Voltaire's Candide: Old Regime

Voltaire’s Candide provides an Enlightenment religious and social critique of the Old Regime in many profounding ways. In the Old Regime feudalism was a huge social aspect; there were three estates: The Clergy, the nobility, and the third estate which consisted of the Bourgeoisie and peasants. Each estate had set standards for which they were to abide with every estate being “above” the one after them. Feudalism caused many problems both socially and economically, so when the Enlightenment came about one of the main focuses was to get rid of feudalism and to revive the economy. Candide was a huge supporter of the Enlightenment movement.

The author of the Candide, Voltaire was considered to be in the middle class and went through many hardships in his life. While writing the Candide many terrible horrors were going on that influenced his writing. The disastrous earthquake in Lisbon in, the Seven Year’s War in the German States, and the unjust execution of the English Admiral John Byung

were just a few of those events that also caused social problems (Sparknotes). With Feudalism and the Old Regime there were social problems- the nobles receive the best land and don’t have to pay taxes, where as the third estate is under the noble’s care and they work on the land and receive little benefits. The Clergy is part of the church and church officials are held to higher standards because they can both read and write where the other estates are not as educated. The Enlightenment said that everybody needs to be equal under all social classes. Nobles need to be taxed just like the third estate and there needs to be religious tolerance. Religious tolerance meaning everyone has to be okay with every religion because you cannot really tell “true” religion.
Voltaire shows through the text that although the Enlightenment is a good transition to help re-boost and restart the peoples lives in many social, economic and religious ways he also made it known how the Enlightenment was far from an unbroken movement.

There were many problems to be faced throughout the period of the Enlightenment that only hindered, but not stopped the transition. Many people and philosophers looked at this as a way to turn things and people around; to get them back on their feet to help make them productive members of society and make society productive as a whole. In the Old Regime the third estate would be sentenced to roadwork a few weeks a year, the problem with that is that they had no motivation to do good because they did not have access to the roads. With Enlightenment came Adam Smith who greatly encouraged incentives; he motivation to do something and be productive in it. Through incentives it would encourage people to work better and more

proficiently.
The most receptive people to the Enlightenment were the third estate and as you move further east the Enlightenment becomes weaker because there are less cities and with less cities comes less people from the third estate. Voltaire was born into the third estate, which is one reason why he was such a huge supporter of the Enlightenment because the Enlightenment focuses greatly on equality especially the equality of the third estate. It was a basic concept of where there was a great deal of people in the third estate there was the Enlightenment. Socially, the third estate wanted the nobles to lose power so they could have less control over them, their work, and their land and the kings wanted the church to lose power. With the kings wanting the church to lose power allowed a better economy for military expansion which would then cause the nobles to lose power as well. This was like a social class domino effect- one group falls and so do the rest.
Back in the Old Regime day religion was one of the most important aspects of life, if not the most important. The Clergy consists of two parts the high clergy and the parish priests. The high clergy are the aristocrats, bishops and archbishops whom are from great noble families and the parish priests are the commoners. When the Enlightenment came around religion was still very important, but people were branching out from strictly the Catholic Church and taking note that maybe there was something “more”. People began to think more about the evils in the world and that if God was so powerful he would not allow there to be evil, unless in reality he was not powerful at all. People were skeptical about religion and whether there was one true religion. People became tolerant of other religions and allowed others to explore those religions without judgment or punishment. This was an extremely new and difficult transition for the people because all they had known was the Catholic Church and now new religions are forming and branching from the church. This was a very enlightening transition to take that allowed skepticism in an appropriate and helpful way. One to help society and religion, rather than to hurt it.
Throughout reading Voltaire’s Candide there were many cases where an Enlightenment religious and social critique of the Old Regime were made and were very accurate at most. It showed the great differences in systems and concepts both had to offer, but all in all the goods of the Enlightenment definitely outweighed the goods of the Old Regime allowing it to be a favorable movement in history. Although Voltaire did not support many of the Enlightenment ideas he did agree that it was good and showed great critique both socially and religiously in the Old Regime.