Thomas Adams explores the social context in which the French Enlightenment arose by focusing on the response of eighteenth-century French society to the problem of poverty. The institutions (dépôts) which were established in this period to rehabilitate the poor, Adams argues, came to be regarded as laboratories in which society might be studied scientifically.

One premise of such rehabilitation efforts was that government `should not make men poor' by failing to provide employment for the willing worker or to reward his efforts when employed. Adams demonstrates how the history of dépôts contributed to a transformation of social values that continues to influence the modern world.