Candide — who's who

The illegitimate nephew of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh of Westphalia, raised in the castle on Pangloss's doctrine that this is the best of all possible worlds. Kicked out in Chapter 1 for kissing Cunégonde behind a screen. Press-ganged into the Bulgarian army, flogged for desertion, shipwrecked at Lisbon, whipped at the auto-da-fé, kills a Jewish merchant and a Grand Inquisitor in the same evening, kills Cunégonde's brother in Paraguay (twice), discovers and leaves El Dorado, is swindled in Surinam, defrauded in Paris, watches an English admiral shot, finds Cunégonde in Constantinople, marries her despite her ugliness, and ends the novel cultivating the garden.

Tutor at the Westphalian castle. Voltaire's parody of Leibniz, professor of "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology." Catches syphilis from the chambermaid Paquette in Chapter 1, is hanged at the Lisbon auto-da-fé in Chapter 6, is rediscovered alive on a Turkish galley in Chapter 27 (the rope had been wet, the rain put out the fire that should have burned him, a surgeon dissected him and he revived screaming on the table). Loses an eye and an ear. Concludes from every disaster that everything is still for the best, even after he has stopped quite believing it.

The Baron's daughter, seventeen and rosy at the start of the novel. Watches Pangloss giving a chambermaid a lesson in "experimental natural philosophy" and decides she would like one too. Her parents murdered and her brother apparently killed by Bulgarians; raped, stabbed, and carried off; sold from a Bulgarian captain to the merchant Don Issachar to the Grand Inquisitor of Lisbon, who shares her on alternate days; flees to Cadiz with Candide; is taken from him in Buenos Aires by the Governor; ends as a scullery slave on the Sea of Marmara. Candide finds her in Chapter 29. She has become ugly. He marries her anyway.

Cunégonde's servant from Chapter 6 on. Reveals herself in Chapters 11 and 12 to be the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina. As a young woman: betrothed to a prince poisoned by his ex-mistress, captured at sea by Moroccan pirates, raped, sold into the harem of an Algerian dey, sold across North Africa to Constantinople, used as currency on a starving ship at the siege of Azov where the besieged Janissaries cut off and ate one of her buttocks. Asks everyone she meets whether they have ever wanted to kill themselves. Most have.

Candide's valet, picked up in Cadiz before the voyage to Paraguay. Quarter-Spanish, born in Tucumán to a mixed-race mother. Has been a choirboy, sacristan, sailor, monk, peddler, soldier, and lackey. Speaks Peruvian. Saves Candide from the Oreillons by talking them out of eating him; navigates them into and out of El Dorado; is sent to Buenos Aires to ransom Cunégonde and reappears as a slave in Venice three chapters later, having been swindled out of his fortune. Never loses his temper. The novel's quiet moral hero.

Picked by Candide in Surinam from a competition for the most justly miserable man — Martin had been robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, abandoned by his daughter, and just fired from a small government post. Manichaean by self-description: he believes the earth has been abandoned to a malevolent being. Almost every prediction he makes about Paris, England, Venice, and Constantinople turns out correct. The deliberate counterweight to Pangloss for the second half of the novel.

One of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, his castle distinguished by the unusual feature of having both a gate and windows. Stupid, pompous, indispensable to the comedy of the opening chapter. Kicks Candide out of the castle in person for kissing his daughter. Murdered with the rest of the household in Chapter 4 when the Bulgarians arrive.

Three hundred and fifty pounds, "a woman of great consequence." Boxes Cunégonde's ears after the screen incident. Cut to pieces by the Bulgarians in Chapter 4.

Reported dead in the Bulgarian massacre; survives because a Jesuit priest noticed his eyelids twitch under the holy water. Becomes a Jesuit colonel in Paraguay. Reunites with Candide in Chapter 14. In Chapter 15, on hearing that Candide intends to marry his sister, refuses on grounds of aristocratic blood and strikes Candide with the flat of his sword; Candide runs him through. Resurfaces, alive, on a Turkish galley in Chapter 27, sentenced for being caught bathing with a young Turk. Refuses, again, in Chapter 29. Packed off to Rome by Cacambo's plan in Chapter 30.

The Baroness's "pretty, docile little brunette" chambermaid. Pangloss's syphilis is traced through her, in his own genealogy in Chapter 4, back through a learned Franciscan, an old countess, a cavalry captain, a marchioness, a page, a Jesuit, and one of Christopher Columbus's companions. Reappears in Venice in Chapter 24 as a courtesan in the company of Friar Giroflée. Joins the little community at the farm in Chapter 30; works at embroidery.

A Spanish governor of monumental name and self-regard. Decides at first sight that he must have Cunégonde, maneuvers Candide out of the room, and proposes marriage. Cunégonde stays with him after Candide flees the Inquisition's pursuers. Takes most of her El Dorado fortune when Cacambo comes to ransom her two volumes later.

The ruler of the hidden kingdom Candide and Cacambo enter in Chapter 17. A hundred and seventy-two years old, well-read, courteous; greets the travelers by embracing them and kissing them on each cheek. Tries gently to talk them out of leaving — the country has not been left in two centuries. When Candide insists, orders his engineers to build a machine to lift the visitors and twenty pack-sheep loaded with gold over the surrounding mountains. Three thousand mathematicians, fifteen days' work, twenty million sterling in local currency.

Wealthy Venetian noble Candide visits in Chapter 25 expecting to find a happy man. Pococurante owns Raphaels but does not love them, dismisses Homer as boring, finds Virgil flat, despises Milton's Paradise Lost, and is bored with everything in his garden. Candide initially admires the independence of the judgment; Martin diagnoses it correctly as the unhappiness of a stomach that rejects every food.

Encountered with Paquette in St Mark's Square in Chapter 24, looking happy. Confesses at dinner that he hates the convent, was forced into it at fifteen by his family to enrich an elder brother, and is ready to set the place on fire. Joins the little community at the farm in Chapter 30; turns out to be a competent carpenter.