A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

346 Ch. 9 • Enlightened Thought And The Republic Of Letters

Composers began to borrow from popular culture, especially from folk
music not necessarily religious in inspiration. The first Jewish periodicals
were published in Konigsberg in the century’s last decades, and the first
Jewish school established in Berlin in 1778. The emotional search for and
enthusiastic identification with national cultures contributed, as in the
case of Scotland, to the development of romanticism, and very gradually of
nationalism. Nationalism would help undermine the established order in
several continental states, notably France, where the established order was
based on allegiance to a monarchical dynasty and often to established reli­
gion as well, and not yet necessarily on national identity.

The Enlightenment and Public Opinion

Public opinion, a concept we take for granted, did not always exist. But it

began to take shape in French, English, and several other European lan­

guages in the eighteenth century (see Chapter 11). During the 1770s,

more people in France discussed the pressing political issues of the day

than ever before. Lawyers helped establish the concept of public opinion

when they sought a wide spectrum of support for the parlements. Louis XV

had decided to replace these provincial noble law courts in 1768 with mal­

leable institutions more directly under royal control. Public opinion forced

the king to restore the parlements six years later. Public opinion, to which

opponents of the monarchy and increasingly the court itself now appealed,

provided a forum in which political ideas were increasingly discussed.

These ideas were shaped by Enlightenment discourse on political sover­

eignty and the limits of absolute rule.

A number of the treatises published during the late Enlightenment dealt

with contemporary political issues, in the tradition of Voltaire’s broadsides

at the time of the Calas Affair, which had exposed the consequences of intol­

erance and persecution to public opinion. As the financial crisis of the

French monarchy worsened during the 1780s, such publications would help

make the question of reform an increasingly national issue.

Forbidden Publications and the Undermining of Authority

Some of the fringe members of the republic of letters, whom Voltaire had

dismissed as mere “scribblers,” also undermined respect for the monarchy

and the royal family. Whereas the milieu of the philosophes earlier in the

century had been elegant salons, the would-be philosophes of the last

period of the Enlightenment hung around cheap cafes, lived in rooms high

above the street, and dodged creditors by frequently changing addresses. At

the same time, they insisted that royal censorship blocked their ascent to

better things. Some made a modest living peddling forbidden publications.

While claiming common cause with the major philosophes against the

unenlightened institutions of France, some wrote pornography or penned