Candide is expelled from the Baron's castle

Candide's expulsion from the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh's castle for loving Cunegonde is recalled at the novel's close as the first link in a chain of reversals that brought Candide to his present life. The event marks the loss of his original home and later becomes part of Pangloss's argument that every misfortune belongs to an interconnected course of events.

Cause and Expulsion

The account identifies love for Cunegonde as the reason Candide was expelled from the Baron's magnificent castle. It presents the expulsion as an established fact of Candide's past, without retelling the scene or specifying further circumstances. Its immediate consequence, as recalled, was Candide's removal from the protected household where his story began.

Later Recollection

Near the end of the narrative, Pangloss reminds Candide that, had he not been driven from the castle for love of Cunegonde, he would not now be with the others eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts. The expulsion is thus set beside later ordeals, including Candide's punishment by the Inquisition, his travels across America, his stabbing of the Baron, and the loss of his sheep from El Dorado. Pangloss treats these events as links in one concatenation rather than as unrelated accidents.

Narrative Significance

The recollection gives the expulsion a double role: it is an early separation from Candide's former home and, in Pangloss's retrospective logic, a necessary condition of the group's present circumstances. Candide answers that reasoning by turning from the chain of explanations toward the practical proposal that they cultivate their garden. The episode therefore remains part of the history Pangloss uses to defend his philosophy, while the ending places that defense beside Candide's preference for useful work.