Inquisition

The Inquisition in Candide is an institution whose ceremonies claim religious authority while serving as instruments of public punishment and private coercion. Its attempt to avert earthquakes through an auto-da-fé fails immediately, and its Grand Inquisitor also uses the threat of such a ceremony to pressure Don Issachar over Cunegonde.

The auto-da-fé in Lisbon

After an earthquake had destroyed much of Lisbon, the University of Coimbra declared that a ceremonial burning of people would prevent further quakes. Acting on this supposed remedy, authorities seized a Biscayner accused of marrying his godmother and two Portuguese men whose refusal to eat bacon marked them as Jewish. They also arrested Pangloss for speaking openly and Candide for appearing to approve of him.

Eight days later, the prisoners were dressed in San-benitos and paper mitres, then marched in procession and made to hear a sermon accompanied by church music. The garments distinguished among the condemned: Candide’s bore reversed flames and devils without tails or claws, while Pangloss’s had upright flames and devils with claws and tails. Candide was publicly whipped; the three other lay prisoners were burned, and Pangloss was hanged, although the account notes that hanging was not the custom. That same day, another violent earthquake struck. The ceremony therefore produced suffering without achieving the prevention it purported to guarantee. An accompanying note dates the historical auto-da-fé to June 20, 1756, months after the earthquake.

Garments and judicial display

The San-benito is described in a note as a loose overgarment painted with flames, devils, and sometimes the condemned person’s portrait, worn by people sentenced to death as they went to the stake. Its decoration could mark a distinction in how the wearer was classified: penitents wore flames directed downward, while garments for Jews, sorcerers, and renegades bore a St. Andrew’s cross on front and back. In the Lisbon episode, the mitres and garments make punishment visible as a public, religiously staged classification, while the contrasting details assigned to Candide and Pangloss distinguish their cases within the same procession.

The Grand Inquisitor and Cunegonde

The Inquisition’s authority also enters the private contest over Cunegonde. After seeing her at Mass, the Grand Inquisitor summoned her and argued that her rank made it beneath her to belong to Don Issachar, a Jewish court banker. Don Issachar refused to surrender her; the Grand Inquisitor threatened him with an auto-da-fé. The dispute ended in an agreement that divided access to the house and Cunegonde by days of the week. Cunegonde says she resisted both men, but the arrangement itself shows religious authority operating as leverage in a struggle over a woman’s freedom and a rival’s property.

The Grand Inquisitor later held an auto-da-fé ostensibly to avert earthquakes and intimidate Don Issachar. Cunegonde was invited and given a place to watch. She recognized Pangloss among the condemned and then saw Candide publicly punished. After the Inquisitor was killed, the theft of his jewels helped expose the fugitives’ route: a Grey Friar who had stolen them tried to sell diamonds recognized as the Inquisitor’s, confessed when caught, and disclosed their description and course of escape. An officer’s vessel pursued Candide and Cunegonde to Buenos Ayres, where the Old Woman advised Cunegonde to remain because the Governor loved her and she herself had not killed the Inquisitor.

Narrative function and limits

Later, Pangloss folds Candide’s experiences, including being put into the Inquisition, into his claim that events form a necessary chain in the best of all possible worlds. Candide answers by turning from that explanation toward practical work. The episode’s repeated connection between persecution and supposed necessity exposes the distance between institutional justification and outcome: the Lisbon ceremony does not stop the earthquake, and the Inquisitor’s threat helps drive a personal conflict rather than establish justice. The account presents specific abuses and consequences; it does not provide a full description of the Inquisition’s organization beyond these scenes.