King of El Dorado

The King of El Dorado receives Candide and Cacambo with open-handed courtesy, and, when they ask to leave, refuses to turn his authority into a means of keeping them. His welcome, his respect for their choice, and his practical help in facing the dangers beyond his kingdom make him a revealing figure in a land whose abundance does not depend on coercion.

Welcome and Courtly Customs

After Candide and Cacambo’s conversation with an elderly resident, the King arranges a coach drawn by six sheep and sends twelve of his household servants to escort them to court. He apologizes that his age prevents him from accompanying them, but assures them that the King will receive them well and asks them to allow for local customs. The elaborate welcome that follows makes the royal court less forbidding than the travelers expect: the King’s custom is to embrace him and kiss each cheek. Candide and Cacambo do so, and the King receives them kindly and invites them to supper.

The welcome is set against a city whose public buildings seem to rise to the clouds and whose squares have flowing fountains of spring water, rose water, and sugar-cane liqueur. Candide learns that the country has no courts of justice, lawsuits, or prisons; the palace of sciences, with its long gallery of mathematical and physical instruments, impresses him especially. These reported features supply the setting for the King’s conduct: his reception is warm and informal, in a society presented as having little need for the legal institutions familiar to the travelers.

Hospitality and the Choice to Leave

Despite the welcome, Candide does not want to remain. He tells Cacambo that the castle where he was born is nothing beside this country, but that Cunegonde is absent; he also argues that leaving with twelve sheep laden with El Dorado’s riches could make them wealthier than Europe’s kings and help them recover her. Cacambo agrees, and the travelers ask the King’s permission to depart. Their decision makes the King’s hospitality a test of whether welcome can coexist with freedom to go.

The King calls their choice foolish, reasoning that anyone comfortably settled should stay, but does not use his power to overrule them. He says that he has no right to detain strangers: such tyranny is forbidden by the country’s manners and laws, and all people are free to leave when they wish. His answer gives the scene its central contrast: he can judge their decision unwise while still recognizing their right to make it.

The Difficult Road and the King’s Limits

The King does not disguise the cost of their choice. The travelers entered by a rapid river running beneath vaulted rocks, but it is impossible to ascend it again; the mountains surrounding the kingdom are ten thousand feet high, more than ten leagues across, and steep as walls, with only precipices as a way down. The country is therefore difficult to leave not because the King imprisons its visitors, but because its geography makes departure perilous.

When Candide and Cacambo persist, the King orders his engineers to construct a machine to carry them safely over the mountains. He also explains that no subject can accompany them farther: the people have vowed never to leave the kingdom and are too wise, in his view, to break that vow. His authority can arrange assistance for the departing strangers, but it cannot make his subjects abandon their own commitment. Candide asks for sheep laden with provisions, precious stones, and soil from the country; the King’s offer to grant further requests leaves their departure framed as a permitted choice, not an expulsion.

Narrative Significance

The King’s brief appearance complicates the travelers’ encounter with an ideal society. Candide has already compared the country favorably with Westphalia and the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh’s castle, yet its comfort cannot supply what he most wants: Cunegonde. The King does not dismiss that absence or try to keep the travelers by force. Instead, he provides a welcome, states the practical danger of leaving, and offers engineering help when they persist.

That combination of abundance and restraint separates the King from a ruler defined solely by possession or command. His people’s vow to remain and his refusal to detain outsiders are distinct limits: the first binds his subjects by their own promise, while the second governs how he treats strangers. The travelers’ departure thus exposes a tension at the heart of their visit: a place may offer extraordinary security and comfort, but it cannot make those conditions a substitute for the attachments and ambitions that draw people elsewhere.