How does Candide tie into the culture, economics, and politics of pre-revolutionary France?

When Candide was published in 1759,
thirty years before the beginning of the French Revolution, it did not create a stir: It
created a political firestorm--and literal fire. Voltaire was living in Ferney, in
eastern France very near the Swiss border, when Candide was
published. Upon its appearance, political rulers in Switzerland, sitting as the Great
Council of Geneva, condemned the work and ordered the burning of all copies. Their
edict, however, did not remove the novel from the European public, as it continued to be
circulated secretly. Although public officials and many citizens condemned
Candide, it developed a following and some strong
defenders.

The social, economic, and political climate in
France was not receptive to Candide. Although the Age of
Enlightenment was spreading through England, France remained under the strict control of
the Catholic Church and the monarchy. The themes developed in
Candide and Voltaire's satirical, bitter attacks on the government,
the Church, the established social heirarchy, and the accepted philosophy in regard to
man's relationship to God all represented a threat to the power structure in
France.

In Candide, Voltaire
identified and challenged, through satirical exaggeration and outrageous events, the
cultural, political, and economic conditions in France that fueled the French Revolution
soon to come. Candide did not cause the French Revolution, of
course, nor does the work predict it. It does, however, through its
content, publication, and reception signify that the Age of Enlightenment was on its way
to France.