Various notes and references for readers of Voltaire's Candide

• "The best of all possible worlds":  German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz coined this phrase as part of his attempt to solve the problem of evil (in his "Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil," 1710).  If God is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, how can there be evil in the world?  Leibniz believed in determinism:  the concept that cause and effect govern all events, in such a way that each state of the universe is necessarily caused by previous conditions; therefore, if the current state could be sufficiently known, the next resulting state could always be determined. 
      Leibniz' philosophy did not eliminate the role of God, but assumed that He had created the universe and set it in motion – that He was the "first cause" from which all later causes and efects flowed.  On this basis, Leibniz could not ignore good and evil events as mere unrelated accidents, and neither could he suggest that an omnipotent God wantonly caused evil things to happen even to people who deserved better.  He proposed instead that there must be complex interactions between good and evil, so that there cannot be all good in the worlds as we know it, but that God must have chosen this as the "optimum" or best possible world out of all possible worlds.  (This was not meant to say it was a very good one.)  See also Wikipedia article on "best of all possible worlds."
  
  
• Optimism:  The word ("optimisme" in French) referred strictly to Leibniz' philosophical argument that this world is the "optimum" (Latin, "best").  Commentators on Leibniz referred to this philosophical position based on the "optimum" as "optimisme."  Not until Voltaire used it as the sub-title of Candide had anyone used the word "optimism" in common speech.  The modern meaning, of an attitude that things will generally turn out well, came later, and was a direct result of the popularity of Candide..
  
  
• Character names:  Many of the character names in Candide are plays on words, some of them rude; and their intent probably would have been obvious to French readers.  Only the few characters Voltaire intended to be taken more seriously (such as Martin and the Anabaptist James) were given normal names.  For example:
  
  
  • Candide:  Open, frank, ingenuous.
    
    
  • Cunégonde:  There was a heroine in German legends named Kunigunda of Slavonia, queen consort of Bohemia, known for her virtue; but by altering the French spelling to cuné– and gonde, Voltaire probably meant to imply large (female) genitals.  Higher-minded readers could ignore this aspect and just think of Kunigunda.
    
    
  • Pangloss:  Greek for "all tongue."  He was a "professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology," i.e., the study of metaphysical, theological, cosmological nothing.
    
    
  • Paquette:  A package.
    
    
  • Bulgarians: In Voltaire's society, the Bulgarians (Fr. "Bulgares") were considered rude and barely civilized, as well as heretics (Albigensians); and the French slang term "bougare," or sodomite, from which we get "bugger," originally came from "Bulgare."  Voltaire was probably intentionally conflating the Bulgarians with the Prussians, making a reference to Frederick the Great, who called himself "King of the Prussians," as "King of the Buggers."  (Frederick was widely believed to be homosexual.  Frederick himself was actually a great admirer of Voltaire, praised the book Candide, and may never have realized he was being rudely insulted.)
    
    
  • Cacambo: From caca, slang for excrement.
  
  
• Westphalia:  Usual English name for the duchy of Westfalen.  In Voltaire's time, a fairly small duchy in the Holy Roman Empire.  See maps here and here.  Voltaire's description mocks (among other things) the divided status of what is now Germany, including numerous small "duchies," "principalities," "kingdoms," etc., remnants of the feudal past, each one claiming pretentions of grandeur and aristocracy equal to (for instance) the kingdoms of France or England, despite their often modest real wealth or power.  Similar attitudes can be seen as to Italy, which at that time was also divided into numerous small states.
  
  
• Persecution for not believing the Pope was the Antichrist:  a realistic concern at this time in Protestant states in Germany – while one might be in at least equal danger for not believing the Pope was God's vicar on earth, in the duchy next door.
  
  
• Manichaean:  Martin claims to be a Manichaean.  The followers of the Persian prophet Mani, in the 3rd century AD, believed that the unverse was governed primarily by two opposing forces, light (spiritual, good), and darkness (material, evil).  St. Augustine of Hippo was a Manichaean as a young adult.  The Manichaean philosophy or religion was probably influenced by the older Zoroastrianism or Mazdaism, which taught that the creator god Ahura Mazda was all good, and the source of evil must be another force, identified with the being Angra Mainyu or Ahriman.  Zoroastrianism was firmly polytheistic, with a complex pantheon.  Manichaeanism, on the other hand, did not rely on consistently identified gods, although like Buddhism, it could incorporate those of other faiths.  It became a major religion of the Western world between the third and seventh ceturies, and considered by many a reasonable view of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit – at some times Jesus, and sometimes the Holy Spirit, was identified as the "paraclete," or advocate of Light – but it was eventually ruled to be heresy.  The Cathar and Albigensian churches of Western Europe in later centuries were influenced by Manichaean ideas; the "Albigensian Crusade" of 13th-century France was fought to suppress neo-Manichaean preaching, and the Inquisition was originally instituted largely for the same reason.
  
  
• Inquisition:  Refers to an official institution within the Church, headed by a Grand Inquisitor and staffed by ecclesiastical and supporting personnel.  For many years the duties of the Inquisition were assigned specifically to the Dominican order.  In 1542 it was formalized as a Congregation of the Roman Church, the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition; it is now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 
      The Portuguese Inquisition was at least as dominant and feared as that in Spain.  It held official power from about 1497 to 1821, with one brief respite in 1676-81, and continued to hold "autos-da-fé" from 1540 until 1774.
  
  
• Auto-da-fé:  Portuguese for "act of faith," specifically referring to the "purification" of those who had been found guilty by the Inquisition; in Voltaire's time, typically involved a public Mass, procession, and denunciation and punishment of the guilty, sometimes including torture and often burning.  As Voltaire describes, the prisoners were ofen clothed in garments illustrated to represent their crimes, punishment, or both.  The most frequent of its thousands of victims were Jews or those suspected of Jewish sympathies; thus the references to refusing to eat bacon.  Voltaire was no friend of the Jews, but also not of religious persecution.
  
  
• Lisbon earthquake:  November 1, 1755; the worst in modern European history, probably reached magnitude 9, destoyed Lisbon and caused great destruction in surrounding areas.  The death toll may have approached 100,000.  Striking on All Saints' Day, and destroying many major churches in a strictly Catholic country, it influenced the thinking of various philosophers, not only Voltaire.
  
  
• Voyages in South America:  See map here for easy reference to places.
  
  
• Jesuits and generals:  The principal of the Society of Jesus is the "Superior General," and the Order long had a hierarchy that appeared military; Voltaire is also referring to the actual militancy of the Society in colonies including the New World.  Voltaire was obviously no admirer of the Jesuits, and also lampoons them as harboring homosexual relationships (e.g., his clear descriptions of Cunégonde's brother, who was "very pretty," for whom the Superior of the order conceived "the tenderest affection").  Voltaire reportedly told acquaintances that he had been sexually abused as a child by a Jesuit priest.
  
  
• El Dorado:  "The gilded one."  Originally the name of the legendary king of Manoa, a Muisca (Chibcha, Columbian) city in which the roofs were made of solid gold.  The king in legend was covered with powdered gold, either once or periodically on special occasions, and so known as "the gilded one."  Eventually the name was transferred to the legendary location, rather than the person, and it was sought by explorers from Orellana to Pizarro to Sir Walter Raleigh.
  
  
• Red sheep:  Probably llamas, which are sometimes reddish-brown; possibly confused with alpacas.
  
  
• Killing one Admiral to encourage the others:  Refers to an actual incident in 1757, in which British Admiral John Byng was shot as sentenced by court-martial.  This was a result of a "zero tolerance" law in the Articles of War, that had been passed only recently as a result of outrage over the dereliction of duty of another (more junior) officer.  Byng was convicted of failing to do his utmost to dislodge the French from Minorca, despite the fact that he was greatly outnumbered and had been appealing for additional troops and repairs to his ships.  Death was the mandatory sentence, and was carried out despite the high regard in which he was held by other senior officers – who, however, were dissuaded from speaking in his behalf.
  
  
• Theatin friar:  The Theatines were a mendicant (begging) order of Italian monks, founded at Chieti (Theate) in 1524 specifically to oppose the Protestant Reformation, in part by setting an example of piety and virtue to others of the clergy.
  
  
• The old woman:  Never named, but claims to be the daughter of Pope Urban X and of the Princess of Palestrina.  As Voltaire pointed out in a footnote, there was actually no Pope Urban X; this is intentionally an elision of the characters of various Popes.  The last Urban (VIII), Maffeo Barberini, Pope from 1623 to 1644, was noted for his militancy; he conquered additional lands for the Papal States, fortfied the Castel Sant'Angelo, and created an armory in the Vatican.  He was also known for his nepotism:  his family commune (municipality) was Palestrina, about 20 miles east of Rome.  Urban created the title "Prince of Palestrina" for his brother; it was not previously a principality.  He is not particularly believed to have had any children; the last Pope who certainly fathered any while Pope was Alexander VI (1492–1503), Roderic de Borja i Borja or Rodrigo Borgia, whose seven to ten illegitimate offspring included Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia.  However, a later Don Maffeo Barberini, Urban's grand-nephew, married the grand-niece of another Pope, Innocent X, in a politically arranged marriage that was celebrated by the Pope himself.  The unwilling bride was 12 years old, and refused to consummate the marriage, causing a notorious scandal.
  
  
• The Propontis:  Old name for the Sea of Marmara, the body of water between the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, near Constantinople (Istanbul). See map here.