Despite the date of 1770 on the title page, the volume must have been written after 1793, as it mentions the execution of Louis XVI. It includes anecdotes and quotations on history, philosophy, and the range of human emotion and experience, as well as insights concerning the King and the political climate leading up to the Revolution. Also included are anecdotes which illustrate a quality or emotion, such as courage, honor, or charity, or which exemplify an act, such as adultery or forgiveness. Two sections titled “Sentences” contain short Latin quotations from classical authors.
The pieces (arranged in loose alphabetical order by subject) cover the period from antiquity to the late 18th century, and deal with a wide range of historical, mythological, Biblical, and literary figures. These include Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Homer, Virgil, Martial, Ovid, Juvenal, Pliny, Horace, Seneca, William the Conqueror, Henri IV, Pierre de Bayard, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Catherine de Medici, Torquato Tasso, and Sir Walter Raleigh
Major 17th- and 18th-century figures mentioned include Cardinal Jules Mazarin, Elizabeth I of England, Philip IV of Spain, Charles Le Brun, Ottoman sultan Suleyman II, René Descartes, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Jacques Necker, Maurepas, the Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington, Charles-Louis de Montesquieu, Malesherbes, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, Camille Desmoulins, the Marquis de Sade, Voltaire, François Quesnay, and Louis XVI, who is much discussed in admiring terms. Many passages include detailed information on the actions of the French government under Louis XVI.

D’Argenson writes that after the death of Louis XV, the Grand Officers of the Crown went to pay their respects to Louis XVI who had left that day at 5:30pm with the Queen to go to Choisy-le-Roi. He notes that the king and queen will stay there for some time with the Comte d’Artois de Provence. They are joined by Madame la Comtesse de Provence, M. le Comte d’Artois, Madame la Comtesse d’Artois, and Madame and Mesdames Victoite and Sophie who tended to the late king. Other topics discussed by d’Argentla include the theatre. He writes that they will give the théâtre françois the Sophonisbe de Mairet, something he claims is extremely pathetic. He adds that Voltaire retouched it, putting more nobility into the language and more decency into the manners. He concludes that the denouement is above all sublime and the greatnes of the soul of Massinissa must make a lively impression on the hearts of the helpers.