The Portable Voltaire (Portable Library)

by Francois Voltaire

  CHAPTER XXI

  Candide and Martin Approach the Coast of France and Argue

  At last they sighted the coast of France. “Have you ever been to France, Monsieur Martin?” said Candide. “Yes,” said Martin, “I have traversed several provinces. In some half the inhabitants are crazy, in others they are too artful, in some they are usually quite gentle and stupid, and in others they think they are clever; in all of them the chief occupation is making love, the second scandal-mongering, and the third talking nonsense.” “But, Monsieur Martin, have you seen Paris?” “Yes, I have seen Paris; it is a mixture of all the species; it is a chaos, a throng where everybody hunts for pleasure and hardly anybody finds it, at least so far as I could see. I did not stay there long; when I arrived there I was robbed of everything I had by pickpockets at Saint-Germain’s fair; they thought I was a thief and I spent a week in prison; after which I became a printer’s reader to earn enough to return to Holland on foot. I met the scribbling rabble, the intriguing rabble, and the fanatical rabble. We hear that there are very polite people in the town; I am glad to think so.” “For my part, I have not the least curiosity to see France,” said Candide. “You can easily guess that when a man has spent a month in Eldorado he cares to see nothing else in the world but Mademoiselle Cunegonde. I shall go and wait for her at Venice; we will go to Italy by way of France; will you come with me?” “Willingly,” said Martin. “They say that Venice is only for the Venetian nobles but that foreigners are nevertheless well received when they have plenty of money; I have none, you have plenty, I will follow you anywhere.” “Apropos,” said Candide, “do you think the earth was originally a sea, as we are assured by that large book belonging to the captain?” “I don’t believe it in the least,” said Martin, “any more than all the other whimsies we have been pestered with recently!” “But to what end was this world formed?” said Candide. “To infuriate us,” replied Martin. “Are you not very much surprised,” continued Candide, “by the love those two girls of the country of the Oreillons had for those two monkeys, whose adventure I told you?” “Not in the least,” said Martin. “I see nothing strange in their passion; I have seen so many extraordinary things that nothing seems extraordinary to me.” “Do you think,” said Candide, “that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical and silly?” “Do you think,” said Martin, “that sparrow-hawks have always eaten the pigeons they came across?” “Yes, of course,” said Candide. “Well,” said Martin, “if sparrow-hawks have always possessed the same nature, why should you expect men to change theirs?” “Ohl” said Candide, “there is a great difference; free will ...” Arguing thus, they arrived at Bordeaux.

  CHAPTER XXII

  What Happened to Candide and Martin in France

  Candide remained in Bordeaux only long enough to sell a few Eldorado pebbles and to provide himself with a two-seated post-chaise, for he could no longer get on without his philosopher Martin; but he was very much grieved at having to part with his sheep, which he left with the Academy of Sciences at Bordeaux. The Academy offered as the subject for a prize that year the cause of the redness of the sheep’s fleece; and the prize was awarded to a learned man in the North, who proved by A plus B minus c divided by z that the sheep must be red and die of the sheep-pox. However all the travelers Candide met in taverns on the way said to him: “We are going to Paris.” This general eagerness at length made him wish to see that capital; it was not far out of the road to Venice. He entered by the Faubourg Saint-Marceau and thought he was in the ugliest village of Westphalia. Candide had scarcely reached his inn when he was attacked by a slight illness caused by fatigue. As he wore an enormous diamond on his finger, and a prodigiously heavy strongbox had been observed in his train, he immediately had with him two doctors he had not asked for, several intimate friends who would not leave him and two devotees who kept making him broth. Said Martin: “I remember that I was ill too when I first came to Paris; I was very poor; so I had no friends, no devotees, no doctors, and I got well.” However, with the aid of medicine and bloodletting, Candide’s illness became serious. An inhabitant of the district came and gently asked him for a note payable to bearer in the next world; Candide would have nothing to do with it. The devotees assured him that it was a new fashion; Candide replied that he was not a fashionable man. Martin wanted to throw the inhabitant out the window; the clerk swore that Candide should not be buried; Martin swore that he would bury the clerk if he continued to annoy them. The quarrel became heated; Martin took him by the shoulders and turned him out roughly; this caused a great scandal, and they made an official report on it. Candide got better; and during his convalescence he had very good company to supper with him. They gambled for high stakes. Candide was vastly surprised that he never drew an ace; and Martin was not surprised at all. Among those who did the honors of the town was a little abbé from Périgord, one of those assiduous people who are always alert, always obliging, impudent, fawning, accommodating, always on the lookout for the arrival of foreigners, ready to tell them all the scandals of the town and to procure them pleasures at any price. This abbé took Candide and Martin to the theater. A new tragedy was being played. Candide was seated near several wits. This did not prevent his weeping at perfectly played scenes. One of the argumentative bores near him said during an interval: “You have no business to weep, this is a very bad actress, the actor playing with her is still worse, the play is still worse than the actors; the author does not know a word of Arabic and yet the scene is in Arabia; moreover, he is a man who does not believe in innate ideas; tomorrow I will bring you twenty articles written against him.” “Sir,” said Candide to the abbe, “how many plays have you in France?” “Five or six thousand,” he replied. “That’s a lot,” said Candide, “and how many good ones are there?” “Fifteen or sixteen,” replied the other. “That’s a lot,” said Martin. Candide was greatly pleased with an actress who took the part of Queen Elizabeth in a rather dull tragedy which is sometimes played. “This actress,” said he to Martin, “pleases me very much; she looks rather like Mademoiselle Cunegonde; I should be very glad to pay her my respects.” The abbé offered to introduce him to her. Candide, brought up in Germany, asked what was the etiquette, and how queens of England were treated in France. “There is a distinction,” said the abbé, “in the provinces we take them to a tavern; in Paris we respect them when they are beautiful and throw them in the public sewer when they are dead.” “Queens in the public sewerl” said Candide. “Yes, indeed,” said Martin, “the abbé is right; I was in Paris when Mademoiselle Monime departed, as they say, this life; she was refused what people here call the honors of burial—that is to say, the honor of rotting with all the beggars of the district in a horrible cemetery; she was buried by herself at the comer of the Rue de Burgoyne; which must have given her extreme pain, for her mind was very lofty.” “That was very impolite,” said Candide. “What do you expect?” said Martin. “These people are like that. Imagine all possible contradictions and incompatibilities; you will see them in the government, in the law courts, in the churches and the entertainments of this absurd nation.” “Is it true that people are always laughing in Paris?” said Candide. “Yes,” said the abbé, “but it is with rage in their hearts, for they complain of everything with roars of laughter and they even commit with laughter the most detestable actions.” “Who is that fat pig,” said Candide, “who said so much ill of the play I cried at so much and of the actors who gave me so much pleasure?” “He is a living evil,” replied the abbé, “who earns his living by abusing all plays and all books; he hates anyone who succeeds, as eunuchs hate those who enjoy; he is one of the serpents of literature who feed on filth and venom; he is a scribbler.” “What do you mean by a scribbler?” said Candide. “A scribbler of periodical sheets,” said the abbé. “A Fréron.�
�� Candide, Martin, and the abbé from Perigord talked in this manner on the stairway as they watched everybody going out after the play. “Although I am most anxious to see Mademoiselle Cunegonde again,” said Candide, “I should like to sup with Mademoiselle Clairon, for I thought her admirable.” The abbé was not the sort of man to know Mademoiselle Clairon, for she saw only good company. “She is engaged this evening,” he said, “but I shall have the honor to take you to the house of a lady of quality, and there you will learn as much of Paris as if you had been here for four years.” Candide, who was naturally curious, allowed himself to be taken to the lady’s house at the far end of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré; they were playing faro; twelve gloomy punters each held a small hand of cards, the foolish register of their misfortunes. The silence was profound, the punters were pale, the banker was uneasy, and the lady of the house, seated beside this pitiless banker, watched with lynx’s eyes every double stake, every seven-and-the-go, with which each player marked his cards; she had them unmarked with severe but polite attention, for fear of losing her customers; the lady called herself Marquise de Parolignac. Her fifteen-year-old daughter was among the punters and winked to her to let her know the tricks of the poor people who attempted to repair the cruelties of fate. The abbé from Périgord, Candide, and Martin entered; nobody rose, nobody greeted them, nobody looked at them; everyone was profoundly occupied with the cards. “Her Ladyship, the Baroness of Thunder-ten-tronckh was more civil,” said Candide. However the abbé whispered in the ear of the Marquise, who half rose, honored Candide with a gracious smile and Martin with a most noble nod. Candide was given a seat and a hand of cards, and lost fifty thousand francs in two hands; after which they supped very merrily and everyone was surprised that Candide was not more disturbed by his loss. The lackeys said to each other, in the language of lackeys: “He must be an English Milord.” The supper was like most suppers in Paris; first there was a silence and then a noise of indistinguishable words, then jokes, most of which were insipid, false news, false arguments, some politics, and a great deal of scandal; there was even some talk of new books. “Have you seen,” said the abbé from Périgord, “the novel by Gauchat, the doctor of theology?” “Yes,” replied one of the guests, “but I could not finish it. We have a crowd of silly writings, but all of them together do not approach the silliness of Gauchat, doctor of theology. I am so weary of this immensity of detestable books which inundates us that I have taken to faro.” “And what do you say about the Mélanges by Archdeacon T.?” said the abbé. “Ah!” said Madame de Parolignac, “the tiresome creature! How carefully he tells you what everybody knows! How heav ily he discusses what is not worth the trouble of being lightly mentioned! How witlessly he appropriates other people’s wit! How he spoils what he steals! How he disgusts me! But he will not disgust me any more; it is enough to have read a few pages by the Archdeacon.” There was a man of learning and taste at table who confirmed what the marchioness had said. They then talked of tragedies; the lady asked why there were tragedies which were sometimes played and yet were unreadable. The man of taste explained very clearly how a play might have some interest and hardly any merit; in a few words he proved that it was not sufficient to bring in one or two of the situations which are found in all novels and which always attract the spectators; but that a writer of tragedies must be original without being bizarre, often sublime and always natural, must know the human heart and be able to give it speech, must be a great poet but not let any character in his play appear to be a poet, must know his language perfectly, speak it with purity, with continual harmony and never allow the sense to be spoilt for the sake of the rhyme. “Anyone,” he added, “who does not observe all these rules may produce one or two tragedies applauded in the theater, but he will never be ranked among good writers; there are very few good tragedies; some are idylls in well-written and well-rhymed dialogue; some are political arguments which send one to sleep, or repulsive amplifications; others are the dreams of an enthusiast, in a barbarous style, with broken dialogue, long apostrophes to the gods (because he does not know how to speak to men), false maxims, and turgid commonplaces.” Candide listened attentively to these remarks and conceived a great idea of the speaker; and, as the marchioness had been careful to place him beside her, he leaned over to her ear and took the liberty of asking her who was the man who talked so well. “He is a man of letters,” said the lady, “who does not play cards and is sometimes brought here to supper by the abbé; he has a perfect knowledge of tragedies and books and he has written a tragedy which was hissed and a book of which only one copy has ever been seen outside his bookseller’s shop and that was one he gave me.” “The great man!” said Candide. “He is another Pangloss.” Then, turning to him, Candide said: “Sir, no doubt you think that all is for the best in the physical world and in the moral, and that nothing could be otherwise than as it is?” “Sir,” replied the man of letters, “I do not think anything of the sort. I think everything goes awry with us, that nobody knows his rank or his office, nor what he is doing, nor what he ought to do, and that except at supper, which is quite gay and where there appears to be a certain amount of sociability, all the rest of their time is passed in senseless quarrels: Jansenists with Molinists, lawyers with churchmen, men of letters with men of letters, courtiers with courtiers, financiers with the people, wives with husbands, relatives with relatives—‘tis an eternal war.” Candide replied: “I have seen worse things; but a wise man, who has since had the misfortune to be hanged, taught me that it is all for the best; these are only the shadows in a fair picture.” “Your wise man who was hanged was poking fun at the world,” said Martin; “and your shadows are horrible stains.” “The stains are made by men,” said Candide, “and they cannot avoid them.” “Then it is not their fault,” said Martin. Most of the gamblers, who had not the slightest understanding of this kind of talk, were drinking; Martin argued with the man of letters and Candide told the hostess some of his adventures. After supper the marchioness took Candide into a side room and made him sit down on a sofa. “Well!” said she, “so you are still madly in love with Mademoiselle Cunegonde of Thunder-ten-tronckh?” “Yes, madame,” replied Candide. The marchioness replied with a tender smile: “You answer like a young man from Westphalia. A Frenchman would have said: ‘It is true that I was in love with Mademoiselle Cunegonde, but when I see you, madame, I fear lest I should cease to love her.’ ” “Alas! madame,” said Candide, “I will answer as you wish.” “Your passion for her,” said the marchioness, “began by picking up her handkerchief; I want you to pick up my garter.” “With all my heart,” said Candide; and he picked it up. “But I want you to put it on again,” said the lady; and Candide put it on again. “You see,” said the lady, “you are a foreigner; I sometimes make my lovers in Paris languish for a fortnight, but I give myself to you the very first night, because one must do the honors of one’s country to a young man from Westphalia.” The fair lady, having perceived two enormous diamonds on the young foreigner’s hands, praised them so sincerely that they passed from Candide’s fingers to the fingers of the marchioness. As Candide went home with his abbé from Périgord, he felt some remorse at having been unfaithful to Mademoiselle Cunegonde. The abbé sympathized with his distress; he had only had a small share in the fifty thousand francs Candide had lost at cards and in the value of the two half-given, half-extorted diamonds. His plan was to profit as much as he could from the advantages which his acquaintance with Candide might procure for him. He talked a lot about Cunegonde and Candide told him that he should ask that fair one’s forgiveness for his infidelity when he saw her at Venice. The abbé from Périgord redoubled his politeness and civilities and took a tender interest in all Candide said, in all he did, and in all he wished to do. “Then, sir,” said he, “you are to meet her at Venice?” “Yes, sir,” said Candide, “without fail I must go and meet Mademoiselle Cunegonde there.” Then, carried away by the pleasure of talking about the person he loved, he related, as he was accustomed t
o do, some of his adventures with that illustrious Westphalian lady. “I suppose,” said the abbé, “that Mademoiselle Cunegonde has a great deal of wit and that she writes charming letters.” “I have never received any from her,” said Candide, “for you must know that when I was expelled from the castle because of my love for her, I could not write to her; soon afterwards I heard she was dead, then I found her again and then I lost her, and now I have sent an express messenger to her two thousand five hundred leagues from here and am expecting her reply.” The abbé listened attentively and seemed rather meditative. He soon took leave of the two foreigners, after having embraced them tenderly. The next morning when Candide woke up he received a letter composed as follows: “Sir, my dearest lover, I have been ill for a week in this town; I have just heard that you are here. I should fly to your arms if I could stir. I heard that you had passed through Bordeaux; I left the faithful Cacambo and the old woman there and they will soon follow me. The governor of Buenos Aires took everything, but I still have your heart. Come, your presence will restore me to life or will make me die of pleasure.” This charming, this unhoped-for letter, transported Candide with inexpressible joy; and the illness of his dear Cunegonde overwhelmed him with grief. Torn between these two sentiments, he took his gold and his diamonds and drove with Martin to the hotel where Mademoiselle Cunegonde was staying. He entered trembling with emotion, his heart beat, his voice was broken; he wanted to open the bed-curtains and to have a light brought. “Do nothing of the sort,” said the waiting-maid. “Light would be the death of her.” And she quickly drew the curtains. “My dear Cunegonde,” said Candide, weeping, “how do you feel? If you cannot see me, at least speak to me.” “She cannot speak,” said the maid-servant. The lady then extended a plump hand, which Candide watered with his tears and then filled with diamonds, leaving a bag full of gold in the armchair. In the midst of these transports a police officer arrived, followed by the abbé from Périgord and a squad of policemen. “So these are the two suspicious foreigners?” he said. He had them arrested immediately and ordered his bravoes to hale them off to prison. “This is not the way they treat travelers in Eldorado,” said Candide. “I am more of a Manichaean than ever,” said Martin. “But, sir, where are you taking us?” said Candide. “To the deepest dungeon,” said the police officer. Martin, having recovered his coolness, decided that the lady who pretended to be Cunegonde was a cheat, that the abbé from Périgord was a cheat who had abused Candide’s innocence with all possible speed, and that the police officer was another cheat of whom they could easily be rid. Rather than expose himself to judicial proceedings, Candide, enlightened by this advice and impatient to see the real Cunegonde again, offered the police officer three little diamonds worth about three thousand pounds each. “Ahl sir,” said the man with the ivory stick, “if you had committed all imaginable crimes you would be the most honest man in the world. Three diamonds! Each worth three thousand pounds each! Sir! I would be killed for your sake, instead of taking you to prison. All strangers are arrested here, but trust to me. I have a brother at Dieppe in Normandy, I will take you there; and if you have any diamonds to give him he will take as much care of you as myself.” “And why are all strangers arrested?” said Candide. The abbé from Perigord then spoke and said: “It is because a scoundrel from Atrebatum listened to imbecilities; this alone made him commit a parricide, not like that of May 1610, but like that of December 1594, and like several others committed in other years and in other months by other scoundrels who had listened to imbecilities.” The police officer then explained what it Was all about. “Ah! the monsters!” cried Candide. “What! Can such horrors be in a nation which dances and sings! Can I not leave at once this country where monkeys torment tigers? I have seen bears in my own country; Eldorado is the only place where I have seen men. In God’s name, sir, take me to Venice, where I am to wait for Mademoiselle Cunegonde.” “I can only take you to Lower Normandy,” said the barigel. Immediately he took off their irons, said there had been a mistake, sent his men away, took Candide and Martin to Dieppe, and left them with his brother. There was a small Dutch vessel in the port. With the help of three other diamonds the Norman became the most obliging of men and embarked Candide and his servants in the ship which was about to sail for Portsmouth in England. It was not the road to Venice; but Candide felt as if he had escaped from Hell, and he had every intention of taking the road to Venice at the first opportunity.