“‘Who is that mere commoner’ said the five kings ‘who is in a position to give a hundred times more as much as each of us and who actually gives it?’” Well, that mere commoner is no more and no less than Candide himself. This scene is very ironic as you can see with the quote, because who are those kings that cannot afford to give as much money as a “mere commoner” as Candide? They are no more than puppets used in Voltaire’s constant mockery of the nobility and their arrogance in the real world. Kings and other aristocrats lived their life believing that they had the god given right to the power they had, and they rubbed it in everyone’s face. But as it happens in Europe’s murky history it happens in Candide by Voltaire: Kings and noblemen are always loosing their power and their lands and their riches to wars or betrayal within the castle or political reforms. Voltaire does nothing more than laugh at this phenomenon and make fun of them: to him it's only a game of thrones. The fact that those kings still have money to give away and slaves of any sort, but still mourn over their past sheds light upon how arrogant they were, and how attached to their possessions they are, unlike Candide who willingly gives the sixth king a very valuable diamond. Do you think any of those kings would’ve given so much as Candide if they had as much as him? 
This scene is a contrast to when Candide is visiting Eldorado, which is Voltaire’s utopia: there is no religion, no one is forced to do anything, and most importantly, the king greets everyone as his equals. That’s how he wishes all noblemen or aristocrats to be, not like these five kings who mourn all they lost but still have more than most people. The valuables Candide acquired in Eldorado only have value in the outside world, obviously, but how much value do they have to Candide? I mean, he just gives away a diamond that is worth more than any of those kings had!
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| Cosimo de' Medici |
There is yet another interesting point of view for this scene and this quote. I wouldn’t see it as a mockery, but rather Voltaire acknowledging the facts of his era. The fact that Candide, a person who isn’t a nobleman or a king of any sort, has more money than those who are kings depicts the rapid rise of capitalism in Europe. Merchants or other “commoners” rapidly gained immense amounts of riches, even more than kings did, and thus their influence upon society was gradually become less. For example the Medici family (House of Medici) in Florence: they were a banking family who rapidly gained control over the Republic of Florence.
