The Pempelfort era came to an end in 1794 when the French Revolution spilled over into Germany following the outbreak of war with the French Republic. The occupation of Düsseldorf by French Troops forced him to resettle and for nearly ten years live in Holstein. There he became intimately acquainted with Karl Leonhard Reinhold (in whose Beitrage his important work, "Uber das Unternehmen des Kriticismus, die Vernunft zu Verstande zu bringen", was first published), and with Matthias Claudius, the editor of the "Wandsbecker Bote".