The French Enlightenment in a Flash

“Men are born free but everywhere they are in chains.” Jean Jacques Rousseau’s lament rings as true today as ever, and his book Social Contract is still relevant. Rousseau was one of the four horsemen of the French Enlightenment, along with Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Diderot.

Voltaire is considered the father of the movement. In Candide, he ridiculed Europe of that era, specifically the idea that “things are just as they should be.” Ironically, Voltaire despised Rousseau, the wandering philosopher-musician who eventually returned to his native Geneva.

Montesquieu’s lasting contribution to law was De l’esprit des lois – The Spirit of Law. In it he outlined the basic governmental structure which Madison and the American founders implemented under the American Constitution. The basic plan put the power to create law in a legislative branch, the power to execute law in an executive branch, and the power to adjudicate disputes and interpret law in a judicial branch. Most do not know that Montesquieu wrote further of a secondary magistrate within the executive branch. Though he created the concept of separation of powers, he was not describing absolute separation – there have always been some areas of overlap between the branches.

Diderot is known more for what he did rather than what he said or wrote. He was a leader of the French Encyclopedists, a group that collected knowledge and assimilated it into encyclopedias. Their contribution to knowledge is unrivaled.

During the French Enlightenment, the period from 1733 when Voltaire published his first important work to 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution, people knew they were living in an era of profound intellectual change. Ideas such as democracy, individual freedom, equality, and rights were planted in the minds of men. Many of them suspected that revolution would follow, and it did.

Through all of the democracies that have arisen since 1776, the French Enlightenment has spread and grown.