The manuscript comprises a draft of a lettre en vers, framed by two poems that introduce and conclude the main body of the letter. In keeping with 18th-century convention, the verse offers compliments and praise to the recipient, while the prose engages with Le Siècle de Louis XIV (1751) and the unrest in Paris, associated with the actions of Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury.

The text also refers to D2632, an autograph letter from Frederick II of Prussia to Voltaire, written from Potsdam on Tuesday, 7 August 1742. In MS1, Voltaire inadvertently omits a verb in one sentence, which should read: “Je vais pendant les trois ou quatre jours que je…”.