Voltaire and the Philosophes

Those who were attracted to Deism and the Enlightenment felt that they had to displace the clergy from its influential role in society, since they felt that the clergy would block the light of reason from spreading. They therefore felt that they had a mission to promote reason and toleration, and for this reason they began to call themselves philosophes meaning philosophers, which they meant in the literal sense of "lovers of knowledge."

The first to use the title philosophe and the one who became the self-proclaimed leader of the Enlightenment was the Frenchman Franois Marie Arouet, who took the pen name Voltaire. His father wanted him to be a lawyer and sent him to college to train as one; however, the young man preferred writing poetry and plays, and he became well-known as a writer.

His fame led to invitations from aristocrats to salons and dinners at their homes where he and other writers would lead discussions of interesting (and sometimes controversial) topics. One of these controversies got him into trouble with a nobleman (proving that no matter how polite you were, hierarchy remained central part of life in this era!) To avoid being arrested, he fled to London, where he read the works of Locke and became Deist.