In spite of support from the empress and the King of Prussia, the demand of the dissidents was formally rejected by the Diet of 1766.

At the Diet of 1767, Count Repnin, Catherine's ambassador and the real head of the government in Poland, had four of the most recalcitrant senators carried off and sent into exile in Russia.

The Diet, terrified, disorganized, immediately pronounced in favor of the dissidents.

By the modifications recently introduced into the constitution of their country, the Polish nobles had lost their liberum veto; unanimity of suffrages was no longer necessary in the Diet; the foreign powers were able to insolently impose their will upon it; the privileges of the noblesse, as well as their traditional faith, were attacked at the very foundations; religious fanaticism and national independence boiled up at the same time in every heart; the discontent, secretly fanned by the agents of Frederick, burst out, sooner than the skilful weavers of the plot could have desired, with sufficient intensity and violence to set fire to the four corners of Poland.

By a bold surprise the confederates gained possession of Cracow and of the fortress of Barr, in Podolia; there it was that they swore to die for the sacred cause of Catholic Poland.