a voyage of Bougainville by Diderot, or The History of the Two Indias by the Abbé Guillaume-Thomas Raynal). The comedies of Marivaux and of Beaumarchais also played a part in this debate about and diffusion of great ideas. The monumental work of the philosophes was the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, the famous encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert, published in thirty-five volumes, with texts and illustration, from 1750 until 1772, accompanied by a large variety of essays, speeches, dialogues and interviews on all aspects of knowledge. French theater in the 18th century The great French playwrights of the 17th century, Molière, Racine and Corneille, continued to exert a great influence on the Comédie-Française, but new life was brought into French theater by the tragedies of Voltaire, which introduced modern themes while keeping the classical forms of the alexandrine, as in the play Zaïre in 1732, and The Fanaticism of Mohamet in 1741, both of which enjoyed great success. Nonetheless, royal censorship was still active in the theater under King Louis XV and Louis XVI, and, despite his popularity, Beaumarchais had great difficulty getting his play The Marriage of Figaro staged in Paris, because of its political message. The relaxing of morals under the French Regency brought the return in 1716 of the Comédie-Italienne, which had been driven out of Paris under Louis XIV. It also saw a period of great theatrical spectacles; crowds went to the theater to see famous actors and to laugh at the characters introduced by the Italian commedia dell'arte, such as Harlequin, Columbine and Pantalone. This was the genre used by Marivaux (1688–1763), with comedies which combined a perceptive analysis of the sentiments of love, subtle verbal play, and an analysis of the problems of society, all done through a clever use of the relationship between the master and his valet. His major works include Les Fausses Confidences (1737), le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard (1730), and l'Île des esclaves (1725). Jean-François Regnard and Alain-René Lesage (1668–1747) also had great success with comedies of manners, such as Regnard's Le Légataire universel, and Lesage's Turcaret in 1709. But the greatest author of French comedies in the 18th century was Beaumarchais (1732–1799), who displayed a mastery of dialogue and intrigue combined with social and political satire through the character of Figaro, a valet who challenges the power of his master, who