The manuscript is a fragment of various poems written in Voltaire’s hand. The poems belong to one of Voltaire’s notebooks written between 1735 and 1750, The Leningrad Group of Notebooks, also known as Sottisier. The Leningrad Group of Notebooks received scholarly attention from Prince Alexander Ivanovich Lobanov-Tostovsky, Léozun-Le Duc, and Desnoiresterres. The original manuscript was transcribed by Beuchot (1844) and later reproduced by Rostopschine with Léozun-Le Duc as an editor (1880). Please note that the incipits in vol. 81 and Caussy’s inventory do not correspond, with Caussy’s catalogue featuring ‘the sodomites’ in plural.

The manuscript is a 19-line poem about the priest Desfontaine’s homosexuality, its historical impermissibility, and punitive measures. The manuscript does not replicate the entire poem, excluding the prefatory lines that read ‘L’abbe Desfontaines et le ramoneur, ou le ramoneur et l’abbé / Desfontaines, conte par feu m. de la Faye.’ According to T. D. N. Besterman, ‘despite m. de la Faye being named as the author, the poem ‘ is of course by Voltaire himself’. Furthermore; the poem is a fragment of D1514 that discusses the wedding of Marie Elisabeth Mignot, Voltaire’s younger niece, as well as an influential book by Maupertuis (perhaps La Figure de la Terre, déterminée par les Observations de Messieurs Maupertuis, Clairaut, Camus, Le Monnier & de M. l’Abbé Outhier, accompagnés de M. Celsius) and the faulty edition of Eléments de Newton.