Candide - Voltaire (world of reading txt) 📗

will bring you, tomorrow, twenty pamphlets written against him.”22

“How many dramas have you in France, sir?” said Candide to the Abbé.

“Five or six thousand.”

“What a number!” said Candide. “How many good?”

“Fifteen or sixteen,” replied the other.

“What a number!” said Martin.

Candide was very pleased with an actress who played Queen Elizabeth in a somewhat insipid tragedy23 sometimes acted.

“That actress,” said he to Martin, “pleases me much; she has a likeness to Miss Cunégonde; I should be very glad to wait upon her.”

The Perigordian Abbé offered to introduce him. Candide, brought up in Germany, asked what was the etiquette, and how they treated queens of England in France.

“It is necessary to make distinctions,” said the Abbé. “In the provinces one takes them to the inn; in Paris, one respects them when they are beautiful, and throws them on the highway when they are dead.”24

“Queens on the highway!” said Candide.

“Yes, truly,” said Martin, “the Abbé is right. I was in Paris when Miss Monime passed, as the saying is, from this life to the other. She was refused what people call the honours of sepulture⁠—that is to say, of rotting with all the beggars of the neighbourhood in an ugly cemetery; she was interred all alone by her company at the corner of the Rue de Bourgogne, which ought to trouble her much, for she thought nobly.”

“That was very uncivil,” said Candide.

“What would you have?” said Martin; “these people are made thus. Imagine all contradictions, all possible incompatibilities⁠—you will find them in the government, in the law-courts, in the churches, in the public shows of this droll nation.”

“Is it true that they always laugh in Paris?” said Candide.

“Yes,” said the Abbé, “but it means nothing, for they complain of everything with great fits of laughter; they even do the most detestable things while laughing.”

“Who,” said Candide, “is that great pig who spoke so ill of the piece at which I wept, and of the actors who gave me so much pleasure?”

“He is a bad character,” answered the Abbé, “who gains his livelihood by saying evil of all plays and of all books. He hates whatever succeeds, as the eunuchs hate those who enjoy; he is one of the serpents of literature who nourish themselves on dirt and spite; he is a folliculaire.”

“What is a folliculaire?” said Candide.

“It is,” said the Abbé, “a pamphleteer⁠—a Fréron.”25

Thus Candide, Martin, and the Perigordian conversed on the staircase, while watching everyone go out after the performance.

“Although I am eager to see Cunégonde again,” said Candide, “I should like to sup with Miss Clairon, for she appears to me admirable.”

The Abbé was not the man to approach Miss Clairon, who saw only good company.

“She is engaged for this evening,” he said, “but I shall have the honour to take you to the house of a lady of quality, and there you will know Paris as if you had lived in it for years.”

Candide, who was naturally curious, let himself be taken to this lady’s house, at the end of the Faubourg St. Honoré. The company was occupied in playing faro; a dozen melancholy punters held each in his hand a little pack of cards; a bad record of his misfortunes. Profound silence reigned; pallor was on the faces of the punters, anxiety on that of the banker, and the hostess, sitting near the unpitying banker, noticed with lynx-eyes all the doubled and other increased stakes, as each player dog’s-eared his cards; she made them turn down the edges again with severe, but polite attention; she showed no vexation for fear of losing her customers. The lady insisted upon being called the Marchioness of Parolignac. Her daughter, aged fifteen, was among the punters, and notified with a covert glance the cheatings of the poor people who tried to repair the cruelties of fate. The Perigordian Abbé, Candide and Martin entered; no one rose, no one saluted them, no one looked at them; all were profoundly occupied with their cards.

“The Baroness of Thunder-ten-Tronckh was more polite,” said Candide.

However, the Abbé whispered to the Marchioness, who half rose, honoured Candide with a gracious smile, and Martin with a condescending nod; she gave a seat and a pack of cards to Candide, who lost fifty thousand francs in two deals, after which they supped very gaily, and everyone was astonished that Candide was not moved by his loss; the servants said among themselves, in the language of servants:⁠—

“Some English lord is here this evening.”

The supper passed at first like most Parisian suppers, in silence, followed by a noise of words which could not be distinguished, then with pleasantries of which most were insipid, with false news, with bad reasoning, a little politics, and much evil speaking; they also discussed new books.

“Have you seen,” said the Perigordian Abbé, “the romance of Sieur Gauchat, doctor of divinity?”26

“Yes,” answered one of the guests, “but I have not been able to finish it. We have a crowd of silly writings, but all together do not approach the impertinence of ‘Gauchat, Doctor of Divinity.’ I am so satiated with the great number of detestable books with which we are inundated that I am reduced to punting at faro.”

“And the Mélanges of Archdeacon Trublet,27 what do you say of that?” said the Abbé.

“Ah!” said the Marchioness of Parolignac, “the wearisome mortal! How curiously he repeats to you all that the world knows! How heavily he discusses that which is not worth the trouble of lightly remarking upon! How, without wit, he appropriates the wit of others! How he spoils what he steals! How he disgusts me! But he will disgust me no longer⁠—it is enough to have read a few of the Archdeacon’s pages.”

There was at table a wise man of taste, who supported the Marchioness. They spoke afterwards of tragedies; the lady asked why there were tragedies which were sometimes played and which could not be