The Enlightenment and the Festival of Reason

The Enlightenment enthrones reason as the arbiter; the Fête de la Raison installs the Goddess of Reason on the altar at Notre-Dame.

In plain words

The Enlightenment makes reason the judge, and revolutionary France seats a Goddess of Reason on the altar of Notre-Dame: the garden's pride grown up. Nothing is true until my reason approves it, and a gift you insist on auditing first cannot be received.

The mechanism

THE GARDEN PRIDE MATURED — not trust the source but I am the measure, and nothing is true until my reason validates it. You cannot receive a gift you insist on auditing first. The prison never has to disprove God; it seats your own reason as judge and lets the verdict handle itself

How it was checked

• EvidenceT5 INDEPENDENT SECULAR; Status: COMMITTED
• Letter eraTHE SEAT MOVES TO THE BENCH 1713 to 1945
• Plate — Revolutions de Paris, no. 215, engraving, 1793 · Musee Carnavalet, Paris · CC0 · source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:R%C3%A8v._de_Paris._-_F%C3%AAte_de_la_Raison_-_N_%C2%BA215_P.210._G.28910.jpg
• SourcesSECULAR RECORD