Candide

Chapter One _ How Candide was raised in a fine castle, and how he was chased from it In Westphalia, in the castle of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, there lived a young boy whom nature had endowed with the sweetest disposition. His face was a reflection of his soul. His judgment was fairly straightforward and his mind of the simplest. It is for this reason, I believe, that he was named Candide. The old servants of the castle suspected that he was the son of the baron's sister and a good and honest gentleman of those parts whom the young lady did not wish to marry, as he could claim only seventy-one heraldic quarterings of noble lineage, the rest of his family tree having been lost to the ravages of time.* The baron was one of the most powerful lords of Westphalia, for his castle had windows and a door. His great hall was even adorned with a tapestry. All the dogs from his farmyards were rounded up into a hunting pack whenever the need arose, and his grooms acted as his hunting whips. The vicar of the village served as his private almoner. Everyone called the baron "Your Grace" and laughed at his stories. * Heraldic quarterings are the noble arms of other families that an individual acquires in his or her coat of arms through marriages. Voltaire is satirizing the German nobility's pride in its lineages: seventy-one quarterings of noble lineage is extraordinarily high. The baroness, whose weight of some three hundred and fifty pounds had made her a figure of considerable importance, carried out the honors of the household with a dignity that made her even more respectable. Her daughter, Cunegonde, seventeen years of age, had a flushed complexion and was fresh, fat, and piquant. The baron's son seemed in every respect worthy of his father. Pangloss, the tutor, was the oracle of the house, and young Candide followed his lessons with all the good faith of his age and character.* Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologo-cosmo-idiotology. He could demonstrate quite admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that in this best of all possible worlds, His Grace the Baron's castle was the finest of castles and Her Grace the Baroness the best of all possible baronesses. "It has been demonstrated," Pangloss used to say, "that things cannot be otherwise: for as everything has been made for a purpose, everything is necessarily made for the best purpose. Note that noses were made to bear spectacles, and hence we have spectacles. Legs were obviously instituted in order to wear breeches, and hence we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and used to build castles, and hence His Grace has a very fine castle. The greatest baron of the province must also be the best housed. And as pigs have been made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round. Consequently, those who propose that all is well are talking nonsense: They should say that all is best." * The word pangloss is Greek for "all language." Voltaire is satirizing the doctrines of the German philosopher and mathematician Leibniz, 16461716, who argued that God created the best of all possible worlds. Throughout Candide, Voltaire also satirizes Leibniz's view that nothing happens without sufficient reason. Candide listened attentively and believed innocently, for he found Mademoiselle Cunegonde extremely beautiful, even if he had never summoned up the courage to tell her so. He concluded that after the good fortune of being born Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, the second degree of good fortune was to be Mademoiselle Cunegonde, the third to see her every day, and the fourth to hear Doctor Pangloss, the greatest philosopher in all the province and, consequently, the world. One day Cunegonde was wConstantine, Peter is the author of 'Candide', published 2005 under ISBN 9780679643135 and ISBN 0679643133.