Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries the growth of the Republic of Letters paralleled that of the French monarchy. This history of the Republic of Letters is interwoven with that of the monarchy from its consolidation after the Wars of Religion until its downfall in the French Revolution. Dena Goodman finds this to be very important because this provides a history of the Republic of Letters, from its founding in the 17th century as an apolitical community of discourse through its transformation in the 18th century into a very political community whose project of Enlightenment challenged the monarchy from a new public space carved out of French society.