The Controversial Priests Who Bridged East and West
How 18th century France fell in love with China — and vice versa
9 min readJul 9, 2023
In the early 1700s, Voltaire, the French Enlightenment philosopher, fell in love with China. He extolled the virtues of the faraway land, calling it the “wisest and best-behaved nation” in the world.
In this, as in many things, he was a trendsetter — for a while, fashionable French people became enamored of Chinese goods, Chinese culture, and Chinese philosophy. Chinoiserie — European imitations of Chinese…
