In 1795, La Harpe called on his compatriots to rise up against the Bernese aristocrats, but his appeal fell to deaf ears, and he had to flee to Revolutionary France, where he resumed his activism.

[2] France's main goal in the invasion was securing access to northern Italy via the Alpine passes, with supplying its war effort and using the military potential of Switzerland as secondary objectives.

[2] The atmosphere inside Switzerland had changed significantly due to these developments, and many pro-French patriots hoped, and anti-French conservatives feared, that the Revolution would now spread to the rest of the Confederacy, with or without direct French military intervention.

[6] Next, citizens and subjects in countless Swiss cities, cantons and their dependencies rebelled, and after the example of Vaud, more than 40 other short-lived republics were proclaimed in February, March and April throughout the country.

[1] A second army under General Balthazar Alexis Henri Schauenburg advanced from Mont-Terrible, the former Prince-Bishopric of Basel, towards Bern and demanded its government to put pro-French Revolutionary parties in power.

[8][9] Fighting began on 1 March, and the next day there were battles around Lengnau, Grenchen and in the Ruhsel forest between Alfermée and Twann, which ended with the surrender of the canton of Solothurn.

[1] Schauenburg then received the capitulation signed the day before by Karl Albrecht von Frisching, leader of the pro-French Reform Party, who was appointed head of a new provisional government.

However, the Directory desired a single central republican state at France's eastern border, not dozens of small ones, and steered towards (re)establishment of national unity, though this time with equality for all its subdivisions.

Many Swiss rebels detested it, and the National Convention in Basel passed a modified version, which was then adopted by many other entities, but the French government insisted on the original.

[1] The Nidwalden uprising, an episode related to the invasion though distinct from it, took place in September 1798 and was quashed by the French under Schauenburg, leaving some 100 killed on both sides, along with 300 civilians massacred.