For the thinkers of the French Enlightenment, it was a battle fought by reason against tradition. At first, power of monarch tempered by socially representative assemblies and parliaments Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the monarch s power becomes more absolute.
Assemblies lose their influence .
Changed the way people saw themselves. Development of technology. The absolutist state first gave form to the idea that association is not natural, but voluntary Society ordered by God s will was replaced by the idea that society existed through the monarch s will The monarch s will becomes the representation of human power, autonomous from God Absolutism gives birth to the notion of human sovereignty . Any government is better than civil war and anarchy. The only popular right is the right of self-preservation.