Chapter 6: How the Portuguese made an Auto-Da-Fé to prevent earthquakes, and how Candide was whipped.

After the earthquake which had destroyed three quarters of Lisbon, the sages of the nation could not think of any better way to prevent total ruin than give the people a nice human torch, a spectacle also known as the auto-da-fé . It was decided by the University of Coimbra that the spectacle of having a few people burned in a little fire, accompanied by a grand ceremony, was the infallible key to preventing future earthquakes. 

It was with consequence that a Biscayner, convicted for the crime of marrying his godmother, and two Portuguese who had refused to eat a chicken due to the bacon it was wrapped in, were sentenced to participate in this ceremony. All this came to pass, and after the dinner of Dr. Pangloss and his disciple, Candide, they were sentenced as well, one for having spoken as a heretic, and the other having listened with an air of approbation. Both were separated into apartments of extreme cold, which had never been incommoded by sunlight. 

Eight days later, they were both wearing a san-benito, their heads adorned with pieces of paper, Candide’s painted with reversed flames, and devils which had neither tails nor claws, but the devils of Pangloss had both of these things, and flames without any sort of reversal. They marched in the procession, thus dressed, and listened to a rather pathetic sermon, followed by the most beautiful of music. Candide was whipped in cadence as the singing occurred, the Biscay and the two men who had not wanted to eat the chicken were burned, and Pangloss was hanged. The same day, the earth experienced violent tremors.

Candide, terrified, amazed, desperate, bloody, and palpitating, said to himself, “If this is the best of all possible worlds, what might the others look like? If I was simply whipped, I could endure, for that happened already with the Bulgarians, but my dear Pangloss! Greatest of philosophers! My dear anabaptist, best of men, drowning in this city’s very harbor. And oh, Cunegonde, the pearl of the fairest sex, suffering such injury before your death!

There he remained, unable to stand, preached to, whipped, absolved and blessed, when an old woman said to him, “My boy, take courage. Follow me.”

Translator’s Note: This chapter is one of the most poignant criticisms of religious fanaticism found anywhere in the book. Voltaire employs sarcasm quite blatantly, with lines such as, “Après le tremblement de terre qui avait détruit les trois quarts de Lisbonne, les sages du pays n’avaient pas trouvé un moyen plus efficace pour prévenir une ruine totale que de donner au peuple un bel auto-da-fé.” The original language tended to be unusually direct, compared to other chapters of “Candide,” so much of this excerpt was translated almost word-for-word from the original, with grammar simply being rearranged to fit standard English structure.