To what extent was Paris considered as Enlightenment capital during the Eighteenth-Century?

Résumé du document

The Eighteenth-Century is commonly considered as the century of Enlightenment. What sense could we give to that notion of Enlightenment? In the Seventeenth-Century, Enlightenment was linked with faith and fairness of spirit. In the Eighteenth-Century, that notion turned into fairness that should be spread to the entire humanity and consequently make the reason succeed over superstition or intolerance. It also rose up against religious, moral and political oppressions. There was a great faith in science during that century. For Emmanuel Kant and Thomas Paine, Enlightenment was the rise and emancipation of people, through education or the public sphere. The movement of Enlightenment was virulent in all of Europe and especially in France which was its main seat. As a result, this was also the century of great philosophers and thinkers, in France. Thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau or Montesquieu, often took Great Britain as a model because of its parliamentary monarchy which was more Liberal and tolerant than the French monarchy.

Extraits

[...] How could they be interested in the idea of Enlightenment, liberty, knowledge and reason? This reaffirms the idea of an elite touched by the ideas of Enlightenment while the major part of the population stood apart from it. Just before the French Revolution in 1789, there was a great need of modernization. We have to wait the 1860's to see the beginning of a modernization of the society with the policy of Grands Travaux impulse by the baron Haussmann under the governance of Napoléon III. [...]

[...] One the one hand, because the accumulation of people in cities gives birth to physical and moral troubles. Rousseau believed people would go back to a state of animal by living in big cities. He considered that big cities were the origin of issues like smallpox, cholera, insecurity, prostitution or destitution. On the other hand, big cities impoverish the cultures for instance the languages. Other writers like Bourget or Méline seemed to think alike and considered that spirits were weakened in big cities. [...]

[...] We can think that the climate was much more favorable for the installation of reason and fairness. For instance, in France, the censorship was important. The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert was firstly censored and circulated illegally in the country and abroad. In other words, Paris doesn't have the monopole of the Enlightenment. Paris as an archaic city The Enlightenment-city faced many limits. There was a high mortality rate linked with an inefficient hospital system, and more generally living conditions were really bad. [...]

[...] Bernard MARCHAND, in his book entitled ennemis de Paris, La haine de la grande ville des Lumières à nos jours” describes a big city in a more biaised way but it is interesting : “Concentration de population, d'activités, et de richesses, difficulté de transport et de logement, une certaine pollution de l'air, une vie extrêmement active, une très grande productivité, de perpétuelles innovations dans tous les domaines ( un cosmopolitisme qui nourrit la pensée et l'art”. At all events, in the 1700's, Paris was considered as one of the most beautiful, populated and powerful city in Europe. In this way, we can wonder: to what extent was Paris, one of the most important European cities, considered as Enlightenment capital during the Eighteenth-Century? [...]

[...] Paris, capitale des Lumières au XVIIIe siècle Subject: To what extent was Paris considered as Enlightenment capital during the Eighteenth-Century? The Eighteenth-Century is commonly considered as the century of Enlightenment. What sense could we give to that notion of Enlightenment? In the Seventeenth-Century, Enlightenment was linked with faith and fairness of spirit. In the Eighteenth-Century, that notion turned into fairness that should be spread to the entire humanity and consequently make the reason succeed in front of superstition or intolerance. [...]