Content Synopsis
Candide is an open-minded boy living in the great and beautiful castle of the Baron von Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia. It is possible he is the Baron's illegitimate nephew. Other people who live there include the Baroness; the Baron's daughter, Cunégonde; the Baron's son; and a tutor called Pangloss. Pangloss teaches the philosophy of Optimism, which, he explains, means that all things are as they must be and all things are for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds. Candide is an attentive student of Pangloss and believes this optimistic ideal because he cannot imagine anything better in the world than being able to see the beautiful Cunégonde every day. One day Cunégonde sees Dr. Pangloss giving a ‘lesson in experimental physics’ to her mother's chambermaid (i.e. having sex with her) and, agitated and excited, decides to indulge in exactly this sort of science. She wonders if Candide might also be interested in this. The following day she drops a handkerchief. Candide picks it up and they kiss. As a result, Candide is banished from the castle.
Candide wanders in distress for a time and sleeps in a field. The following morning he walks to the next village and is invited into a tavern to drink with some men in blue. He protests that he cannot pay but they offer to pay for him. Candide sees this as Pangloss's philosophies in action. Candide is then asked if he loves the King of the Bulgars. He says he does not know the man. They tell him the King is a wonderful King and propose a toast to his health. Candide agrees, drinks, and by doing so signs himself up as a soldier in a Bulgar regiment. They clap him in irons and take him away to join the army. He is made to drill and exercise but he does not realize what has happened to him. One day he simply walks away. He is caught and tried at a court-martial as a deserter. He is sentenced to be flogged by the entire regiment thirty-six times. After two floggings, and with much skin already removed, the King of the Bulgars passes by, stops the flogging and, hearing Candide speak of his inherited philosophies, pardons Candide. In three weeks, a surgeon has helped Candide to grow some skin back. Then, the King of the Bulgars declares war on the King of the Abars.
As many as thirty thousand may have been killed in the battle while Candide hides himself from the fighting. Finally, as both Kings celebrate their victories, Candide leaves the camp. He arrives at a nearby Abar village that has been devastated. Old men, women, girls, and children lie around, dead or dying. Candide flees and reaches a Bulgar village in a similar state. He flees the country and reaches Holland. He has no money or provisions but presumes that the Christian people of the country will help him. He begs alms from some men and they threaten to lock him up for begging. He approaches a man talking to the crowds about charity who chases him away. The man's wife empties a chamber pot over Candide's head. An Anabaptist names Jacques sees this treatment and takes Candide back to his house, cleans him and feeds him, gives him some money and offers him work in a fabric workshop. Candide cries out that this confirms Pangloss's theories.
The next day, while out walking, Candide comes across a beggar who is ill. Moved to pity, he gives the man the money Jacques had given him. The beggar cries out in despair because Candide does not recognize him. The ugly and ill beggar is Dr. Pangloss. When Candide questions him, his tutor tells him that the castle was attacked and Cunégonde has been raped repeatedly by Bulgar soldiers before being disemboweled, and is dead. The Baron, the Baroness and their son are all also dead and the castle and all stock and buildings have been destroyed. Candide then asks how Pangloss came to be so ugly and unwell. Pangloss tells him that love was the cause. He has contracted a disease from the maid that has probably already killed her. He explains how the disease can be traced back through several important and sometimes holy men to one of the shipmates of Christopher Columbus. However, he explains that the disease is for the best because the journeys of Columbus led to chocolate and cochineal. Candide declares that his tutor needs curing but neither of them have any money, so he throws himself on the mercy of the Anabaptist. Jacques pays and Pangloss is cured. Two months later Jacques must go to Lisbon for business and takes Candide and Pangloss with him. On the voyage, Pangloss explains to Jacques his theory of optimism. As he does so, a terrible storm assails the ship.
The storm tosses the ship about and a sailor is thrown in the air where he is caught on a piece of broken mast. Jacques helps him back on board but is pitched overboard in the process. The sailor ignores him. Candide runs to help but Jacques is overwhelmed by the water. Candide tries to jump in but Pangloss stops him, expounding his philosophy by saying that the Lisbon harbor was built just so that this man could one day drown in it. Just as he says this, the ship splits and everyone drowns except Candide, Pangloss, and the sailor who had been saved. They manage to swim to the port but, as they climb out, there is an earthquake. Ships are destroyed, buildings collapse, and people are killed. Candide is injured by falling masonry and Pangloss brings him scraps of food and water from the ruins until he is well enough to move. The next day they walk among the ruins helping with the disaster and Pangloss tells everyone how things could not be other than they are and that all is well. An agent of the Inquisition hears this and questions Pangloss before finally nodding to his armed flunky to take them in.
The sages of the country decide that an auto-da-fé (an execution ordered by a secular authority) would prevent further earthquakes. They burn three men, flog Candide, and hang Pangloss. The same day there is another earthquake. Appalled and covered in blood, Candide is just about to leave when an old woman approaches and tells him to follow her.
The old woman takes Candide to a hovel where she treats his wounds and feeds him. He sleeps and for the next few days, the woman looks after him. Finally, one evening, she takes him to a house in the country. She takes him via a secret door and leaves him to wait in a gilt room on a brocaded sofa. The woman returns supporting a veiled noble woman. Candide removes the veil and reveals the woman to be Cunégonde. Candide and Cunégonde both faint. The woman brings them round. Candide questions how Cunégonde is still alive and she tells him that she was indeed disemboweled but that it did not kill her. She promises to tell him everything after he has told her of his adventures, which he does. Cunégonde then tells her tale.
Cunégonde had woken when the castle was attacked. A huge Bulgar soldier raped her and stabbed her in the side. Then the man's captain came in and killed him and had her wounds dressed and took her as a prisoner of war. After a few months he sold her to a Jew called Don Issacar. Cunégonde managed to resist the Jew's advances so he brought her to this country house in the hope it would tame her. The Grand Inquisitor then noticed her one day at Mass and spoke to her. He wished to buy her from the Jew but the Jew would not sell. Finally, after the threat of an auto-da-fé, the Jew agreed to share the house and Cunégonde with the Inquisitor on alternate days. Cunégonde continued resisting both men. Finally, the Inquisitor arranged an auto-da-fé to prevent further earthquakes and Cunégonde was invited to watch. She recognized Dr. Pangloss as he was hanged and Candide as he was flogged. As a result she dispatched her servant to care for Candide after his flogging, and so the tale led to the present time. The two young lovers eat a meal and then sit on the sofa where they are found by Don Issacar on his arrival.
The Jew is enraged, draws his sword, and throws himself at Candide. In return, Candide draws his sword and kills the Jew. They are just about to deal with the body when the Inquisitor arrives. Without pause, Candide kills him too. Cunégonde panics over the dead bodies in her house and the old woman gives advice. There are three horses in the stables. They resolve to take them—even though the old woman finds riding hard because she has only one buttock—and they leave for Cadiz.
They arrive in the town of Avacena in the Sierra Morena Mountains where they find that all Cunégonde's jewels have been stolen and therefore they have nothing on which to live. In response, they sell one of the horses and the old woman rides behind Cunégonde. They set off again for Cadiz where they find an army boarding ships to quell a Jesuit rebellion in Paraguay. Candide performs the drill he learned from the Bulgars and is made a captain in the army. He boards a ship with Cunégonde and the old woman. During the voyage they discuss Pangloss's philosophy and Candide and Cunégonde complain about how unhappy they are and how hard their lives have been. However, Candide insists that all will be well, as Pangloss had taught him. The woman upbraids them for their complaining saying she has had a much harder life. She tells her tale.
The old woman reveals that she is the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina. She was brought up in a wonderful palace as a beautiful young woman. Just as she was to be married, her husband-to-be was murdered. While leaving with her mother for Gaeta, their galley was attacked by pirates. Those who were not killed were taken as slaves to Morocco and the women were raped a number of times. Their arrival in Morocco coincided with a number of civil wars. A group of Moors attack the pirates to try to take the women. In the process, all of them except the old woman were torn to pieces. Everyone died except for her, as she hid underneath the bodies. She pulled herself from the bodies and fell asleep under a tree. She woke to find a white man lying on top of her, rubbing himself and speaking in her language.
She told the man of her troubles and passed out. He took her to his house and looked after her. The man turned out to have been a castrated singer in the Princess of Palestrina's choir and to have helped raise the old woman until she was six years old. He told her that he had been sent on a mission to Morocco but was now returning home and would take the woman back to Italy. However, instead he took her to Algiers and sold her to the Dey (governor). Upon her arrival, there was an outbreak of plague and the woman was infected. She survived, but the Dey and the rest of his seraglio, all died. She was then sold repeatedly and ended up belonging to a Turk who was sent to fight with the Russians and took his seraglio with him. However, after much fighting, their fort was surrounded and the soldiers were forced to eat the two eunuchs and then one buttock from each of the women. As they finished their meal, the Russians arrived and killed them all. She ended up the property of a boyar, as his gardener, and was lashed every day. She eventually escaped and fled across Europe working in taverns. Finally, she ended up as servant to Don Isscar and in the service of Cunégonde. And so, she protests, her life has been much worse than those of either Cunégonde or Candide. She asks Cunégonde to inquire of all others on board the ship, and tells her that every one of them will curse the events that have befallen them.
Cunégonde and Candide do as the old woman asks and discover that everyone on board does indeed have a tale of woe to tell. Finally they arrive at Buenos Aires and go to see the governor. The governor takes an immediate liking to Cunégonde and asks Candide if this is his wife. In order to protect his love he says that he and Cunégonde are to be married and he asks the governor to perform the ceremony. In response, the governor sends Candide to inspect his troops and, once he is gone, proposes his own marriage to Cunégonde. The old woman advises Cunégonde that this would be a good course and could make Candide's fortune too. As this is happening, a ship enters the harbor containing a man pursuing Candide and Cunégonde for the murder of the Grand Inquisitor. The old woman advises Cunégonde to marry the governor, as he will protect her. She then runs to Candide and tells him to flee.
Candide's valet, Cacambo, saddles the two horses they have brought from Cadiz and they run away to fight for the Jesuits rather than against them. Cacambo reveals that he previously lived in Paraguay and he leads the way. At the first border post, they ask to speak to the commanding officer and are arrested as Spaniards. However, when Candide is revealed as a German they are released and treated with respect. The commanding officer, the Reverend Father, comes to speak to Candide. He is revealed to be Cunégonde's brother, thought dead. Candide informs him of his sister's presence in Buenos Aires and the Reverend Father tells his tale.
Having been left for dead, the brother was loaded on a cart with the bodies. A Jesuit sprinkled holy water over them and noticed the reaction of the young man and rescued him. He was then initiated as a Jesuit and sent to Rome and then to Paraguay. The Baron, as he now is, then suggests rescuing Cunégonde from Buenos Aires. Candide agrees and tells the Baron that he is going to marry her. The Baron protests that Candide is not of sufficiently high birth and hits Candide with the flat of his sword. In return, Candide draws his sword and runs the Baron through. Cacambo, having seen this, helps his master to take the Baron's garments and they escape with Candide disguised as the Reverend Father.
They travel across country until they hear cries. These come from two naked girls being chased by apes. Candide raises his rifle and shoots the apes. The girls fall on the dead animals, crying. Candide is confused but Cacambo explains that the apes were the girls’ lovers. They hurry away, make camp, and go to sleep. When they wake they cannot move as the girls’ tribe, the Oreillons, have tied them up and are preparing to cook and eat them, chanting that they want to eat Jesuit. Candide despairs, but Cacambo talks to the tribesmen and explains that Candide is not a Jesuit. Eventually convinced, the tribesmen release the two men and escort them back to the borders of their land.
The two travelers decide to make across country for Cayenne where they might find help. The going is tough and the horses die. Finally, they find a canoe on the river and climb in, letting it take them with the current. It takes them, eventually, to rapids where the boat is smashed. However, the two men survive by clutching to rocks. They emerge from the river at the bottom in a beautiful and bounteous country. They approach a village and find children playing with quoits made of gold, emeralds, and rubies. They presume that the children are the children of the king of the country, however they turn out to be ordinary children. They move on and find an inn that resembles a palace. Inside they are served a range of exotic foods. When they try to pay with some of their found gold, the landlord and landlady laugh at them for trying to pay with roadside pebbles. They are then informed that all inns are paid for by the government. The two men express their astonishment and Candide wonders if this is the best of all possible worlds of which Pangloss used to speak.
They enquire further and find that they are in the ancient land of the Incas, a place later called Eldorado by the Spaniards. The country has been protected from invasion by being surrounded by inaccessible mountains. They worship a God, but ask him for nothing as they already have everything. Candid and Cacambo go to see the King of Eldorado where they are invited to supper. They find out there are no courts or prisons in the country and that an emphasis is given to the study of science. The travelers stay in the city for a month before deciding to leave with eighty sheep laden with gold and precious jewels. The king arranges for a machine to be built to hoist them over the mountains and back into the world. Candide's plan is to return to Buenos Aires and pay the Governor for the return of Cunégonde.
On the journey from Eldorado, all but two of the sheep are lost. However, these two still carry a large fortune. They encounter a negro with one hand and one leg missing, the former chopped off as punishment for getting a finger trapped in the machinery at a sugar mill, the latter for attempting to run away. This tale of ill treatment is enough for Candide to abandon, once more, the theory of Optimism.
On arriving in the city of Surinam, Candide meets the Spanish skipper of a ship whom he hopes will take him to Buenos Aires. He tells him his story and of his intention to rescue Cunégonde. The skipper tells him he cannot help him as Cunégonde is now the Governor's favorite mistress and so Candide's mission is too dangerous. In response, Candide sends Cacambo to rescue Cunégonde by himself, using the diamonds in his pockets as bribes, while Candide will wait for him in Venice. Therefore, Candide and Cacambo part, Cacambo to Buenos Aires, and Candide staying behind to wait for another ship.
Finally, Monsieur Vanderdendur, a rich merchant and the owner of the mutilated slave that Candide met earlier, offers to transport Candide for an increasingly large amount of money. However, the merchant then sets sail with Candide's remaining sheep on board, but without their owner. Candide goes to the magistrate where he is fined for knocking too loudly and then charged extra money for looking into the case of the stolen sheep. This adds to Candide's despair and, having found a ship to take him to France, he advertises for a travelling companion who can prove to be the most unfortunate man in the province. He has many applicants for the post, all of whom make him realize the folly of Pangloss's Optimism, and finally chooses a scholar called Martin. This scholar was not more wretched than the other applicants were, but was, Candide hoped, liable to be good company because of his greater learning.
On the ship, Martin and Candide talk about moral and physical evil. Martin is pessimistic, but Candide still has some optimism in him, mostly associated with his hope of seeing Cunégonde again. As they talk they witness a sea battle. Floating from the wreckage of one ship comes one of Candide's sheep and they realize that the ship, which has been sunk, is that of the Dutch merchant who robbed Candide. Candide see this as a kind of justice, but Martin responds that all of the other people on the ship had to die for the sins of one thief. Candide however, is undeterred, believing that if he can regain one of his lost sheep, he can regain Cunégonde.
As they approach France, Martin and Candide continue their discussions. When asked why God made the world, Martin replied it was to make men mad. Candide asks if men can change and stop fighting each other. Martin thinks that, like animals, men never change but Candide prefers to believe that men have free will.
Arriving back in France, Candide takes ill. The locals notice the size of the diamond in his ring and his locked strongbox and he is soon attended by doctors who make him worse. Later, during his recovery he plays cards with new friends and finds that he looses a lot. Martin is not surprised by this. One night he is taken to see a play by an abbé from Perigord. Despite the poor reaction from the wits with whom Candide is sitting, he is moved by the play and attracted to its female lead, Mademoiselle Clairon. Candide enquires about the worst of the critics only to be told he is a hack, a devil incarnate and a ‘Féron.’ Candide declares he would like meet Mademoiselle Clairon. The abbé cannot introduce him to her, but offers to take Candide to a house of a ‘lady of quality,’ the Marquise de Parolignac.
Candide very quickly loses fifty thousand francs at cards and everyone else there is surprised that he is not more upset by this. They presume from his lack of emotion that he is English. Following supper and a long discussion about the theatre, the Marquise seduces Candide and steals his diamond rings. Later, in discussion, the abbé learns that Candide has heard nothing from Cunégonde. However, the next morning, Candide receives a letter supposedly from her, saying that she is in the same town, but ill. Taking his riches with him, he and Martin arrive at the house where Cunégonde is supposed to be lying ill. There Candide finds her laying the dark, hidden by curtains and unable to speak. While Candide is trying to talk to his love, the abbé enters with an officer of the watch and Candide and Martin are arrested and taken away. Martin deduces that the ill Cunégonde is actually a fraud and that the abbé has set them up. Candide then bribes the guard with two small diamonds and he lets them go. The officer's brother, after a further bribe, finds them a ship leaving for England on which they can escape France. As they arrive in England they see an Admiral being executed. This is done, they learn, not because he has done anything wrong in particular, but as a regular event to encourage the rest of the fleet to fight harder. Candide is so shocked he refuses to leave the ship, and two days later, it sets sail once more, this time to take Candide to Venice where he is sure he will finally find Cunégonde.
After some months in Venice, Candide still fails to find Cunégonde. He starts to believe in Martin's pessimism and the suggestion that Cocambo is betraying him rather than fulfilling his promise. While debating this matter with Martin, Candide sees a monk with a young woman on his arm and wagers that at least these two are happy. On approaching them, Candide discovers that the young woman is Paquette, the serving girl who gave Pangloss syphilis. Saved from the disease herself by a kind but ugly doctor, she was then forced to become the doctor's mistress. The doctor's jealous wife then beat her every day. Attempting to cure his wife of her shrewish nature he instead killed her. The doctor fled the country and Paquette was thrown in jail. A judge then pardoned her, on the condition she became his mistress, but later he took on a different woman and Paquette was forced to become a prostitute. She hates having to tend to the old and ugly men who purchase her services and declares herself terribly unhappy. Martin declares that he has won half his wager already. On turning to the monk, Candide finds that he is also unhappy because of the petty squabbles amongst the monks, and his own guilt at paying girls for sexual favors. In an attempt to make them happy, Candide gives money to them both.
Candide and Martin then go to visit Senator Pococuranté, a man who is supposed never to have had any troubles. There they find that he has many fine artworks and books, great musicians to play for him and chefs to cook for him, but none of them entirely please him and he finds some fault with everything. On leaving his house, Martin and Candide discuss the Senator and Candide realizes that even someone who seems to have everything is not happy.
One evening when sitting down to dinner, Candide turns to find Cocambo behind him. He tells Candide that Cunégonde is in Constantinople. Candide announces his intention to go to her and Cocambo tells him the plan is for them to leave after dinner. However, Cocambo is now a slave and must attend to his master. He addresses his new master as ‘Sire’ and leaves to attend to his master's things. Another servant does the same thing, and another, and another, until it is clear that Candide is eating his dinner at a table full of kings. They have all lost their thrones and have come to celebrate Carnival in Venice. As they rise to leave, four deposed Queens enter, but Candide is no longer interested. He is set on finding Cunégonde in Constantinople.
Candide and Martin board the same ship as Cocambo and his new master, and Candide asks after Cunégonde only to find that she too is now a slave in the household of another deposed king, along with the old woman. However, Cocambo informs Candide, she has also lost her beauty and become ugly. Candide has declared his love for her no matter what, so dismisses the fact of Cunégonde having lost her beauty. Cocambo tells him how he used some money to free Cunégonde and the old woman before a pirate took the rest of the money and sold them into slavery. Arriving at the straits leading to the Black Sea, Candide pays for Cocambo's freedom and they find a galley to take them the rest of the way to Cunégonde. In the galley, Candide sees two men he thinks he recognizes. If he did not know better, he says, he would suspect they were Pangloss and Cunégonde's brother, the Baron. Candide tells this to Martin in the hearing of the two men, who then acknowledge that they are in fact the named men. Candide pays for them to be freed and they all travel together to find Cunégonde.
While they travel, Candide asks his new companions how they came to be in the galley. The Baron recovered from Candide's attack and was then attacked again by Spanish troops who put him in jail. He then returned to Rome and was appointed as chaplain to the French Ambassador to Constantinople. He was then found naked in a bath with a young Muslim and was whipped and sentenced to the galleys. Pangloss had survived his hanging thanks to a badly tied noose. Following this he travelled to Constantinople where he was seen to pay too much attention to a young lady in a mosque who dropped her posy of flowers. The imam had him arrested and he was whipped and sentenced to the galleys. Finding themselves together on the galley, Pangloss and the Baron had argued daily over who had suffered the worse injustice and they were whipped every day as a result. Pangloss maintains, however, that his philosophy of optimism still holds.
As they talk, they reach the shores of the Propontide, where Cunégonde is to be found. Candide sees her and the old woman hanging towels on a line. Candide is repulsed at the ugliness of his love, but embraces her anyway. He pays for the release of both her and the old woman. Cunégonde is unaware of her ugliness and reminds Candide of his promise to marry her. He agrees, but the Baron repeats his objections to Candide's poor station. Candide threatens to kill him again, pointing out how he has saved the Baron and Cunégonde's ugliness, but the Baron says that he will not allow the marriage while he is alive.
The Baron's reaction forces Candide to go through with the marriage, out of sheer stubbornness. They look at many courses to overcome the Baron's objections, and then decide to return him to the galleys without telling Cunégonde. They all then live together, growing more miserable day by day. Cunégonde continues to grow uglier, and Pangloss continues to state his beliefs despite no longer believing them. Most of all, they are all bored. One day the old woman asks if it is worse to suffer the things they have all suffered or to sit and simply do nothing. Paquette and her monk arrive, having spent Candide's money and still being unhappy. Finally, all their debating of philosophy leads them to consult a local dervish on the nature of man, and good and evil. The dervish slams the door in their faces. On their return they meet a farmer who has a small plot of land that he and his family cultivate; he is happy. Candide and his band decide to emulate this farmer and finally find some measure of contentment.