"Let them eat cake" ------ Candid

Voltaire’s Candid is one of the most famous satires in literature. Its first three chapters tell the story of young Candid, who was raised in the castle of a rich Baron, the best castle in the entire world (ch 1). Here he fell in love with a young woman and for that he was exiled from his most perfect home. Afterwards he reaches a town an there he is invited to eat by three gentlemen who, after cleverly talking with Candid, recruit him for the army without him realizing it. In the army, he does his job well after many beatings, but he believes he can still live like he did before and walks out freely. When he is caught he is giving an extreme beating. Later on during a battle he is able to desert the army and he reaches Holland. There he is attacked by a conservative Christian because he didn’t know about the Pope. Scared and alone, he is received by a generous non-Christian who gives him food and shelter. I expect this to be only the beginning of Candid’s problems in the real world.
This novel is a clear satire of high society of the time. The first chapter describes the environment in which Candid was raised, a rich Castle with a rich family and mentored by the greatest mind of the time. Voltaire mocks this alleged superiority to the rest of the world by showing what absurd things are important to them and how they think. “The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle had not only a gate, but even windows, and his great hall was hung with tapestry (ch 1).” When I read this I found it very funny, the greatest power of the land is measured by a castle that not only had a gate but windows? That is ridiculous! Voltaire attacks the materialism of the high class, he says that the Baron is great because he hunted with mastiffs and spaniels instead of greyhounds, if that be the case, just save for a mastiff and you’re set as royalty! Voltaire then describes the Baroness in a hilarious manner: “My Lady Baroness, who weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, consequently was a person of no small consideration; and then she did the honors of the house with a dignity that commanded universal respect (ch1).” By being an enormous woman, all the adjectives that the speaker uses have the exact opposite effect of their original purpose. “She was of no small consideration” regarding a normal-sized woman would describe her as powerful or capable, but in the Baroness it simply states her weight.
In this chapter, the most hilarious thing is Master Pangloss. This teacher is the greatest philosopher in Westphalia who thinks everything is perfectly done in the world. "It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.” Pangloss’ rationale is very fallacious, he uses circular reasoning for his explanation and, Candid in his ingenuity, believes him. Worse is Pangloss’ examples of this, he says noses are made for spectacles and therefore they use spectacles, or that pork was made to be eaten so they eat pork all year. This is the most absurd examples I have heard. Yet, because Master Pangloss is the family’s philosopher, and therefore the best, we have to believe every word he says.
Another theme found in these three chapters is high class naivety. When Candid is exiled he reaches a town and has tremendous idealist thoughts.

"Have you not a great affection for-"
"O yes! I have a great affection for
the lovely Miss Cunegund. (ch 2)"

What kind of person thinks a complete stranger will state that when he doesn’t know it? Candid thinks he is very important and all his life is very important when in reality that is not the case. Next to this pompousness, Candid thinks two men in uniform treat him so well because they want to be his friends. Even before he was recruited a conscious person would have known they were army officers. He was also naïve enough to think that in the army you were still free, despite being beat several times. He decides to walk freely and in doing so he is breaking the law. His belief in a world created in the “best possible way” makes him think there is no evil in this world.
We can also see the bubble in which high class lives, how could Candid not know about the Pope or the King? According to Voltaire, since they have the money to live comfortably in any situation, the high class doesn’t need to know about anything relevant, they only have to know that they are in that position because it was decided to be so. That reminded me of Marie Antoinette’s comment during the French Revolution, “If they can’t have bread, let them eat cake.”
In this chapter, Voltaire also mocks war. He starts describing with majestic adjectives the killing of 30,000 men like it was a valiant and great thing. In this way he illustrates the sarcasm and hypocrisy of nobles and royalty who favor war because they are not the ones who fight it.

Never was anything so gallant, so well accoutred, so brilliant, and so finely
disposed as the two armies. The trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon
made such harmony as never was heard in Hell itself. The entertainment began by
a discharge of cannon, which, in the twinkling of an eye, laid flat about 6,000
men on each side. The musket bullets swept away, out of the best of all possible
worlds, nine or ten thousand scoundrels that infested its surface. The bayonet
was next the sufficient reason of the deaths of several thousands. The whole
might amount to thirty thousand souls. (ch 3)

This reminded me about phrases like “The Glory of War”, “Noble knights” or “The Beauty of Battle”. All of these I have heard and clearly these were not done by the warriors who fought the battles. War is terrible for anyone who lives it, but only the ones who create it, like kings, enjoy it.