Candide

In Bordeaux, Candide sells some gems to equip the next leg of his journey. He leaves his sheep with the Academy of Science of Bordeaux, which holds a contest to determine “Why is the wool of this sheep red?” (59). A scholar wins the contest by using an algebraic formula. Candide is eventually convinced to travel to Paris and coming down with a “minor ailment” (60) he is attended to by two doctors, new friends, and women. They are all attracted by his wealth, and their intervention makes him sicker, so a parish curate is called and tries to extort more money. Martin throws him out of their inn, causing a scandal. Candide recovers and is again swindled in high stakes gambling. An abbé of Périgord takes them to see a play, which Candide enjoys but learns from the abbé that it is poorly acted, poorly written, and the playwright is a hack. The abbé concludes that only 15 or 16 of 5,000 or 6,000 French plays are good, which Martin considers a lot.

Candide takes interest in an actress playing Queen Elizabeth and asks how queens are treated in France. The abbé says they are taken to a tavern in the provinces but in Paris they are honored when they are beautiful and discarded in the sewer when they die. Martin affirms this as truth, recalling the burial of Mademoiselle Monime, and using it as an example of French contradiction and inconsistency. The abbé also points out a critic in the audience who he criticizes and calls “a hack” and “a Fréron” (62). Candide asks to meet the actress, but, as the narrator points out, the abbé cannot introduce them because she “moved only in good company” (62). The abbé makes an excuse and takes Candide to another “lady of quality” (62) instead, the Marquise de Parolignac. She manages a gambling house, and immediately cheats Candide out of 50,000 francs.

Over dinner, they discuss local writers and insult each one. A “man of taste and learning” (64) shares his idea of an ideal tragedy, and why some are performed well but are unreadable. Candide admires the man and likens him to Pangloss, asking him if he believes “everything is for the best” (64) and “nothing could be other than it is” (64). The man disagrees, instead believing all is chaos (except for supper parties) and “it is a perpetual battlefield” (65). Their discussion continues until the lady of the house seduces Candide and steals his diamond rings. Returning home, the abbé asks about Cunégonde and discovers she has never written Candide a letter. The next day Candide receives a letter from Cunégonde that claims she is sick and in the very same town. He rushes to see her, and though the maid will not allow him to light a candle to see her face, he gives her diamonds and gold. Candide and Martin are suddenly arrested as “suspicious foreigners” (67). Martin identifies the ruse and convinces Candide to simply bribe the arresting officers, who oblige him and leave him in Dieppe where he takes a ship to England, feeling as if he is “a man delivered from hell” (68), intending to resume his journey to Venice as soon as possible. 

On the way to England, Martin informs a lamenting Candide that the English are gloomy and spending more money on a war with the French over “a few acres of snow” (69) in Canada than the country is worth. They arrive in Portsmouth and witness the execution of an admiral who “was said not to have engaged closely enough” (69) with the French enemy. Martin says the execution is useful “to encourage the others” (69). Candide refuses to set foot on English soil, and bargains with the Dutch captain to take him to Venice. They arrive in Venice by way of the Mediterranean, and Candide is optimistic that he will soon be reunited with Cunégonde and Cacambo, saying “All is well, all goes well, all goes as well as it possibly can” (70).

On arriving in Venice, Candide searches everywhere for Cacambo and cannot find him. He does not understand how they could arrive in Venice first, and assumes Cunégonde is dead, falling into a “black melancholy” (70). Martin calls him a simpleton for believing Cacambo would stay loyal to him, advising him to forget them both. Candide spots a Theatine monk and a pretty girl walking together, and wagers that they are truly happy, while Martin bets on the contrary. Candide invites them to dinner and is surprised when the girl reveals herself to be Paquette. She tells him her story. Like Candide she was sent away from the castle after a Franciscan seduced her. A doctor takes her in, but she is beaten by his wife until the doctor poisons the wife and Paquette ends up in prison. The judge releases her but on the condition she live with him as his mistress. Eventually he throws her out in favor of a rival, and she is “obliged to continue in this abominable profession” (72) of prostitution, which men find amusing but is “nothing but an abyss of misery” (72) for her. She came to Venice to work as a prostitute, and she is “one of the unhappiest creatures alive” (72) having to service a range of terrible men.

At dinner, Candide asks the monk, Brother Girofleo, if he is as happy as he looks. The young monk is far from happy; he was forced into the monkhood at 14 and wishes “every last Theatine at the bottom of the sea” (73). He hates his monastic life and uses whatever money is not stolen from him by the prior on girls. As both of them are miserable, Martin claims victory while Candide offers them both money as a consolation. Despite the disappointment, Candide is pleased that he often finds people he thought were lost to him, and he argues with Martin about the appearance of happiness in the gondoliers. They decide to visit Senator Pococuranté, who is rumored to be “a man who has never known troubles” (74). 

They arrive at the palace of Senator Pococuranté, a rich man in his sixties. Beautiful women serve them hot chocolate, but Pococuranté instead is “weary of the society of ladies” (75) and bored of the two girls. Candide admires his paintings, but the senator does not care for them anymore, not finding them a true imitation of nature. Candide enjoys a concerto with him before dinner, only to discover the man is bored by it and likewise despises opera. Candide compliments his classical book collection, but Pococuranté has reasons for disliking the volumes of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, and more that sit on his shelves. He likewise rejects his English books on liberty, before severely critiquing Milton as a hack who stole from Tasso and Ariosto. Candide concludes of Pococuranté “There is no pleasing him” (78), but still thinks he is the happiest of men. Martin corrects him, pointing out how disgusted the senator is by all his possessions. Candide suggests maybe there is pleasure in being critical, or as Martin phrases it “there is pleasure to be had in not taking pleasure” (79). Some weeks pass and Candide is distraught that Cacambo has not appeared.