Voltaire signs the letter as: ‘le vieux mouton broutant au pied des alpes’.

Voltaire signs the letter as: ‘le vieux mouton broutant au pied des alpes’.

Georg von Löw begins by discussing the delivery of works by Voltaire and the whereabouts of a set of engravings by Télémaque. The then repeats his earlier request for glasses to replace those that had arrived broken. In a postscript, Löw writes that General Grenville sends his compliments and discusses a work by the Marquis of Saint-Simon titled La Guerre des Alpes.

Voltaire writes that he, ‘the sixty-eight-year-old man, very sick and near blind, received in the middle of the snows of the Alps and Mount Jura, the verses and prose with which Mr. De Scévole honours him. If something could revive him, it would be by the pleasure he felt reading them. The state in which he is does not allow him to express as he would like the recognition with which he is penetrated.’

This manuscript differs slightly to the published text. Guibert opens his letter by saying that noone dares to say ‘I too am a poet’ after reading the verses of Voltaire and so he is writing in prose because it is a language that belongs to all men. He notes that Voltaire’s masterpieces will become monuments. He implores Voltaire to contine to abhor war and claims to have just travelled 2000 leagues, on which journey he saw almost everywhere the traces of taxes and very few vestiges of war. He notes that it is said that in his tireless research Voltaire had discovered a nation that lives on the Ganges that has never experienced war, and Guibert remarks that he needs to read the story of these ‘strange people’ to believe this is true, asking Voltaire to write such a story. He notes that even if the traveller who told the tale to Voltaire mistook a moment’s peace for an immemorial situation, Voltaire should embelish the fable because it would give lessons to sovereigns, pleasure to his readers, and a sweet moment of illusion to all honest people. Guibert then writes that if ever some vapour of vanity could rise to his head, it would be when Voltaire praises him. He adds that he wishes fate would taken him back to the Alps again, but it is in Paris, in the middle of Voltaire’s glory, that he hopes to see him again because Voltaire’s days would be extended by well wishes and he would be able to ‘complete a century that would rightly be called yours.’ He notes that he would collect Voltaire’s last words and that his grave would become an altar.