 That a long-scapegoated minority were to be recognised simply as citizens regardless of their religion was unprecedented in Modern Europe.Debates about citizenship, equality, and representative politics among intellectuals defined the Age of Enlightenment, and played a role in the shaping of political thinking in early America and France on the eve of the Revolution in 1789.Radical components of the Republican movement in France coalesced around the Jacobin Club in early 1790.