The letter is incomplete as the beginning is missing. Voltaire writes that, while waiting for the Berlin package, there is a little joke with which d’Arnaud can feast on with Frederick II of Prussia; he ran very unfaithful copies. Voltaire asks for d’Arnaud’s opinion on this matter and adds that he should learn news from Catilina, a tragedy Voltaire would publish in 1752. He concludes by saying that he still has no news of the English packet, and adds that he awaits with impatience Frederick II of Prussia. In a postscript, Voltaire states that he will be in Cirey for the entirety of January and would be glad if d’Arnaud could write to him.

The MS was produced in the second half of the eighteenth century. A note at the top of the MS states that the text was finished in 1738. The MS is contained within a modern recueil titled ‘Mélanges historique, littéraires et bibliographiques’. Variants within the text were not copied after printing.