Voltaire makes Candide sit down to supper at Venice with six strangers who were staying at the same hotel with himself, and as the servants, to his astonishment, addressed each of them by the title of "your majesty," he asked for an explanation of the pleasantry. "I am not jesting," said the first, "I am Achmet III.; I was sultan several years; I dethroned my brother, and my nephew dethroned me. They have cut off the heads of my viziers; I shall pass the remainder of my days in the old seraglio; my nephew, the Sultan Mahmoud, sometimes permits me to travel for my health, and I have come to pass the Carnival at Venice." A young man who was close to Achmet spoke next, and said, "My name is Ivan; I have been Emperor of all the Russias; I was dethroned when I was in my cradle; my father and my mother have been incarcerated; I was brought up in prison; I have sometimes permission to travel attended by my keepers, and I have come to pass the Carnival at Venice." The third said, "I am Charles Edward, King of England; my father has surrendered his rights to me; I have fought to sustain them; my vanquishers have torn out the hearts of eight hundred of my partisans; I have been put into prison; I am going to Rome to pay a visit to my father, dethroned like my grandfather and myself, and I have come to pass the Carnival at Venice." The fourth then spoke, and said, "I am King of Poland; the fortune of war has deprived me of my hereditary states; my father experienced the same reverses; I resign myself to the will of Providence, like the Sultan Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, and the King Charles Edward, to whom God grant a long life; and I have come to pass the Carnival at Venice." The fifth said, "I am also King of Poland; I have lost my kingdom twice, but Providence has given me another in which I have done more good than all the kings of Sarmatia put together have ever done on the banks of the Vistula. I also resign myself to the will of Providence, and I have come to pass the Carnival at Venice." There remained a sixth monarch to speak. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am not as great a sovereign as the rest, but I, too, have been a king. I am Theodore, who was elected King of Corsica; I was called 'your majesty,' and at present am hardly called 'sir;' I have caused money to be coined, and do not now possess a penny; I have had two secretaries of state, and have now scarcely a servant; I have sat upon a throne, and was long in a prison in London, upon straw, and am afraid of being treated in the same manner here, although I have come, like your majesties, to pass the Carnival at Venice." The other five kings heard this confession with a noble compassion. Each of them gave King Theodore twenty sequins to buy some clothes and shirts. Candide presented him with a diamond worth two thousand sequins. "Who," said the five kings, "is this man who can afford to give a hundred times as much as any of us? Are you, sir, also a king?" "No, your majesties,