A Wicked Company is a dream book for historically-minded
atheists, agnostics, secularists and freethinkers, of various persuasions. It
centers around the brilliant salon of luminaries who gathered bi-weekly at
Baron Paul Henri Thiry d’Holbach’s home in Paris between 1750 and the late
1780s. These were the crowning years of the Enlightenment, when innovative
freethinkers crowded into Paris, inspiring and arguing with each other. Paris
radiated their ideas to the rest of Europe. There were numerous regulars and
guests of note at d’Holbach’s salon: David Hume, Claude Adrien Helvetius, Jean
Jacques Rousseau, Edward Gibbon, Denis Diderot and many others whose ideas
shaped this era. Women were notably absent, which is anomalous among salons of
the time, when women were hostesses and participants in the most popular
gatherings. Despite his many connections with intelligent women, the Baron was
unable to see that they could participate in a serious gathering where feelings
could be hurt in the cut and thrust of intense exchange. There were limits to
d’Holbach’s enlightenment.
The two protagonists of this book whose lives we follow, are
Denis Diderot and Baron d’Holbach. They were among the most important and
influential atheists of the Eighteenth Century, and their friendship sustained
them through a political environment dominated by Catholic clergy, absolutist
monarchy and censorship, against which they struggled. Given that one could be
arrested for impious views (Diderot was), or even executed (like Jean-Francois
de la Barre in 1766), opposition could be risky. The reader is treated to satisfying
clandestine schemes by d’Holbach which enraged and undermined religious and
political authorities. He regularly wrote anti-theist manuscripts under
pseudonyms, smuggled them out of Paris to be published abroad, then had the
books smuggled back into Paris to be read by a vast swath of literate society.
Diderot, for his part, encoded his project, the
Encyclopedie, with countless irreligious definitions, descriptions and
diatribes, which evaded the authorities and made it into the most respectable
homes, where their meanings were understood by the astute.
Philipp Blom is a fluid narrator; but his citation skills
are a bit sloppy. For example, he discusses how d’Holbach’s “first qualms about
religion had appeared during his study of geology,” but offers no note to
verify this claim. (Blom, p. 96). Endnotes are necessary evidence in any
history, but even more important when the subjects are controversial people
whose views are still challenged.
Another area where Blom’s enterprise becomes bumpy concerns
his thesis. The introduction begins “You can lose for all sorts of reasons,” and
describes that “there is something like a stock market for reputations…If
Plato’s stock is riding above that of Aristotle…then we are more likely to
translate Plato’s thinking into our language.” (Blom, p. ix). He reasons that,
since Diderot and d’Holbach’s atheism has been forgotten, this means that their
ideas have no currency. Yes, few people know of Diderot beyond his Encyclopedie, and d’Holbach is almost
universally neglected. But the notion that “their ideas fell from grace…and
were all but written out of history” (Blom, p. ix) shows little understanding
of historical processes. To say, in effect, “the good guys lost,” indicates an unsophisticated
way of examining history. Among its’ more important functions, history exists
to 1) teach about what happened in the past, 2) illustrate human events or
people, and 3) show development in the direction of the present. One may
certainly delve deeper to find additional uses for the field, but keeping score
is not one of the more intricate, useful paths of exploration. If one is
seeking immediate gratification where winning and losing are central, I suggest
basketball. Rarely, in history, do ideas precipitate immediate cataclysm within
a civilization. Discussions regarding religious authority vs science; atheism
vs religion; reason vs superstition; are ongoing processes.
Fortunately, one can ignore the simplistic thesis and enjoy
an immensely well-told true story of glittering discussions, by important
cultural figures, in Europe’s then central city; as well as appreciate the
intrigue of secretly disseminating banned works under the nose of intolerant
authorities. A Wicked Company is an intellectual and cultural treasure
that offers inspiration to freethinking people in the present. Diderot and
d’Holbach show us that there have been predecessors dedicated to rational
thought and scientific method; who created enclaves of reason amidst
superstition and ignorance, and struggled to enlighten the world.
Blom, Philipp. A Wicked Company. The Forgotten Radicalism
of the European Enlightenment. New York: Basic Books, 2010.