France's Catholic traditions infuriated a closely-knit group of (mostly bourgeois) intellectuals who despised the way that this religion not only provided justification for the privileges of the church, nobility and monarchy -- but also undergirded the profound social conservatism of the huge peasant portion (80%) of the French population.
Breaking from tradition, these philosophes ('philosophers") were forced to create from scratch an entire cosmology (view of the universe and what causes it to behave as it does) of their own. Together they pieced together a vision of life and society from pure human reason, drawing on what they supposed were undisputable "facts" to create a whole new social theory which they then pressed forward as the model for a better life. A number of them -- such as Voltaire, the leader of the group, and Montesquieu, one of their earliest voices -- had spent time in England (mostly seeking escape from French authority) and observed there a number of political principles that they thought should direct French society. There they also came into close contact with the works of the earlier English thinkers, Newton and Locke, and developed from them the view that society was essentially a machine which could be engineered and directed by educated or "enlightened" leaders (such as themselves), any where, any time. Consequently, they began to put together in their minds and writings a vision of political "utopia."
The philosophes expected that just the sheer "reasonableness" of their ideas would be persuasive enough to rally people everywhere in France to the support of their cause of political reform in France. Failure of people to support such "reason" would subsequently be viewed by such "enlightened" leaders as a sign of either intense ignorance or just plain evil on their part. Consequently, the philosophes were creating a mindset which would soon turn France into a blood-bath.
This was quite unlike the American sense that such truth and lofty plans belonged to God alone -- and that man, even as he sought God's truth, would have to be quite cautious in his claims to know the mind of God.
Americans looked upon government as something that should be restricted to the barest of protective duties. Governance belonged in the hearts of the common people, not in lofty intellectuals' well-laid plans to govern society from above. In this lay the essential difference between the American and French experiences in "revolution."
Some of the most "intellectual" people I know are complete idiots! What say you?
my compliments on your well written overview in #150