Editing Freethought (section)

====France====

[[File:Hommage aux morts de la Libre-pensée (1er et 2 novembre 1881), 2017.0.304.1.jpg|thumb|''Hommage aux morts de la Libre-pensée'', 1881]]
In France, the concept first appeared in publication in 1765 when [[Denis Diderot]], [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]], and [[Voltaire]] included an article on ''Liberté de penser'' in their [[Encyclopédie]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.8:1431:4.encyclopedie0513.4781541|title=ARTFL Encyclopédie Search Results|volume=9|pages=472|access-date=12 June 2015|date=1751–1772|archive-date=22 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190322135708/http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.8:1431:4.encyclopedie0513.4781541|url-status=dead}}</ref> The concept of free thought spread so widely that even places as remote as the [[Jotunheimen]], in [[Norway]], had well-known freethinkers such as [[Jo Gjende]] by the 19th century.<ref name="MEMIM">{{cite web|title=Gjendesheim|url=http://memim.com/gjendesheim.html|website=MEMIM|access-date=8 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808194917/http://memim.com/gjendesheim.html|archive-date=8 August 2016|date=2016}}</ref>

[[François-Jean de la Barre|François-Jean Lefebvre de la Barre]] (1745–1766) was a young [[France|French]] nobleman, famous for having been [[torture]]d and [[Decapitated|beheaded]] before his body was burnt on a [[pyre]] along with Voltaire's ''[[Philosophical Dictionary]]''. La Barre is often said to have been executed for not saluting a [[Roman Catholic]] religious procession, but the elements of the case were far more complex.<ref name="Gregory2008">{{cite book|last1=Gregory|first1=Mary Efrosini|title=Evolutionism in Eighteenth-century French Thought|date=2008|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=9781433103735|page=192}}</ref>

In France, Lefebvre de la Barre is widely regarded a symbol of the victims of Christian [[religious intolerance]]; La Barre along with [[Jean Calas]] and [[Pierre-Paul Sirven]], was championed by Voltaire. A second replacement statue to de la Barre stands nearby the [[Sacré-Cœur, Paris|Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Paris]] at the summit of the butte [[Montmartre]] (itself named from the ''Temple of Mars''), the highest point in [[Paris]] and an [[18th arrondissement of Paris|18th arrondissement]] street nearby the [[Sacré-Cœur, Paris|Sacré-Cœur]] is also named after Lefebvre de la Barre.

The 19th century saw the emergence of a specific notion of ''Libre-Pensée'' ("free thought"), with writer [[Victor Hugo]] as one of its major early proponents. French Freethinkers (''Libre-Penseurs'') associate freedom of thought, political [[anti-clericalism]] and socialist leanings. The main organisation referring to this tradition to this day is the [[Fédération nationale de la libre pensée]], created in 1890.