The Age Of Enlightenment Enlightened Despots

Paris Paris became the center of the Enlightenment. Reforms proposed in the evening were the talk of the town the next day. People used reason to question traditional beliefs & customs. Absolute monarchs experimented with enlightened ideas but were not willing to give up power. Enlightenment ideas spread across Europe among all classes.

New Ideas Challenge Tradition Societies based on divine- right rule, class systems, and heavenly rewards were questioned through reason!

Censorship  Gov’t & church officials sacred duty is to defend old order  Banned & burned books even imprisoned writers  Writers disguised ideas in fiction  Montesquieu’s Persian Letters & Voltaire’s Candide

Salons  Informal gatherings of writers, artist, philosophes…amongst others  Discussed new literature, arts, science, & philosophy  Held in homes of nobles as well as middle class  Madame Geoffrin had guest such as Diderot & Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Frederick the Great King of Prussia

Frederick the Great  Saw himself as “first servant of the state”  Reforms passed to help peasants prosper  Farming: Drained swamps & distributed tools  Religious freedom  Most Reforms were directed to make Prussian gov’t more efficient

Catherine the Great Empress of Russia

Catherine the Great  Exchanged letters w/ Voltaire and Diderot  Made limited reforms in law & gov’t  Criticized the institution of serfdom but did little  Like Frederick, she did not intended to give up power

Joseph II Emperor of Hapsburg lands (Austria) from

Joseph II  Joseph traveled in disguise among his subjects to understand their problems  Attempts to help earned him the nickname Peasant Emperor  Reforms:  religious tolerance  ended censorship  brought Catholic Church under royal control  Abolished serfdom but upon his death it was canceled