| The movement endured into the Roman era, was revived by humanists during the Renaissance, and was espoused by the philosophes during the Enlightenment. |
| The best dramatists, however, among the immediate followers of the philosophes were Sedaine and Marmontel. |
| His spirit was critical and reform-minded, along the lines of the French philosophes, who defined themselves as the adversaries of superstition and charlatanism. |
| So it happened that the philosophes as a body were not theoretical sceptics merely but militant atheists. |
| The philosophes criticized the ancien regime of religious superstition and dogmatism, hidebound social traditions, and repressive morality. |
| The philosophes of the Enlightenment were familiar with all of these arguments, trained as they were in the classics. |
