Hi, I'm John Green and this is Crash Course European History. 

So last week we discussed the Enlightenment philosophers who challenged the idea that kings and nobles were qualified to be elites simply because of the families they were born into, but still, monarchs were interested in Enlightenment ideas. Also, they understood they needed to effectively adapt to the Enlightenment as they had adapted to previous changes in theology and philosophy. For instance, Catherine II, or Catherine the Great of Russia corresponded often and enthusiastically with Voltaire, even though he criticized despotic rule, and she also offered to print Diderot's Encyclopédie in Russia when France censored it. 

We use the term "Enlightened Monarchs" to refer to the rulers who supported and applauded Enlightenment thinkers, but were they in fact enlightened or did they remain absolutist despots? The answer will surprise you, unless you have even a passing familiarity with despots. 

First, let's review what the philosophes criticized in the practices of rulers and aristocratic leaders. They singled out torture, censorship, and the arrogance of aristocrats, as well as their capriciousness. Like, kings and nobility could have ordinary people thrown into prison for just about any reason, large or small, and in general, most of the Enlightenment thinkers believed that nobles and the system that supported them were despotic from top to bottom. French theorist Montesquieu, for instance, whom we met in a previous episode, is the author of the satiric Persian Letters, also published The Spirit of Laws. In it, he discussed customs and types of government as they were influenced by climate and topography and other variables. To him, there was no God-given standard of divine right rule. Instead, Montesquieu focused on three basic types of government: democracies, which he saw as suitable for very small states, monarchies, that ruled mid-sized kingdoms, and despotic states, such as empires, that were governed with an iron hand. 

Voltaire and other philosophes elaborated on these theories and many preferred Britain's post-Glorious Revolution-type of law-based monarchy, where courts and a parliament were separate from the monarch's power, and a Bill of Rights ensured certain protections to citizens. All of this, the enshrining of rights, independent courts, parliamentary representation, meant that power was balanced among multiple institutions. Also, the multiplicity of religions in Britain was seen as another assurance. It prevented a despotic religious institution from gaining control of the government. 

Now, we've seen from examples like Poland-Lithuania that distributed power and diversity of belief sometimes means internal conflict and political gridlock, that weakens a state, but in Britain, Enlightenment philosophers saw an example of a state that was strong without being despotic. And in part because they had an example to point to, the Enlightenment philosophers were difficult for those in the upper echelons of government and society to ignore. 

Let's go to the Thought Bubble. 

King Frederick the Great of Prussia was renowned for his love of refinement and his interest in music and design. Like his friend Voltaire, Frederick the Great collected Chinese porcelain. He also wrote an opera about the Aztec Emperor Montezuma, which praised Montezuma for religious toleration, and seemed to agree with Enlightenment activists who fought against religious bigotry and torture. And Frederick also welcomed religious exiles from less tolerant regimes as a way of building the Prussian population, again a policy in line with the Enlightenment. He called himself a servant of the people. But all that said, Frederick built a massive standing army, increasing the armed forces to 200,000 men from his father's army of 80-ish-thousand, and he also forced the aristocracy to serve the state, either in the army or in the administration of the kingdom. And while, like a good Enlightenment thinker, he lightened the burden of serfs