An alternate version of Voltaire Foundation MS 15 (B). Besterman has incorrectly ordered the pages so p.2 should be read before p.1. Voltaire has included a second leaf, providing the text which forms lines 365-380 of chapter 38 (OCV, vol.13D). The reader therefore needs to read Wagnière’s text to the symbol, then read Voltaire’s addition, before returning to Wagnière’s text.

Voltaire writes that Quietism removed Cardinal de Bouillon from the court. He was the nephew of Turenne, to whom Voltaire notes that the king owed his salvation in the civil war. United by friendship with the Archbishop of Cambrai and charged with the king’s orders against him, he sought to reconcile his two duties and bring the two parties to conciliation. An Italian priest named Giori was a spy with the opposite faction and worked his way into Cardinal de Bouillon’s confidence, asking him for a thousand crowns which, after he had obtained them, he disappeared with. The letters between Giori and the Cardinal, Voltaire writes, were the Cardinal’s downfall at court, though he suggests that the Cardinal was punished wrongly. His letters show that he had conducted himself with wisdom and dignity, and that he had obeyed the orders of the king in condemning the mystics, whom Voltaire describes as the alchemists of religion. The king wrote a letter of reproach to Cardinal de Bouillon on 16th March 1699. After the rise of Telemachus in Europe, however, the Cardinal was recalled to court by the king but on the way he learned of the death of the Dean of the Sacred College in Rome and so instead took up the role instead. This embittered the king, who exiled the Cardinal for ten years. The Cardinal left France forever in 1710 at a time of great instability for Louis XIV and resigned from his position as the Grand Chaplain of France.

Voltaire writes that the Duc de Choiseuil was kind enough to send him the documents he needed, adding that he hardly needs anything anymore as the whole military and political history of Louis XIV is printed and that all that remains in Jansenism and Quietism, two topics he notes as being deserving of ridicule. He continues by saying that he wrote to the Duc de Choiseuil to ask him for two or three letters from an Italian man named Giori written from Rome to M. de Torsi in January/February 1699 against the Cardinal de Bouillon, his benefactor.

The letter is interspersed with poetry. De Missy writes that after reading Voltaire’s last letter four times, he had begun to reply only to realise that Voltaire had left Brussels for three months without telling him where he could write to him. He goes on to discuss devotion and religion, which he notes Voltaire calls less human than nature, arguing that nature is intended to make us know, love, and imitate the humanity of God. He writes that he thought it was superstition that Voltaire contested, and that he was doing what the devotees do by stripping religion of superstition. De Missy goes on to say that he will make a confession of faith that would not scandalise Voltaire, but that may annoy him, and that perhaps there is more sin in annoying one’s neighbour than in scandalising them. He then discusses the books Voltaire had asked him for, saying he had found German editions of the books of Wotton and Pancirolle but not English ones as Voltaire had requested. He then asks for details about Voltaire’s new tragey (likely Mahomet) which he has been told is very beautiful. He asks if the play has been printed and, if so, where it can be found. De Missy then turns to his own health and that of Voltaire, entreating him to work without tiring himself.