[3] La Harpe was a republican idealist, seeing the rule of the Bernese administration as oligarchical, and as an infringement on the natural rights of the people of Vaud and the other subject states, such as Fribourg.

[4][5] La Harpe viewed the rule of the culturally dissimilar Bernese government and aristocracy as uncaring for the popular will, and contrary to the historical sovereignty of Vaud, in the tradition of the Swiss people.

[5] By the time the French sent troops into Vaud in late January 1798, local people had already risen up and driven away the Bernese baillis (or governor) and proclaimed the Lemanic Republic.

[2] In 1803, as First Consul of France, Bonaparte drafted the Act of Mediation which abolished the Helvetic Republic and turned Switzerland back into a confederacy, but guaranteed the independence of the former subject territories (such as Vaud) that now joined the confederation as cantons.

The restored Confederacy initially suppressed La Harpe's modernist reforms, however, owing to the large scale support garnered by the Swiss Republicans, granted them the liberty to express their beliefs.

La Harpe himself refused to take part in the negotiations, in fact he wrote to Emperor Alexander complaining that "So much trouble has gone into doing such detestable work, whereas a week would have been enough to supplement all that was required for a single, central government".

[7] At the collapse of Napoleon's empire, in 1813, La Harpe and his friend Henri Monod petitioned Emperor Alexander, who in turn persuaded the other Allied powers, to recognise Vaudois and Argovian independence, in spite of Bern's attempts to reclaim them as subject lands.

At the Congress of Vienna, where the major powers set about redrawing the map of Europe following Napoleon's defeat, La Harpe acted as a representative of several Swiss cantons.