, he was given a sizeable pension and appointed to the rank of Major by the Bernese, and received the command of the Vaud militia of the district of Lavaux.

[1] On 31 March 1723, pretexting a military parade for the Easter week, he entered Lausanne in the company of 600 troops at a moment when the Bernese bailiffs were absent.

Leaving his men to guard the cathedral, he walked alone to the city hall and assembled the municipal council to present them with a manifesto in which a number of failures and abuses were levelled at the government.

[1] Initially derided as crazy, Davel became a martyr of Vaudois independence after his rehabilitation by Juste Olivier first and then Frédéric-César de La Harpe in the mid-18th century.

[2][3] Today the Vaud section of the Swiss fraternity, Zofingia, commemorates the sacrifice of Major Davel every 24 April, in a procession following his route on that day in 1723, leaving from the Château Saint-Maire in Lausanne and leading up to the monument at Vidy, the site of his execution.