United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In fine, perceiving in the rumors of the day nothing more than art and dissimulation on their part, and thinking they, in their state of security, had time to watch over all their interests, I had had not the least doubt of their shortly crushing Jansenism, the parliament and the Encyclopedists, with every other association which should not submit to their yoke; and that if they ever suffered my work to appear, this would not happen until it should be so transformed as to favor their pretensions, and thus make use of my name the better to deceive my readers.
Madame du Deffand, whose hôtel in the Rue des Quatre Fils still exists, welcomed Voltaire, D'Alembert, Montesquieu and the Encyclopedists. In the street, the great open-air salon of the people, was a feverish going to and fro.
Her influence may be traced in the work of the encyclopedists, in which she was associated, and which she did more than any other woman to aid and encourage. As a power in the making of reputations and in the election of members to the Academy she shared with Mme. Geoffrin the honor of being a legitimate successor of Mme. de Lambert.
A Romantic Career Companion of Mme. du Deffand Rival Salons Association with the Encyclopedists D'Alembert A Heart Tragedy Impassioned Letters A Type Unique in her Age
It is part of that general Catholic revival which has been working for some years, and which like a fog is spreading over the face of opinion.... The memory of Calas had been vindicated by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. That was quite enough for the Catholics.... It is the characteristic of Catholicism that it supersedes reason, and prejudges all matters by the application of fixed principles.
He did not deflect opinion to the same extent as his great contemporary Rousseau, but he represented it more; and of the men of the Revolution, it was Robespierre, who reigned less than four months, who stood for Rousseau, while Bonaparte, who reigned fourteen years, was the true Voltairian. Just at the side of Voltaire stood the Encyclopedists, led by Diderot and d'Alembert.
It became a current idea among the Encyclopedists that the accident at Neuilly had affected Pascal’s brain. In the following year, 1779, appeared the elaborate and well-known edition of Pascal’s works by the Abbé Bossut, accompanied by an admirable “Discours sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Pascal.” In this edition the remains are found for the first time in some degree of completeness.
The Encyclopedists professed to know every thing, to explain every thing, and to teach every thing, they discovered that there was no God, and taught that truth was a delusion, and virtue but a name. They were learned in mathematical, statistical, and physical science, but threw contempt on elevated moral wisdom, on the lessons of experience, and the eternal truths of divine revelation.
The same opinions prevailed among the Encyclopedists and Economists, they were announced by the Gironde and the Mountain, and practically carried out by Robespierre and Barras. The Girondists made cautious approaches towards federalism, but one looks in vain through the speeches of Vergniaud for an intimation of individualism. The modern doctrinaires have retained the same principles.
It was in the salon of the delicate but ardent young Princesse de Robecq that Palissot was inspired to write the satirical comedy of "The Philosophers," in which Rousseau was represented as entering on all fours, browsing a lettuce, and the Encyclopedists were so mercilessly ridiculed.
Word Of The Day