The Role of Paris.

Paris was the home of the Enlightenment, and most discussions of the Enlightenment are actually discussions of its unfolding there. The French Enlightenment was characterized by the emergence of a group of thinkers, the philosophes, whose writings sought to give the Enlightenment everywhere both a rationale and an agenda. These philosophes met regularly in the afternoons at the homes of well-heeled patrons, where they would discuss events and ideas over elegant meals. These salons were the envy of European intellectual circles. The defining achievement of the French Enlightenment was the publication of the Encyclopédie, a multi-volume compendium of all useful knowledge that was to kick-start European civilization in the direction of progress. The philosophes were "men of letters," which, as Voltaire explained, meant that they were not scholars but explorers of all knowledge. This idea helps explain...