Sister Republics and the Revolution Abroad

As French armies advanced in the 1790s, they created a ring of 'sister republics' modelled on France. The Batavian Republic replaced the Dutch Republic in 1795, the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics were founded in northern Italy in 1797, and the Roman and Helvetic Republics followed in 1798. Local reformers, often called patriots or Jacobins, welcomed the chance to abolish privileges, adopt constitutions and secure civil equality.

Yet these republics depended on French troops, paid heavy contributions, and had their constitutions rewritten whenever Paris changed course. Many ordinary people resented requisitions and attacks on the Church, which fuelled revolts such as the 1799 Sanfedist rising that overthrew the short-lived Parthenopean Republic in Naples. The sister republics show both the appeal of revolutionary ideas abroad and the contradiction of spreading liberty through conquest.