In the manuscript, the poem is titled: ‘Quatrains par Voltaire sur le malheur d’avoir près de 50 ans’.

Jaucourt sent the manuscript to Théodore Tronchin on 4 November 1743.

This small document is printed with four lines of verse, claimed to have been spoken by Voltaire the day before his death: ‘Tandis que j’ai vecu on m’a vu hautement, Aux badauds effare’s dire mon sentiment; Je veux le dire encor dans le royaume sombre, S’ils ont des prejuge’s j’en guerirai les ombres’. The document features Voltaire’s seal in red wax.

This letter begins with a line that reads “I welcome you, sir, and from the best of my heart, do not be dead. Voltaire needs to live as long as possible.” The rest of the letter goes on to wish that Voltaire recovers soon from his illness, and that he soon completes his history of “heroes of the north”.