What was the Enlightenment

France in the 18th century was still a monarchical country, where autocracy and the Catholic Church controlled the social life of the country and the minds of the people. The countryside was devastated by the exploitation of the feudal lords and the Church, and the court nobles were profligate and the treasury was empty. The Catholic Church, in collusion with the autocratic monarchy, pursued cultural absolutism and obscurantism, brutalizing people of different faiths and progressive ideas. In contrast to the serious decline of the authoritarian system, the new progressive forces were growing, and they strongly demanded to break through the political, economic and ideological constraints of the old system.

Under the impetus of the Renaissance movement, natural science made great progress. Scientists revealed many of the mysteries of nature, and many of the teachings of the Catholic Church were not broken, and people had more self-confidence. People demanded to get rid of authoritarian rule and the oppression of the Catholic Church's desire to become increasingly strong, the first in the field of thought against authoritarian rule and the Catholic Church's ideological constraints of the struggle, which set off a vigorous and unprecedented ideological liberation movement, historically known as the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was an anti-feudal, anti-church ideological and cultural liberation movement that took place in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, which prepared the mind and public opinion for the revolution, and was the second liberation movement in modern Europe after the Renaissance.

In French, "enlightenment" means "light". The advanced thinkers of the time believed that people were in darkness, and that the light of reason should be used to dispel the darkness and lead them to the light. They wrote books and made speeches, actively criticized authoritarianism and religious ignorance and privilege, and propagated freedom, equality and democracy.