Diderot's "Encyclopedia" said: "Freedom is a gift from God. Every individual of the same type, as long as he is rational, enjoys the right to freedom... It is not that the country belongs to the monarch, but the monarch belongs to the country ." This statement embodies the propositions of equal rights, federal sovereignty, and sovereignty among the people.

France in the eighteenth century was still a country with a monarchy. The absolutism and the Catholic Church controlled the country's social life and the people's thoughts. The countryside was devastated by the exploitation of feudal lords and the church, and the palace aristocracy was devastated. There was profligacy and the treasury was empty. The Catholic Church colluded with the autocratic royal power to promote cultural absolutism and obscurantism, and crazily killed people of different faiths and people with progressive ideas. Driven by the Renaissance movement, natural science made great progress. Scientists have revealed many mysteries of nature, many of the teachings of the Catholic Church have been self-defeating, and people have more confidence. People's desire to get rid of autocratic rule and the oppression of the Catholic Church became increasingly strong. First, they launched a struggle against autocratic rule and the ideological shackles of the Catholic Church in the ideological field. This set off a vigorous and unprecedented ideological liberation movement, which is known in history as Enlightenment.