Coincidentally, our sanctuary was being shared by an unprepossessing shaman called Jean-Gilles, and his eight-strong enlightenment team.
Skepticism enjoys a remarkably strong place in Enlightenment philosophy, given that confidence in our intellectual capacities to achieve systematic knowledge of nature is a leading characteristic of the age.
If Bacon's rationalism may be seen as a link between humanism and the Enlightenment, his strong emphasis on nature (rather than humanity) as subject matter presaged the permanent separation of the sciences from the humanities.
And on Thursday at the Royal Albert Hall, as part of the BBC Proms festival, Simon Rattle led the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, 100 strong, in the first modern original-instrument performance of a midperiod Wagner opera, "Das Rheingold".
The period Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, 32 strong, received top billing, the concert being part of a chamber orchestra series, and it proved itself worthy, especially in its vivid, hair-raising depiction of the refiner's fire and the nations' rage.
Having roamed so gorgeously through North Africa as a young hippie mother in "Hideous Kinky," Ms. Winslet this time appears in India as Ruth barron, a head-strong young Australian seeking enlightenment.
Belief in the unity of science or knowledge, along with the universality of rationality, was at its strongest during the European Enlightenment.
The singers of smaller roles, drawn from the Choir of the Enlightenment, also made strong contributions.
Both of these points (the commonality of human nature and the securing of 'objectivity' in judgments based on sentiments by appeal to the normative responses of appropriately placed observers) are typical of the period more generally, and especially of the strong empiricist strain in the Enlightenment.
In line with the Spanish Enlightenment, Moreno kept strong religious beliefs.
The party, known as the Enlightenment, is still going strong.
