In Lisbon, they are arrested by the Inquisition for their Optimistic views which are contrary to Catholic dogma of the Fall and free will. They survive a disastrous shipwrecking after a storm only to arrive in time for the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake and Tsunami. Pangloss himself is dying of syphilis and living on the streets as a beggar.ĭone with the army, Candide takes the opportunity of going on a business trip to Lisbon with the restored Pangloss. Candide trembled like a philosopher, and concealed himself as best he could for the duration of this heroic butchery.įleeing, he is soon reunited with his former tutor, Pangloss, who tells him the Baron and Baroness have bother been killed, their daughter raped and murdered, the castle destroyed. The total may well have amounted to thirty thousand corpses. Next the bayonet proved sufficient reason for the death of a few thousand more. First the canon toppled about six thousand men on either side then the muskets removed from the best of all possible worlds between nine and ten thousand scoundrels who were infesting its surface. Trumpets, Fifes, hautboys, drums and canon produced a harmony such as was never heard in hell. Never was anything so gallant, so well accoutred, so dashing and so well drilled as those two armies. His attitude sees him recruited by the Prussian army and exposed to the horrors of war. Imbued as he is with Optimism, he is content to accept whatever life throws at him without contemplation and to meet any difficult decision with indifference.

But when the Baron catches Candide in a moment of intimacy with his daughter, Candide is thrown out.Ĭandide, though, is unfazed at being abandoned. There his tutor, Pangloss, teaches Candide the philosophy of Optimism – that a world closely scrutinised by a benevolent God, is the best of all possible worlds and all is ultimately for the best. Its relevance, arguably, has faded but its place in history will surely see it continue to endure.Ĭandide, a good-natured, open-minded, young man grows up in the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh. A satire on prevailing philosophical thought of its time, Candide is Voltaire’s most enduring and well-read work.

Candide by voltaire