Candide
by Voltaire
Table of Contents
Chapters 11-15
Chapter 11 Summary
The old woman is the daughter of Pope Urban X and the princess of Palestrina.
At the age of fourteen, she was a renowned Italian beauty and became engaged to the
prince of Massa Carrara, whom she adored. While preparations were being made for
the wedding, the prince was poisoned to death by his scorned mistress. Devastated
with grief, the old woman and her mother sailed toward a house of theirs on Gaeta so
they could mourn in private. On the way to Gaeta, the ship was attacked by pirates. The
Pope’s men surrendered immediately, and the pirates proceeded to ransack the ship for
jewels and rape all the women. They then sailed for Morocco, where they intended to
sell the women into slavery. The pirates were attacked and defeated by another group
of Moors, who then claimed the women. The old woman watched helplessly as her
mother and all of her ladies-in-waiting were ripped apart by the men fighting over them.
The old woman barely survived the fighting, eventually extricating herself from a heap
of dead bodies. She crawled to a nearby river, where she fell asleep beneath an orange
tree and was awakened by a eunuch, who was rubbing himself against her.
Chapter 12 Summary
The old woman’s story continues. Upon awakening beneath the orange tree,
she was happy to find that the eunuch was Italian and spoke her native language. He
took her to a nearby cottage to care for her. Although the eunuch promised to return
her to Italy, he instead brought her to Algiers and sold her to a prince. Both the...
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