Of primary interest in these chapters is the old philosopher, Martin. In important ways, he stood for the attitude of Pierre Bayle, just as Pangloss did for Leibnitz. A word about Bayle is therefore in order. Voltaire had discovered him early, and particularly after the Lisbon earthquake his letters were filled with eulogies of him as the leading opponent of optimistic philosophy. Bayle (1647-1706), lexicographer, philosopher, critic, had been a Protestant who became a Catholic and then reverted to protestantism. At last, in faith he became a Pyrrhonian (an adherent to the system of gnosiology, which treats of the sources, limits, and validity of knowledge, and which inculcates skepticism). In a word, he was an absolute skeptic. Voltaire was especially attracted to him because he was a champion of tolerance in opinion. His attack on superstitions, his view of morality as being independent of religion, were set forth at sufficient length, especially in his Penséees sur la comòte (1682) and his greatest work, the Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697), which was enlarged in 1702 and supplemented in 1704-06 by Réponses aux questiones d'un provincial, wherein he paid close attention to philosophical and theological subjects that called for free investigation. These works recommended themselves to the philosophes, among whom Voltaire was numbered, in the author's espousal of the sovereignty of reason and his effort to remove all obstacles to its supremacy. Voltaire made Martin a Manichean who believed in two nearly equal forces of good and evil: God punished the vicious Dutch captain, but the Devil was responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people. Thus Voltaire was not arguing that evil prevailed everywhere. After all, there were men of good will like the youthful Candide, and others like the Anabaptist and the old woman and the faithful Cacambo who were humane individuals. But to ignore the extent of evil manifested at both private and public levels and to tell one's self that ultimately good emerged from it was to blind one's self to reality.
Years before Pope was to write his Essay on Man, the dictum "Whatever is, is right" had been defended by Archbishop William King in his De origine mali (1702). Bayle provided the most eloquent and telling rebuttal. How, he asked, can evil occur if the creator is infinitely good, infinitely wise, infinitely powerful? Thus Bayle emphatically rejected providentialism, as does Martin in this section. For Martin, summing up his long experiences, most men are predatory animals, cruel and unscrupulous. And if the guilty are occasionally punished, the innocent in great numbers suffer.
It is of interest to learn that Voltaire did not readily reject the optimistic philosophy. In the first of his philosophical tales, Zadig (1747), he was not without optimism. His hero, like Candide, experienced great difficulties in his travels. He was nearly strangled in Babylon, barely escaped being roasted to death in Barra, was impaled by bonzes in Serendip, and enslaved in Egypt. Understandably, he questioned the theory of providentialism. But he finally was told by an angel that there is no evil in the world from which good does not arise. The Voltaire of Candide, published twelve years later, no longer could accept this point of view. He rejected the views of Leibnitz, Wolff, Bolingbroke, and Pope: there was overwhelming evidence that all was not for the best in this world.
It was inevitable that Voltaire would have Candide and Martin visit Paris before going on to Venice and the possible reunion with Cunégonde. This gave him the chance to satirize the foibles and vices of the town. First were the unscrupulous, parasitical fortune hunters in the persons of the contemptible group, including a cleric who sought to capitalize on Candide's illness and convalescence. They remind one of the vultures in human form who fawned over the wealthy Volpone in Jonson's well-known comedy. The difference is that Volpone, the Fox, was fully aware of their intentions and succeeded in turning the tables on them. The young, inexperienced Candide could not hold his own against the group who sought to victimize him.
The avaricious abbé who conducted Candide and Martin about Paris, showing him life in so-called high society at the theater and the salon, was a particularly well-realized character. There was sufficient viciousness in the urban world Voltaire described, what with its cheats, its purveyors of slander, its bogus aristocrats, its officers of the law who are only too easily bribed, its courtesans. But the beaux, fops, and would-be wits who peopled the scene are reminiscent of those depicted in Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock.
It is Voltaire the literary critic who proved most interesting in this section. In other works, for example the satiric Le Pauvre Diable (1758), he had attacked the "writing rabble." Having himself been the target of adversely critical remarks made by would-be critics, Voltaire made the most of the chance to castigate the breed. In order to provide evidence of the critic's intellectual limitations, he quoted him as denouncing the playwright as "a man who does not believe in innate ideas." Voltaire himself followed Locke's view of the mind as originally tabula rasa, a blank slate or tablet, rather than Descartes' theory of innate ideas.
On two occasions, the author provided some personal satire. When Candide asked the abbé what he meant by "hack" the abbé replied: "A man who writes for cheap rags. A F——." The reference is to Fréron (whose name in full is provided in some translations), a journalist with whom Voltaire carried on a bitter feud. And when the abbé asked the Marquise what she thought of Archdeacon — —'s essays and was told that they were a deadly bore, the reference is to the Abbé Trublet, another enemy of Voltaire's.
Other points of interest in this chapter included the following. Satire of religion and churchman was sustained. A cleric was prominent among those who harassed Candide as he lay ill; and, of course, it was another self-interested churchman who conducted Candide and Martin to the theater and to the Marquise's residence. Martin spoke not only of the "writing rabble," but also of the "convulsionary rabble," a hit at the Jansenists, who indulged in manifestations of religious ecstasy or mania. To be noted also is the name Marquise de Parolignac. Paroli has been explained above; the suffic -gnac was common in southwest France, from which area came many impoverished and spurious nobility. Finally, bribery among legal officers was illustrated by the incident where Candide secured his release from prison for a price. Clearly the Paris Voltaire described was corrupt at practically every level of society.
The significant experience Candide and Martin had in England was their witnessing the execution of an English naval officer. The execution actually took place on March 14, 1747, and the unfortunate man was Admiral George Byng, who was court-martialed and found guilty of losing a naval battle to the French in the previous year. Voltaire had tried to intervene to save his life. So, far from being a digression, the report of this incident had its place in the development of the author's major thesis.
