"Enlighteners hoped for a benevolent despot who would take their advice and enforce enlightened policies from above. Voltaire placed such hopes in Frederick the Great, Diderot in Catherine the Great. It must be said that Joseph II had little interest in the philosophes. Although he met many of them, including Buffon, d'Alembert, Grimm and Turgot in Paris in 1777, it was well known that on his return journey through Switzerland he passed the gates of Ferney without calling on Voltaire, even though the latter was expecting him, had arranged a diner party in his honour, and placed peasants in the trees to provide an ovation. It may well be that in general Enlighteners' hopes of obtaining the prince's ear and influencing policy were more or less fantastic."
Ritchie Robertson, 'Freemasons vs Jesuits: Conspiract theories in Enlightenment Germany', Times Literary Supplement, 12 October 2012
