Included are ‘La Mère de la Mort’, a version of ‘Épitre à Uranie’, verses on the Marquis de Valory and satirical letters relating to Madame de Pompadour.

Frederick says that he awaits Voltaire’s new tragedy with great curiosity and impatience. He notes that he is sending Voltaire the first twelve chapters of his Anti-Machiavel which, though he has retouched them, are still teeming with faults. He complains that the court and city often distract him from his work, meaning that his writing is frequently put on hold. Frederick notes that Mr de Valori has arrived in Berlin, as well as a man named Celius who has received 20,000 crowns for his instruments and who will build in a year a mechanical machine that will demonstrate the motions of the stars and planets according to the system of Newton. He adds that a man named Liberquin will also be arriving soon from Paris, having spent some time prior to that in England and being greatly esteemed by the English scholars. Frederick then turns to Voltaire, writing that he knows him to be at Cirey and shares both his sorrows and pleasures. He tells Voltaire to take advantage of the pleasures of the world as much as he can because that is what a wise man must do, but not at the expense of his being, health, or life. He asks when Voltaire and Emilie [Du Châtelet] will travel North and notes that he is afraid that this will not happen soon, suggesting that he could kidnap them and bring them to him.