They did not look to patrons, nor did they bound their vision by Versailles.

They were the first to assert the lawful authority of the new priesthood.

They revolted deliberately and in set form against the old system of suitorship and protection.

"Happy are men of letters," wrote D'Alembert, "if they recognise at last that the surest way of making themselves respectable is to live united and almost shut up among themselves; that by this union they will come, without any trouble, to give the law to the rest of the nation in all affairs of taste and philosophy; that the true esteem is that which is awarded by men who are themselves worthy of esteem....

As if the art of instructing and enlightening men were not, after the too rare art of good government, the noblest portion and gift in human reach."[102] This consciousness of the power and exaltation of their calling, which men of letters now acquired, is much more than the superficial fact which it may at first seem to be.