The phrase ‘concernant le XVIe siècle en France’ is written in Voltaire’s hand.

The verse seems to have been composed during Voltaire’s stay at Cirey, likely in September/October 1734.

Bolaffi asks that the booksellers, Dey and Gravier, be kind enough to give to Mr. Daninos (the deliverer of the letter) the fifty copies of La Henriade that Bolaffi had translated into Italian. He notes that these copies were sent to Dey and Gravier by Mr. Fayolle, another bookseller.

The manuscript is an autograph letter recounting the story of Anne Marguerite Feydeau, a nun of the Cistercian convent of Willancourt, in Abbeville. It comprehensively discusses the speculatively unfounded allegations made against Feydeau’s conduct, including undue indulgence in entertainment, too frequent company of male visitors and negligence of her fellow nuns in need. Feydeau refutes most of the accusations and illustrates how the slander inflicted significant distress, compelling her to relocate on multiple occasions.

The manuscript is a lettre en vers featuring four poems. The author profusely apologises for his lack of aptitude in accomplishing such an aesthetic feat (i.e. creation of lettre en vers), reflects on the subpar poetry authored by mediocre poets, and mentions his s encounter with Madame du Chatelet in Paris. Additionally, according to Besterman, ‘ED1 proposes tentatively November/December 1738, but the reference to a meeting with mme Du Châtelet in Paris some time since is the only clue.’

The manuscript is a letter written in the hand of Jean Hellot and narrating an anecdotal story of the princess Veuve du Czarevitz, the daughter of Peter the Great. Her biographical narrative is recounted in scrupulous detail, chronicling her marriages, widowhood, travels, counterfeit, feigned illness, and life in isolation. A Russian translation of this letter was published by Lyublinsky A, p p. 161–163, wrongly dated 1765.

The manuscript is an autograph letter written in the hand of Anne Marguerite Feydeau and recounting the story of Anne Marguerite Feydeau, a nun of the Cistercian convent of Willancourt, in Abbeville. It comprehensively discusses the speculatively unfounded allegations made against Feydeau’s conduct, including undue indulgence in entertainment, the excessive company of male visitors and negligence of her fellow nuns in need. Feydeau refutes most of the accusations and illustrates how the slander inflicted significant distress, compelling her to relocate on multiple occasions.

The manuscript comprises a draft of a “lettre en vers,” adorned with two poems framing the main body of the letter. While the poetry, adhering to the customary style of the 18th century, extends compliments and praise to the recipient, the letter’s substance delves into Voltaire’s work Siècle de Louis XIV (1751) and the tumultuous events unfolding in Paris, spurred by Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury. It also references D2632, an autograph letter from Frederick II, king of Prussia (the Great), to Voltaire (François Marie Arouet), penned from Potsdam on Tuesday, 7 August 1742. Moreover, in MS1, Voltaire inadvertently omitted a verb in a sentence, which should have read ‘Je vais pendant les trois ou 4 jours que je.’

Manuscript travel journals, 1784-1790, comprising part of a ‘Journal of an 8 month’s (sic) tour on the Continent’, 25 Apr-10 May 1784, describing the final phase of a tour from Sedan to Calais and London which lasted from October 1783 to May 1784, and including an itinerary of the whole voyage through Picardy, Paris, Burgundy, Switzerland and Belgium, and an anecdote concerning Voltaire; a ‘Journal of a tour to the West in the summer 1788’, describing a journey from London through Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall; and an unfinished ‘Journal of a tour into Sussex’, Jul 1790.

The earlier songs are of the “Mazarinade” variety, with a large portion of the later 17th-century examples directed against the court of young Louis XIV, presided over by Cardinal Mazarin. Later songs include satires on John Law and his disastrous speculation in the Mississippi project, on the religious cult of the Convulsionnaires in Paris, on the morality of the clergy and of the women of the Paris theatre, and one on Voltaire, condemned for his Lettres philosophiques.