Pieter Abraham D’Hondt writes to his partner, Thomas Becket, in London to discuss the publication of books by numerous authors, including Voltaire, and their being shipped to England. He speculates on the authorship of the Lettres Secrettes and the Dictionnaire philosophique, remarking that: ‘You may depend upon it that these 2 Books are really wrote by Voltaire; as to the Lettres Secrettes, they have in my opinion only the name of Voltaire, and the title wc. is good, to recommend them, but their intrinsic value is very trifling, it is otherwise with the Dictionnaire, wc. no doubt will sell much, but I do not know if it is advisable to advertise it, it is certainly a performance sc. by religious people will be numbered in the class of bad books, for it is clear that the Author makes a jest of revealed religion, this character is I believe sufficient to persuade you not to translate it’, adding that it has been burned in Geneva by the Common Executioner.

Marie-Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise Du Deffand asks if Voltaire is sleeping, adding that he often makes her take pains in patience. She notes that she finds all books tiresome other than Voltaire’s. She then states that she has heard about a supplement to the Dictionnaire philosophique and questions why she does not have a copy of it, adding that she is not afraid of the costs involved. The Marquise then turns to Voltaire’s suspicion of four enemies, only three of whom he identified in his last letter (La Beaumelle, Beloste, and Belestat). She asks Voltaire for his opinion on the use of the term ‘fresh’ to denote a new or naive thought, before asking whether or not she had sent him the verses of the Abbé de Voisenon for the King of Denmark.