ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of bicameralism and the idea of a senate in the constitutional debates and (draft) constitutions of the revolutionary states on the European continent at the turn of the eighteenth century. I will draw on evidence from several of the so-called ‘Sister Republics’: the Cisalpine Republic (founded in 1797 in present-day northern Italy), the Roman Republic (founded in 1798 in present-day central Italy), the Parthenopean or Neapolitan Republic (founded in 1799 in the former Kingdom of Naples), the Helvetic Republic (founded in 1798 in present-day Switzerland) and the Batavian Republic (founded in 1796 in present-day Netherlands). When considered together and in comparison to the revolutionary model of the French République mère, these examples serve to demonstrate that, in the Age of Revolutions, the concept of bicameralism still had the potential to develop in very different directions and that, in the minds of the revolutionary generation, the idea of a senate, while usually associated with mature age and experience, was not necessarily linked to the functions commonly performed by upper houses in modern bicameral systems.
