[citation needed] Georg Vinzenz Rüttimann was born in Reiden, in the northern part of the Canton of Lucerne.

[1] His father, Johann Jost Rüttimann, was a member of the city's inner ruling council (Kleinrat), and through his mother, born Maria Elisabeth Dürler, he was related to other leading families.

During the 1790s he also served as a Habsburg bailiff and as secretary to the delegation sent on behalf of the thirteen cantons to meet with the agents of the French in Basel (1792/93).

From 1798 till 1802 Rüttimann occupied a senior governing role in the federal administration: politically during this time he was seen as an advocate for a greater coming together of the cantons.

[1][3] Reflecting widespread dissatisfaction with general unruliness under the Lucerne Cantonal government since the setting aside of the traditional old regime, on 16 November 1814 Vinzenz Rüttimann led a group of leading citizens in a coup d'etat[1] to protect the traditional status quo through a reversion to a modified version of the "patriarchal" pre-revolutionary constitutional structure.