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Founded in 1913 by writers Paul Budry and Edmond Gilliard, the Cahiers vaudois were published from 1914 to 1920. The cover illustration, a woodcut by Henry Bischoff, features a hand squeezing a bunch of grapes whose juice fills a glass, all encircled by the motto: “J’exprime” (“I express”).

Les Cahiers vaudois aims to revitalize intellectual life in French-speaking Switzerland as a whole, and to position itself at the forefront of the cultural field. Initially a monthly creative magazine, it evolved into a publishing house for unique works, especially those by Ramuz. A leader of a whole generation of writers and artists, Ramuz was the author of the manifesto published in the first cahier, entitled Raison d’être (1914). More than one section in four of the entire Cahiers vaudois is devoted to the work of Ramuz, who relied almost exclusively on the magazine to publish his major texts between 1914 and 1920. Most of the magazines founded in French-speaking Switzerland in the ^20th century followed in the footsteps of the Cahiers vaudois, or reacted to their positioning.