Voltaire discusses the claims of the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch to lands in the New World, explaining that such lands are shared very unequally amongst the various countries.

Voltaire states that he is writing to Marie-Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise Du Deffand from Paris, before discussing literature. He questions why the Marquise wants to make him read English novels, such as Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, when she will not read the Old Testament. He tells the Marquise that if she is to enjoy reading, she first needs a little passion, an object that is interesting, and a determined desire to educate herself that occupies her soul continuously, adding that if she were to know Italian she could be sure of a month of pleasure from Aristotle. Voltaire says that he will send her one or two chants of La pucelle d’Orleans that are unknown to others and in which he tries to imitate Aristotle (he claims to have limited success in this). He also advises that she may enjoy his Histoire universelle if she likes a picture of ‘this ugly world’ because in it he has painted men as they are. Voltaire then turns to various European empire-building projects, before stating that France’s only merit and superiority is that there are a small number of geniuses who make French spoken in Vienna, Stokholm, and Moscow. He returns to the Marquise’s reading, stating that he he found pleasure in reading Rabelais but that the Marquise was not learned enough to enjoy it. He expresses his desires for French translations of the philosophical works of Lord Bolingbroke and Dean Swift’s Tale of a Tub, before discussing various retellings of the story of Lucretia.