Latest / The Voltaire Library / Candide Chapter 6 - How the Portuguese Made a Beautiful Auto-Da-Fé, to Prevent Any Further Earthquakes: and How Candide Was Publicly Whipped

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Candide Chapter 6 - How the Portuguese Made a Beautiful Auto-Da-Fé, to Prevent Any Further Earthquakes: and How Candide Was Publicly Whipped · The Voltaire Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: CHAPTER VI. After the earthquake had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the sages of that country could think of no means
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  Speaker 1: more effectual to prevent utter ruin than to give the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: people a beautiful autodefay. For it had been decided by
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the University of Coimbra, that the burning of a few
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony,
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  Speaker 1: is an infallible secret to hinder the earth from quaking.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: In consequence hereof, they had seized on a Biscayner, convicted
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  Speaker 1: of having married his godmother, and on two Portuguese for
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  Speaker 1: rejecting the bacon which larded a chicken they were eating.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: After dinner they came and secured Dr. Pangloss and his
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  Speaker 1: disciple Candide, the one for speaking his mind, the other
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  Speaker 1: for having listened with an air of approbation. They were
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  Speaker 1: conducted to separate apartments, extremely cold, as they were never
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  Speaker 1: incommoded by the sun. Eight days after they were dressed
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  Speaker 1: in San Benito's, and their heads ornamented with paper miters.
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  Speaker 1: The mitre and San Benito, belonging to Candide, were painted
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  Speaker 1: with reversed flames, and with devils that had neither tails
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  Speaker 1: nor claws. But Pangloss's devils had claws and tails, and
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  Speaker 1: the flames were upright. They marched in procession, thus habited,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and heard a very pathetic sermon, followed by fine church music.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Candide was whipped in the cadence while they were singing,
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  Speaker 1: the Biscayner and the two men who had refused to
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  Speaker 1: eat bacon were burnt, and Pangloss was hanged, though that
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  Speaker 1: was not the custom. The same day the earth sustained
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a most violent concussion. Candide, terrified, amazed, desperate, all bloody,
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  Speaker 1: all palpitating, said to himself.
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  Speaker 2: If this is the best of possible worlds— What then
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  Speaker 2: are the others? Well, if I had been only whipped,
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  Speaker 2: I could put up with it, for I experience that
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: among the Bulgarians. But, oh, my dear Pangloss, thou greatest
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: of philosophers, that I should have seen you hanged, without
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  Speaker 2: knowing for what, oh, my dear Anabaptist, thou best of men,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: that thou shouldst have been drowned in the very harbour.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: O Miss Cunegonda, thou pearl of girls, that thou shouldst
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: have had thy belly ripped open.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Thus he was musing, scarce able to stand, preached at, whipped, absolved,
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  Speaker 1: and blessed, when an old woman accosted him, saying, My.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Son, take courage, and follow me.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Savannah, Georgia