Under the Bernese regime (1536-1798), the Waldensians as subjects of Bern were deprived of any form of sovereignty, and local institutions were not inclusive: a distinction existed between the bourgeois represented by tightly closed urban patriciates, and the residents or foreigners, who were excluded from rights and representation. The circulation of revolutionary ideas and the new political aspirations in the 1790s, however, changed this situation. The Vaudoise Revolution of 1798 gave birth to the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803), founded on the principle of popular sovereignty. The fruits of this revolution were quickly appropriated by the elites − old and new − who sought to limit the political participation of the most modest social categories. Despite the contraction of the new political sphere and the contradictions within the new Republic − unequal representation of individuals, the countryside, and so forth − popular sovereignty did continue within alternative political spaces, which ultimately proved more inclusive than the administrations fashioned for the urban bourgeoisie. A wide range of practices flourished of which the popular insurrection of Bourla-Papey in 1802 was one of the most spectacular manifestations.