Enlightened Absolutism

In 1750, Voltaire arrived at the court of Frederick II of Prussia. The arrangement seemed ideal: Europe's most famous philosopher would live alongside Europe's most intellectually ambitious king. They would discuss reason, morality, the proper ordering of society. Frederick played the flute. Voltaire wrote verses. They dined together and debated the nature of free will.

Within three years, Voltaire fled Prussia after a bitter quarrel. Frederick had him detained at the border and confiscated his manuscripts. The philosopher-king relationship, it turned out, worked better in theory than in practice. Frederick wanted a prestige ornament who would validate his self-image as an enlightened ruler. Voltaire wanted a patron who would actually listen. Neither got what he wanted.

This episode captures something essential about the era that historians call enlightened absolutism. The monarchs who adopted Enlightenment rhetoric were genuine in certain convictions. They read the books. They corresponded with the philosophes. Some of them implemented real reforms that improved real lives. But they never confused reform with the surrender of power. The whole point was that a rational monarch could achieve what messy parliaments and fractious assemblies could not. Reason was the tool. Absolutism was the method.