The poem offers a playful critique of traditional romantic songs, ridiculing their themes of love and virtue as outdated and unrealistic. The speaker encourages fellow songwriters to abandon sentimental topics in favour of scandalous or bawdy stories, while still maintaining a sense of decorum. He dismisses refined madrigals as bland, preferring the raw humour of simple, unpolished songs.

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.

The collection contains a mix of manuscript and print items, some of which are in the hand of Prosper Marchand (1678-1756).

Includes copies of pieces by Rousseau, Voltaire, songs, political pieces etc.; Extract from Gazetta di Parma, 1743, re Master of Stair.

Circa 500 letters written by and to Madame du Deffand, arranged in chronological order. The main correspondents are the Duc and Duchesse de Choiseul; the Abbe Barthelemy; and and with three to Horace Walpole. The letters primarily discuss social events and activities such as dinners, news about friends, quotations from acquaintances’ letters, popular songs, current reading, and routine expressions of friendship. Du Deffand frequently mentions Walpole and Voltaire in her letters to others; other topics include Barthelemy’s desire for a harpsichord; gossip about the comte de Guerchy, ambassador to London; a description of a gift of a chamber pot; her irritation with the incessant talk of the mathematician Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise Du Châtelet; and her opinions on the works Memoire de la Chalottais and La rivalte de l’Angleterre et de la France.

One of the letters from this series has been removed to the Best.D series, no.4830, as it is printed in the correspondence.