There is, however, an even more important reason for Voltaire’s choice of a chronological ordering—one that implicitly criticizes the wish-fulfillment dream of romance. In the Heliodoran tradition, the in medias res beginning makes the hero and heroine question their faith in divine providence; when we reach the “long-awaited joy” that Amyot finds in the ending, that faith is restored. In Candide, the hero’s hopes for a happy ending are tied up with the causal logic of Pangloss’s optimism. Thus a chronological narrative, with all of the improbability of romance, makes even more absurd the Panglossian notion that seemingly adventitious events will result in the best of all possible worlds.
Voltaire uses romance conventions to lead the reader through a process of disillusionment with romance just as Candide is to be disillusioned with Pangloss’s philosophy. An understanding of the Heliodoran novel conventions thus sharpens our awareness of modes of irony in Voltaire’s characterization.
Candide is cast in a romance role, even though his character suggests conventions of the picaresque. Like Tom Jones after his dismissal from Paradise Hall, when Candide is booted from the Baron’s “paradis terrestre,” he seems destined to wander “sans savoir où” (122) [5]; his destiny, like Jones’s, seems to be that of the picaro. Yet, like Tom Jones, Candide nevertheless dwells on the heroine, and he soon finds himself praising her in a company of soldiers. He thus follows the pattern of the heroes in the Aethiopica, the Persiles, the Grand Cyrus, and the Ibrahim, who all go to war after their initial separation from their mistresses. Although in the Heliodoran novel this convention lends heroism to their roles as lovers, in Voltaire’s novel Candide’s romance heroism is undercut by realistic struggles. Not only does he encounter the savagery of war, but Voltaire ironically qualifies his heroic stature. He is predicted to be “le soutien, le défenseur, le héros des Bulgares” (123) [6], yet he fails to understand either his heroic potential or the realistic motives of the Bulgar recruiter. By undercutting Candide’s heroic potential, Voltaire places Candide in a wasteland between romance and realism: he can neither be a romance hero nor, because of his Panglossian optimism, can he understand the realities of war.
Other conventions of the romance hero are negated and inverted in Candide’s character as well. Theagenes, Periandro, Ibrahim, and others are depicted as noble lovers; their physical appearance mirrors both their heroic nature and their noble love. Periandro, for example, is described as “more beautifull than could be well expressed” (Persiles 2). Similarly, Ibrahim is described, with elaborate rhetorical embellishment, as noble and heroic:
His Physiognomy was promising and sprightful; his soul was seen in his eyes, his courage and affability appeared equally in them; and without having ought of the beauty of a woman, he was goodliest man that ever was beheld. In fine there was seen in his whole person, a lofty ayr without pride, a gallanterie without affectation, a neglectful handsomeness, a freeness without artifice, a civility without restraint, and something so great and so high therein, as one could not behold him without judging him to be worthy to bear a crown. (Scudéry 373)
It is not difficult to see from this passage the degree to which Voltaire ironically compresses romance embellishment in chapter 1: “Sa physionomie annonçait son âme” (118) [3]. Innocent in appearance, Candide is innocent in spirit and name—a trait that replaces the conventional romance hero’s courage.
Even though Candide lacks the conventional prowess of the hero in Heliodoran novel, he possesses that hero’s conventional idealism about love. After his first reunion with the heroine (ch. 6), he is conventionally jealous (a device used for narrative complication in the Heliodoran novel); but unlike Theagenes, Periandro, or even Cyrus, Candide’s jealousy quickly forsakes romance idealism and stretches toward deterministic realism: “Ma belle demoiselle, répondit Candide, quand on est amoureux, jaloux, et fouetté par l’Inquisition, on ne se connaît plus” (149) [20]. It would not be surprising to find Cyrus or Ibrahim so casual about the enemies he had vanquished, but Candide’s reaction seems naivete, rather than heroic pride.
During his second separation from Cunégonde, comprising the second half of the novel, Candide is again cast in a romance role. Like Periandro, Cyrus, and Ibrahim, he is filled with romance aspirations: “il espérait toujours revoir mademoiselle Cunégonde” (201) [47]. His hopes are sustained despite Martin’s pessimism and despite his own mounting frustration. Even after being deceived in Paris by a false Cunégonde (an episode recalling a variety of romance episodes), Candide remains naively optimistic. When he expects to find his mistress in Venice, he is overcome with Panglossian hope and believes: “Tout est bien, tout va bien, tout va le mieux qu’il soit possible” (224) [61]. This romance hopefulness reaches its height in chapter 27, on the journey to Constantinople, during which Candide discovers that Cunégonde has become quite ugly. He remarks in the manner of a gentleman and a romance hero: “Ah! belle ou laide … je suis honnête homme, et mon devoir est de l’aimer toujours” (244) [72]. Devoir, of course, suggests distinctively romance motivations, but in light of her change in appearance, these motivations suggest a resignation to an unhappy fate.
Cunégonde’s character, like the hero’s, parallels the basic pattern of the heroine in the Heliodoran novel, but unlike Candide’s, her very role inverts romance behavior. In the Heliodoran novel the heroine is distinguished by her nobility, beauty, and intelligence. Chariclea’s and Auristela’s beauty make them forever the object of desire by virtually every male they encounter. Yet because of the conventional powers associated with their chastity, their virtue survives whatever attacks are made on it. Similarly, their nobility, even though concealed, manages to survive all attempts to taint it: captured by pirates, sold as slaves, the heroines are always treated royally. Even their jewels, the concealed evidence of their noble births, always remain in their possession. In addition, each possesses the wit to deceive assailants—a quality that enhances a romance belief in wish-fulfillment.
Cunégonde directly parodies this pattern. Chastity, we learn at the outset, is not one of her strong points. Unlike Chariclea and Auristela, who withstand every attack, Cunégonde’s virginity is quickly dispatched by the Bulgar soldiers. Although Heliodoran novel heroines typically pit one rival against another, preserving their own chastity by a combination of duplicity and delay, Cunégonde treats her lovers with duplicity but not delay. She plays the Jew off against the Inquisitor for material gain. Indeed, instead of inflexible fidelity to the hero, she seems quite willing to abandon Candide in Buenos Aires.
Like the conventional romance heroine, Cunégonde is of noble birth, although only the daughter of a minor Westphalian baron. Yet, even this small degree of nobility is made ignoble. Taken captive after her rape in Germany, she is forced to become cook, laundress, dishwasher, and pastry cook—menial tasks that a romance heroine would never undertake. In spite of all these vicissitudes, her brother still insists that she cannot marry Candide because he is not her equal. Like Chariclea and Auristela, Cunégonde possesses some jewels that should function as marks of her nobility, yet these are the results of her affairs with the Jew and the Inquisitor. Furthermore, the jewels are stolen, in direct violation of their function in the Heliodoran novel. Whereas the beauty of Chariclea and Auristela is pure and heavenly—a parallel to their virtue—Cunégonde’s is less rarefied. Hers is an earthly, even earthy beauty, she is “haute en couleur, fraîche, grasse, appétissante” (119) [3]. Her plump beauty comically inverts the conventional flower and jewel clichés found in the embellished descriptions of romance heroines; indeed she sounds more like a pastry than a rarefied flower or gem.
Although the realistic way in which Voltaire depicts Cunégonde seems to negate her romance role, there are nevertheless a variety of incidents that parallel romance conventions of the Heliodoran novel. In works like the Aethiopica and the Persiles, the initial separation of the lovers seems permanent—often because either the hero or the heroine is assumed to be dead. When the lover is “res
urrected,” their adventures appear once again to be guided by providence. Cunégonde’s resurrection and her recital of events after her initial separation from Candide invert the pattern of the Heliodoran novel. Instead of convincing the hero and the reader of her constancy, Cunégonde’s recital convinces the reader, if not Candide, of her promiscuity. The mere suggestion of a romance convention underscores the irony of her ignoble actions. Indeed, Cunégonde’s rape and reported disembowelment recalls Leucippe’s reported disembowelment in book 3 of Achilles Tatius’s Clitophon and Leucippe (1