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Part 30

Candide · Voltaire — chapter 30 of 31 · ~1,113 words · public domain

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"Let us work," said Martin, "without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable."

The whole little society entered into this laudable design, according to their different abilities. Their little plot of land produced plentiful crops. Cunegonde was, indeed, very ugly, but she became an excellent pastry cook; Paquette worked at embroidery; the old woman looked after the linen. They were all, not excepting Friar Giroflee, of some service or other; for he made a good joiner, and became a very honest man.

Pangloss sometimes said to Candide:

"There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts."

"All that is very well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden."

FOOTNOTES:

P. 2. The name Pangloss is derived from two Greek words signifying "all" and "language."

P. 8. The Abares were a tribe of Tartars settled on the shores of the Danube, who later dwelt in part of Circassia.

P. 15. Venereal disease was said to have been first brought from Hispaniola, in the West Indies, by some followers of Columbus who were later employed in the siege of Naples. From this latter circumstance it was at one time known as the Neapolitan disease.

P. 19. The great earthquake of Lisbon happened on the first of November, 1755.

P. 20. Such was the aversion of the Japanese to the Christian faith that they compelled Europeans trading with their islands to trample on the cross, renounce all marks of Christianity, and swear that it was not their religion. See chap. xi. of the voyage to Laputa in Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

P. 23. This auto-da-fe actually took place, some months after the earthquake, on June 20, 1756.

P. 23. The rejection of bacon convicting them, of course, of being Jews, and therefore fitting victims for an auto-da-fe.

P. 24. The San-benito was a kind of loose over-garment painted with flames, figures of devils, the victim's own portrait, etc., worn by persons condemned to death by the Inquisition when going to the stake on the occasion of an auto-da-fe. Those who expressed repentance for their errors wore a garment of the same kind covered with flames directed downwards, while that worn by Jews, sorcerers, and renegades bore a St. Andrew's cross before and behind.

P. 26. "This Notre-Dame is of wood; every year she weeps on the day of her fete, and the people weep also. One day the preacher, seeing a carpenter with dry eyes, asked him how it was that he did not dissolve in tears when the Holy Virgin wept. 'Ah, my reverend father,' replied he, 'it is I who refastened her in her niche yesterday. I drove three great nails through her behind; it is then she would have wept if she had been able.'"--Voltaire, Melanges.

P. 42. The following posthumous note of Voltaire's was first added to M. Beuchot's edition of his works issued in 1829; "See the extreme discretion of the author; there has not been up to the present any Pope named Urban X.; he feared to give a bastard to a known Pope. What circumspection! What delicacy of conscience!" The last Pope Urban was the eighth, and he died in 1644.

P. 45. Muley-Ismael was Emperor of Morocco from 1672 to 1727, and was a notoriously cruel tyrant.

P. 47. "Oh, what a misfortune to be an eunuch!"

P. 48. Carlo Broschi, called Farinelli, an Italian singer, born at Naples in 1705, without being exactly Minister, governed Spain under Ferdinand VI.; he died in 1782. He has been made one of the chief persons in one of the comic operas of MM. Auber and Scribe.

P. 53. Jean Robeck, a Swede, who was born in 1672, will be found mentioned in Rousseau's Nouvelle Heloise. He drowned himself in the Weser at Bremen in 1729, and was the author of a Latin treatise on voluntary death, first printed in 1735.

P. 60. A spontoon was a kind of half-pike, a military weapon carried by officers of infantry and used as a medium for signalling orders to the regiment.

P. 64. Later Voltaire substituted the name of the Father Croust for that of Didrie. Of Croust he said in the Dictionnaire Philosophique that he was "the most brutal of the Society."

P. 68. By the Journal of Trevoux Voltaire meant a critical periodical printed by the Jesuits at Trevoux under the title of Memoires pour servir a l'Historie des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts. It existed from 1701 until 1767, during which period its title underwent many changes.

P. 76. It has been suggested that Voltaire, in speaking of red sheep, referred to the llama, a South American ruminant allied to the camel. These animals are sometimes of a reddish colour, and were notable as pack-carriers and for their fleetness.

P. 78. The first English translator curiously gives "a tourene of bouilli that weighed two hundred pounds," as the equivalent of "un contour bouilli qui pesait deux cent livres." The French editor of the 1869 reprint points out that the South American vulture, or condor, is meant; the name of this bird, it may be added, is taken from "cuntur," that given it by the aborigines.

P. 90. Spanish half-crowns.

P. 99. Socinians; followers of the teaching of Lalius and Faustus Socinus (16th century), which denied the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the personality of the devil, the native and total depravity of man, the vicarious atonement and eternal punishment. The Socinians are now represented by the Unitarians. Manicheans; followers of Manes or Manichaeus (3rd century), a Persian who maintained that there are two principles, the one good and the other evil, each equally powerful in the government of the world.

P. 107. In the 1759 editions, in place of the long passage in brackets from here to page 215, there was only the following: "'Sir,' said the Perigordian Abbe to him, 'have you noticed that young person who has so roguish a face and so fine a figure? You may have her for ten thousand francs a month, and fifty thousand crowns in diamonds.' 'I have only a day or two to give her,' answered Candide, 'because I have a rendezvous at Venice.' In the evening after supper the insinuating Perigordian redoubled his politeness and attentions."

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