Catherine, Frederick and Louis - Unenlightened Despots in an Enlightened Age

Catherine, Frederick and Louis - Unenlightened Tyrants in an Enlightened Age
It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, - The Prince
The Enlightenment is touted by modern historians as a time of intellectual and social advancement, an era of optimism and freedom unheard of in earlier times. The era of absolutism is seen as a time of mounting liberty that contributed to the rise of democracy in the Americas and elsewhere. In reality, the "Enlightened Despotism" of the absolutist leaders was more in keeping with the tyrannical rulers of the pre-ref…