Voltaire notes that he has been seriously ill and close to death, having caught a fever in a hotel he had stayed in. He adds the the Duc de Sulli is leaving his house to take Votlaire to Sulli, but that he will travel instead to Marguerite Madeleine Du Moutier, marquise de Bernières if she would prefer. Voltaire states his desire to go and take care of his health and Henri IV at her home, spending quiet days there. He adds that he hates crowds as much as he loves her so will not mind if she does not have company. He concludes by saying that he has no further news other that the smallpox of Mademoiselle de Sens and the disease of the king of Spain, adding that he wanted to write to his friend Thiériot but does not have the strength.

Frederick II asks Maupertuis to send him a complete collection of all the editions of the works of Voltaire that have been printed in Paris, London, Holland and Geneva, adding that Thiériot can help him. Frederick acknowledges that he is asking for an entire library, but states simply that he wants to have it. He asks that Maupertuis have everything bound in morocco with gilded edges, and tells him to send him the account of the disbursement. In a postscript, Frederick asks if d’Argens has shown him a letter he wrote on Voltaire’s on latest work, the Nouveaux mélanges, adding that he thinks that it will be printed in the Mercure de France.