During the 18th century, literacy grew throughout France—faster among peasants than among urbanites. By 1789 roughly a third of the French nation was literate enough to sign their names, and demand grew for inexpensive editions of classics and new works. Publishers struggled to meet demand by using cheaper paper, smaller print, and flimsier bindings. Best-selling works that had been censored for religious, political, or moral reasons were often printed abroad and smuggled across the border.

The increase in literacy helps explain the emergence of the intellectual movement called the Enlightenment. At the core of the Enlightenment was the philosophes, a group of professional writers and scientists who advocated reform. They frequented salons and often worked under the auspices of the royal academies in Paris, which was gradually replacing Versailles as the cultural center of France. The philosophes wrote works both for the growing public and for state-sponsored publications and agencies. Their influential critiques of traditional knowledge and society were most fully developed in the multivolumed, multiauthored Encyclopédie, which became an international best-seller.