The Enlightenment was not a monolithic movement centrally located in a specific area. Rather it was a diverse and resisted (sometimes) or used in different ways.

The father of the Enlightenment was Baruch Spinoza, a Dutch Jew that was effectively excommunicated for having a Theistic view of God. However his leading word "Ethics" would be the primary start of the Enlightenment where he goes far with an attempt to deny the providential nature of God (as in things are ordained and created with purpose) for a mechanical and Theistic view of God. Further, he pushed for an analytical view of the world for understanding, a view of the world that required an intelligent and thoughtful (almost mechanical) understanding that would be characterized in the Enlightenment later philosophers such as Locke and Hume would be accused of reading Ethics, which was banned within a decade of it's publication in 1677.

From here, there is the history. The years after the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) which featured confesional or politically motivated Confessional conflict, we're relatively quiet. John Lynn, in his *The Wars of Louis XIV" characterises Europe as quiet except for Louis' expansionist policies. Louis XIV would effectively be the center of Europe by focusing the entirety of his court into Versailles, allowing French culture to become an important export due to the strength of Louis.

The publication of Spinoza's Ethics didn't change the world. Due to the slow nature of the travel and the the fact that it was turned into a banned book, the book would have been very slow to go throughout society. It wouldn't be until the stablization of England and the rise of figures like Voltaire that the Enlightenment would continue as a major movement.

Edit. Sources not mentioned: Radical Enlightment, Enlightenment Contested, and Democratic Enlightenment by Jonathan Israel.