 It first flourished in France and then spread throughout Europe and to the United States.The movement was characterized by self-disgust, sickness at the world, general skepticism, delight in perversion, and employment of crude humor and a belief in the superiority of human creativity over logic and the natural world.The concept of decadence dates from the 18th century, especially from the writings of Montesquieu, the Enlightenment philosopher who suggested that the decline ("décadence") of the Roman Empire was in large part due to its moral decay and loss of cultural standards.