Voltaire's savage laughter rang out across eighteenth-century Europe, puncturing the pomposities and hypocrisies of power. Kings and cardinals felt the sting of his satire; governments and aristocracies endured his derision.
Yet the aims of the Enlightenment's clown were nothing if not serious to throw back the blinds of ignorance and superstition and let the sun of science and intellect stream in; to rebuild benighted Christendom as a new civilisation, secul...
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