CandideAuthor(s): VoltaireSource: Litigation, Vol. 28, No. 2, TACTICS (Winter 2002), pp. 72, 71Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29760276 .

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Literary

Trials

Candide

by Voltaire

Editor's Note: In Voltaire's witty 18th

century satire Candide, a naive youth and his companions, including the opti? mistic Dr. Pangloss; the pessimistic Martin; Candide's love, Lady Cune

gonde; and the baron, her Jesuit brother, endure the worst possible misfortunes in a series of adventures.

Voltaire wrote Candide to ridicule the

optimists' view that "Everything is for the best in the best of worlds." This

excerpt shows the baron and Pangloss describing their encounters with the jus? tice system.

A deist and humanist, Voltaire believed that in a mad and cruel world we should work without theorizing and exercise our own talents. His famous conclusion is "We must cultivate our garden." In this excerpt, Candide has just reencoun tered Pangloss and the baron, both of whom he believed dead.

"Forgive me once again," Candide said to the baron, "forgive me, Reverend Father, for having run you through with

my sword."

"Let's say no more about it, "

replied the baron. "I was a little too hasty, I admit it. But since you want to know how it

happened that you saw me as a galley slave, I'll tell you that after I'd been cured of my wound by the brother apothecary of the college, I was captured and taken

away by a detachment of Spaniards. I was

imprisoned in Buenos Aires just after my sister had left. I asked to be sent back to Rome to the Father General. I was

appointed chaplain to the French ambas? sador at Constantinople. One evening, less than a week after I'd taken up my duties, I found myself with a very hand? some young officer of the sultan's palace. It was hot and the young man decided to

bathe, so I took the opportunity to bathe also. I didn't know it was a major crime for a Christian to be found naked with a

young Mussulman. A judge had me

This excerpt is from the translation by Lavell

Bair(1959).

Literary Trials is edited by Robert Aitken, who

practices law in Palos Verdes Estates, California.

beaten a hundred times on the soles of the feet and sentenced me to the galleys. I don't think a more horrible injustice has ever been committed. But I'd like to know why my sister is working in the kitchen of a Transylvania sovereign who's taken refuge with the Turks."

"And you, my dear Pangloss," said Candide, "how is it possible that I've found you again?"

"It's true," said Pangloss, "that you saw me hanged, and I was naturally sup? posed to be burned; but you remember that it began pouring rain when they were about to roast me: the storm was so violent that they gave up hope of light? ing the fire. I was hanged because they had nothing better to do. A surgeon bought my body, took me home and

began dissecting me. First he made a crucial incision from my navel to my collarbone. I'd been hanged as badly as

anyone could be. The executioner of the

Holy Inquisition, a subdeacon, was

wonderfully adept at burning people, but he wasn't accustomed to hanging them: the rope was wet and kinked, so it didn't

slip properly. In short, I was still breath?

ing. The crucial incision made me let out such a loud yell that my surgeon fell back in terror. Thinking he'd been dis?

secting the devil, he ran away, dying of

fear, and fell down the stairs. Hearing the noise, his wife rushed in from a

nearby room and saw me lying on the table with my crucial incision. She was even more frightened than her husband. She ran out of the room and fell on top of him. When they'd both recovered their wits a little, I heard the surgeon's wife say to him, 'Whatever made you decide to dissect a heretic, my dear? Don't you know the devil is always in the bodies of such people? I'll go get a

priest to exorcise him right away.' "I shuddered when I heard this. I gath?

ered the little strength I had left to cry out, 'Have pity on me!' Finally the Por?

tuguese barber regained enough courage to sew up my skin. His wife even took care of me, and two weeks later I was

(Please turn to page 71)

Litigation Winter 2002 Volume 28 Number 2

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turned to "granteds." Finally, the "grant? eds" became a directed verdict for our client.

I think of that case, and so many oth? ers like it, when attorneys before me, at the first adverse call I make, abandon what might well be a productive road for their clients. Dorothy and her comrades risked their lives to bring the bellowing

Wizard of Oz the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West. At first, they got nothing for their efforts. But when

they stood their ground and demanded that the "man behind the curtain" do his

job, their wishes were granted. Don't rush to assume that we judges

are intractable. Maybe we would like

you to turn up a few more cards. Maybe we want to think a little harder about our hand. As a judge, I will always be

grateful to the lawyer who stays focused on getting me to make the right rulings. And, of course, what can't be fixed at trial will receive the thoughtful consid? eration of the ladies and gentlemen who

grade my homework at our district courts of appeal. But appellate review is the least satisfactory of solutions because it so greatly exacerbates the stress and expense to the litigants. I

hope for their sake that I will not often carve my reversible errors into the gran? ite of a final order.

The dream lawyer is the one who

helps me get it right the first time. Don't leave me stumbling through that law school nightmare, wondering?and without a record to help others figure out?which exam I was taking. 10

Bypassing

Lawyers (Continued from page 47)

Second, you recommend that the

company promptly file a motion for a

protective order in the whistleblower

litigation, similar to the one requested in the O'Keefe case. Among other

things, the protective order should: (1) bar the government from contacting the

company's current employees concern?

ing the subject matter of the whistle blower suit while it is pending; (2) require the government to give the com?

pany reasonable notice before contact

ing any former employees of the com?

pany concerning the subject of the

action, so that the company has an

opportunity to inquire whether the

employees have or want representation; (3) require the government to provide the company with a list of all present and former company employees that it has contacted ex parte; (4) require the

government to provide the company with copies of all notes containing information obtained from its current and former employees through its ex

parte contacts; and (5) bar the govern? ment from using any documents or information it has obtained through the ex parte contacts.

You realize that the court in O 'Keefe did not grant all of the relief you are rec?

ommending that the company ask for, but there is ample precedent for sanc? tions against the government for violat?

ing Rule 4.2. You explain that the shap? ing of remedies is within the discretion of the trial court, exercising its supervi? sory powers over parties and attorneys appearing before it. You believe the

company can make a strong case for the

requested relief, particularly because the government apparently disregarded the admonition of O 'Keefe and a con?

gressional statute.

Third, you advise Miller that the com?

pany should not wait for a protective order but immediately should do what it can to learn which employees have been

interrogated or interviewed by the gov? ernment. The company then should

approach those employees and debrief them about their communications.

Fourth, you tell Miller that his office should advise all managerial employees and all employees who work in the

departments where the mischarging is

alleged to have occurred to notify the

company's law department if they are contacted by government agents or

attorneys. And put out the word that the

company recommends employees not communicate with any government attorneys or agents without company lawyers being present.

Fifth, you suggest that the company offer to provide counsel to any former

employee contacted by the government if such employee would like counsel.

As you leave Walter Miller's office, you know you took a difficult problem of significant interest to your client and

responded with straightforward recom? mendations. It does not always work out that way. It is another glorious October day. 10

literary Trials

( Continued from page 72 )

back on my feet. The barber found me a

position as servant to a Knight of Malta who was going to Venice, but when I learned that my master didn't have

enough money to pay me, I became the servant of a Venetian merchant and

went with him to Constantinople. "One day I took it into my head to

enter a mosque. There was no one inside

except an old priest and a pretty young worshiper saying her prayers. She was

wearing a dress with a very low neck?

line, and between her breasts she had a beautiful bouquet of tulips, roses, anemones, buttercups, hyacinths and auriculas. She dropped her bouquet; I

picked it up and put it back with zealous

respect. I took so long to put it back that the priest became angry, and when he saw I was a Christian he called for help. I was taken before a judge who had me beaten a hundred times on the soles of

my feet and sent me to the galleys. I was chained in the very same galley and on the very same bench as the baron. In that

galley there were also four young men from Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests and two monks from Corfu. They told us that such things happened every day. The baron claimed that he'd suffered a

greater injustice than I had, whereas I maintained that it was much more per? missible to return a bouquet to a young woman's chest than to be naked with an officer of the sultan's palace. We were still arguing constantly, and receiving 20 lashes a day, when the chain of events of this universe led you to our galley and

you bought our freedom." "Tell me, my dear Pangloss," said

Candide, "when you were hanged, dis?

sected, cruelly beaten and forced to row in a galley, did you still think that every? thing was for the best in this world?"

"I still hold my original opinions," replied Pangloss, "because, after all, I'm a philosopher, and it wouldn't be

proper for me to recant, since Leibniz cannot be wrong, and since pre-estab? lished harmony is the most beautiful

thing in the world, along with the

plenum and subtle matter." 10

Litigation Winter 2002 Volume 28 Number 2

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