Enlightenment 2 / Crusoe / Faust

1. Before the American Revolution, most Enlightenment thinkers believed that change could only come by the ruler and not by the people because most Europeans accepted absolutism and how rulers would not give up their power. Because of this, Europeans believed change could only realistically be done by the rulers. Philosophes trusted the absolute monarchs and distrusted the common people, who were deluded by superstitions and violent.

2. Unlike his father’s focus on the military, Frederick the Great of Prussia welcomed culture and literature and wrote poetry and prose in French, a language his father hated. He was not a Calvinist like his father but rather a form of atheism. He tried to run away when he was 18 years old.

3. When the ruler of Habsburg territories was changing from the deceased Charles VI to her daughter Maria Theresa, Frederick attacked the rich, German province of Silesia without warning. Although Maria Theresa’s forces fought hard in the War of the Austrian Succes-sion, Prussia’s strong army was able to defeat the ethnically diverse Austrian army, doubling the size of Prussia to six million people.

4. After the bloodshed in the Seven Years’ War, Frederick believed that he should enact more humane policies for his subjects to strengthen the state. He allowed his people to believe in any religious and philosophical matters, promoted the advancement of knowledge, im-proved the schools, and allowed scholars to publish their findings. He tried to improve the lives of his people more directly. Prussia’s legal system was changed by that its laws were simplified, torture of prisoners was abolished, and judges decided cases quickly and impar-tially. Frederick encouraged the reconstruction of agriculture and industry and he himself worked hard and lived modestly, justifying monarchy by showing its practical results and criticizing the divine right of monarchs.

5. Frederick did not try to change Prussia’s existing social structure by not abolishing serfdom. He accepted and extended the privileges of the nobility for defense and expansion of Prus-sia. This made it practically impossible for a middle-class or lower person to gain a top posi-tion in the government. Frederick did not believe that Jews should be given freedom and civil rights and oppressed them.

6. Catherine the Great did not care about her husband Peter, but rather his crown. She plotted against his death and selected a new lover in officer Gregory Orlov. Six months into his reign, he was assassinated by Catherine and her military conspirators.

7. Catherine worked hard to bring the sophisticated culture of western Europe to Russia by importing Western architects, sculptors, musicians, and intellectuals. She brought master-pieces of Western art and patronized the philosophes. She allowed the publishing of the French-banned Encyclopedia and gave money to Diderot. She wrote plays and loved good talk and her enlightened actions spread to the nobility. She then wanted domestic reform and that was done by having sincere and ambitious projects, better laws, restricted torture, allowed for some religious toleration, and tried to improve education and strengthen local government. Her third goal was territorial expansion. Her armies subjugated the last des-cendants of the Mongols, the Crimean Tartars, and began conquering the Caucasus. She partitioned Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795. Expansion kept the nobility happy by giving her vast new lands to give to her faithful servants and lovers.

8. Emelian Pugachev was a common Cossack soldier who, in 1773, led a huge uprising of serfs, stating for the end to serfdom, taxes, and army service. He and his followers killed landlords and officials over southwestern Russia. However, Pugachev’s untrained hordes were no match for Catherine’s noble-led regular army, and Pugachev was captured and executed af-ter being betrayed by his own company. When she was crowned, Catherine had condemned serfdom, but realized that any changes would have to be gradual. Pugachev’s rebellion ended all talks about reforming serfdom, and after 1775, Catherine gave the nobles absolute control of their serfs. She extended serfdom into new areas, and in 1785, she for-malized the nobility’s privileged position and freed nobles forever from taxes and state ser-vice. She confiscated the lands of the Russian Orthodox church and gave them to favorite officials.

9. Maria Theresa introduced measures to bring relations between church and state under government control by limiting the papacy’s political influence in her empire. Many other administrative reforms strengthened the central bureaucracy, smoothed out provincial dif-ferences, and restructured the tax system, taxing even the lands of nobles without special exemptions. The government tries to improve the lot of the agricultural populations, cau-tiously reducing the power of lords over their hereditary serfs and their partially free pea-sant tenants.

10. Joseph II controlled the Catholic church even more closely to ensure that it produced better citizens. He granted religious toleration and civic rights to Protestants and Jews. He ab-olished serfdom in 1781, and in 1789, he proclaimed that all peasant labor obligations be converted into cash payments. The last measure was violently rejected by the nobility and the peasants. When Joseph died, his brother Leopold II was forced to cancel Joseph’s edicts to reestablish order. Peasants lost most of their new rights and were required to do forced labor for their lords.

11. The Enlightenment’s influence on absolutism in the East differed from that in France by that the monarchy was still absolute and some philosophes believed that the king was still the best source of reform. Discontented nobles and learned judges drew on thinkers like Mon-tesquieu for liberal arguments and tried with some success to limit the king’s power. Be-cause of the French monarch’s declining ability to govern in a truly absolutist manner, the French nobility and the growth of judicial opposition resurged into political power.

12. In 1715, the duke of Orléans was recognized as the sole regent in exchange for the restora-tion to the parlements the right to evaluate royal decrees publicly in writing before they were registered and given the force of law. The high court judges had originally came from the middle class, but by 1700, they were now hereditary nobles. The judges of the courts owned their government jobs and passed them on as private property from father to son. By allowing the judges to evaluate the king’s decrees before they became law, absolutism had been injured.

13. In response to the War of the Austrian Succession, Louis XV’s finance minister decreed a 5% income tax in 1748 on every individual regardless of social status. However, the nobility of the robe, the clergy, the large towns, and some wealthy bourgeoisie were exempt. Large protests occurred and the new tax was dropped. After the Seven Years’ War, the govern-ment tried to maintain emergency taxes after the war ended, by the Parlement of Paris protested and challenged the basis of royal authority, saying that the king’s power had to be limited to protect liberty. The government rescinded the tax in 1764. With the momentum, the judicial opposition in Paris and the provinces asserted that the king could not levy taxes without the consent of the Parlement of Paris acting as a representative of the entire na-tion. In 1768, Louis XV appointed René de Maupeou to crush the judicial opposition. He ab-olished the existing parlements and exiled the members of the Parlement of Paris to iso-lated parts of the provinces. He created a new parlement of royal officials and taxed the privileged groups.

14. Louis XV did not seek the consent of the French to tax people, and his rescinding of the war taxes was embarrassing and showed how the monarchy was not absolute. This showed that a popular uprising against the monarchy could and probably would force them to change their mind. Louis did not forcefully put down the rebellions and allowed the protesters to rally. He did not crack down on the illegal stream of scandalmongering, pornographic at-tacks on the king and his court, and allowed for the foundations of royal authority to be chipped away.


1. Robinson Crusoe went from home to a sugar plantation by disobeying his father and setting out on his first voyage. His ship was caught in a storm, but he managed to escape to land. He took another voyage, but the ship was captured by Turkish pirates. Crusoe was able to escape where he and his young companion navigated along the coast of Africa before they were rescued by a Portuguese ship bound for Brazil. In Brazil, Crusoe established a sugar plantation.

2. The apparition told Crusoe that since he all of his things were not for repentance, he would die. Crusoe ended up staying twenty-four years on the island.

3. Crusoe made friends with Friday by captured one of the cannibals on the beach that he had shot at. Friday was intelligent, strong, and loyal and Crusoe introduced him to his style of living, English, and Christianity. Crusoe saved a Spaniard and Friday’s father from the can-nibals.

4. Crusoe returned to England by commandeering an English ship and killing the most bellige-rent of the ship’s crew. The others swore loyalty to Crusoe and they returned to England while some of the mutineers stayed.


1. Mephistopheles wagered with God that Mephisto would attempt to lure the soul of scholar-alchemist Faust down with him to hell

2. Mephistopheles made a deal with Faust that if he became his slave, Mephisto would make Faust the Master and himself the Bond and be his servant.

3. Faust saw a comely woman in a mirror whom he thought was beautiful. It is later revealed that her name was Gretchen.

4. The consequences of Faust and Gretchen’s relationship was that she was now pregnant. Gretchen’s brother, a soldier named Valentine, wanted revenge against the guy who disho-nored his sister. Valentine dueled Faust, but Faust won with Mephisto’s aid. Gretchen suf-fered from scorn, ridicule, and imprisonment until she was imprisoned. Faust and Mephisto were to her cell, where she told them that the guards had taken her baby from her. Faust and Mephisto asked her if she wanted to leave with them but she said no. Mephisto and Faust were forced to flee when prison guards arrived in the cell, and Gretchen’s enduring faith had saved her from hell.

5. Faust became a great lord with vast territory. However, Faust was no happy, as there was a cottage within sight of the castle that belonged to an elderly couple. Mephisto and his fol-lowers performed the deed and returned. Four elderly women, Want, Debt, Care, and Need, arrive with their brother Death near.

6. As Care told Faust he would soon die, Faust called for his laborers to drain the swamps to give the land to his people. He then died. As Mephisto reached to take his prize he had won after his former master’s ultimate, inevitable defeat and at the wretched fate that awaited all men, a group of angels descended and distracted him while Faust’s soul escaped. The part of Faust’s soul for redemption went off to heaven while the Devil was left raging.