The manuscript offers variants of Act IV, l.166a-182 and Act V, l.53-68. It is the only known original manuscript of Alzire to have survived. The variant for Act V is written in the left-hand margin of f.1r in Voltaire’s hand.

Including: Southwood Smith’s ‘Philosophy of Health’, Lewes’ ‘Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences’, De Tocqueville’s ‘Ancien Regime et la Revolution’, Combe on prison discipline, Hill on crime, Hancock on income tax, Newman’s lectures on political economy, Voltaire’s Philosophie, statistical papers on various matters (banking, cotton, wages in Glasgow, French finance, income tax etc).

Voltaire writes that Joseph Vasselier’s Commander’s diamond cross must now be placed in his hands. He adds that the two crooks (one Roma, one from Bordeaux) are still in prison in Geneva, and that they will be there until the city of Lyon has claimed them to have them hanged in Catholic land. Voltaire notes that the Bordeaux native is less guilty than the Roman and has talents that will save him because he plays the harpsichord and the violin like an angel, adding that he heard him play at Ferney.

Voltaire begins by expressing his gratitude to the reipient’s father for his longstanding kindness. He then turns to an account of a crime in the Pays de Gex. Voltaire writes that the son of a bourgeois from Saconey in the Pays de Gex was assassinated by a priest from a village named Moens, and by several peasant accomplices of the priest. He notes that the crime was committed on 28th January, and that it is currently 3rd January, yet only a weak procedure has been started by the justice of Gex. Voltaire adds that he saw the son of Sr. de Croze wounded and in bed, just waiting for death and that Sr. de Croze gave him a mémoire to send to the attorney general on his behalf as he was too old to pursue the matter himself. Voltaire begs La Marche to have the victim represented to him. He states that the officers of the justice of Gex were very eager to raid the scene two years ago when six walnuts were stolen from Voltaire’s land and a very light saber blow was given to the arm of the thief, hearing fifty-two witnesses in the hopes that Voltaire would pay their expenses (he adds that he did not). However, he writes that today it is a question of public safety, of a proven assassination, of a dying person, and of two wounds, adding that he believes they need La Marche’s authority to encourage the officers of Gex to do all due dilligence as deserves such an extraordinary case.