French Literature and Thought in Credo: 17th and 18th Century

French mathematician, encyclopedist, and theoretical physicist.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
French dramatist.

In the course of a long association with the Parisian theatres he produced over 30 plays, and proved equally successful in tragedy and comedy.

French philosopher and mathematician.

French encyclopedist, philosopher of materialism, and critic of art and literature, b. Langres. He was also a novelist, satirist, and dramatist. Diderot was enormously influential in shaping the rationalistic spirit of the 18th cent.

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
French playwright and novelist.

Molière, born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in 1622, bears the unchallenged mantle of France's greatest comic dramatist.

From The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
French political philosopher, the political philosophe of the Enlightenment.

French dramatist. Racine is the prime exemplar of French classicism.

Swiss-French philosopher, author, political theorist, and composer. Few people have equaled Rousseau's influence in politics, literature, and education.

French writer and libertine.

French philosopher and author. One of the towering geniuses in literary and intellectual history, Voltaire personifies the Enlightenment.

The work of the French Encyclopedists, or philosophes. The full title was Encyclopédie; ou, Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts, et des métiers.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide
Satire by Voltaire, published in 1759.

French theatre and theatre company. Formed in 1680 by a royal decree merging the troupes of Molière (d.1673) and of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, the Comédie-Française is proud of its uninterrupted tradition as the oldest European theatre company.

Learned society of France. It is one of the five societies of the Institut de France.

Cultural institution of the French state. Founded in 1795 by the Directory, it replaced five learned societies that had been suppressed in 1793 by the Convention.

J. J. Rousseau's melodrama Pygmalion (1762; first performed 1770) helped create a vogue for stage plays in which the action was generally romantic, full of violent action, and often characterized by the final triumph of virtue.

The scientific and intellectual developments of the 17th century fostered the belief in natural law and universal order and the confidence in human reason that spread to influence all of 18th-century society.

In philosophy, a theory that holds that reason alone, unaided by experience, can arrive at basic truth regarding the world.

Political upheaval of world importance in France that began in 1789.

1793–94, period of the French Revolution characterized by a wave of executions of presumed enemies of the state.

Insurrectionary governments in Paris formed during (1792) the French Revolution and at the end (1871) of the Franco-Prussian War.