Enlightened Ideas^317

Voltaire presiding (with his arm raised) over a dinner gathering of philosophies,

including Denis Diderot, who is sitting at the far left.

laws of nature and then left knowledge and human progress to the discovery

and action of mankind. In contrast, Diderot became an atheist.

For all the variety and richness of the republic of letters, four philosophes

dominated Enlightenment discourse with startling ideas about society, reli­

gion, and politics: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. Each is

well worth considering separately.

Montesquieu

Montesquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondat; 1689-1755) inherited a feudal

chateau near Bordeaux and a small income upon the death of his father.

He studied law and later inherited from a wealthy relative more property

and the title of baron de Montesquieu, as well as the presidency of the

noble parlement, or provincial sovereign law court, seated at Bordeaux.

In 1721, after moving to Paris, Montesquieu published Persian Letters.

In the form of reports sent home by two Persian visitors to Paris, his work

detailed the political and social injustices of life in the West. By casting this

critique of eighteenth-century France in the form of a travelogue, Mon­

tesquieu was able to dodge royal censorship. The work irritated ecclesias­

tics who resented its insinuation that the pope was a “magician.” As for the

king of France, the Persians reported that he “is the most powerful of Euro­

pean potentates. He has no mines of gold like his neighbor, the king of

Spain: but he is much wealthier than that prince, because his riches are