Voltaire recounts that a woman, eight months pregnant, turned up at the councillor’s address. She claimed that her husband had returned from a long absence and had not noticed her pregnancy but was violent enough that she chose to flee for the safety of herself and her unborn child. These notes were revised for the published edition which reads: ‘Ceux de Lainet ont une anecdote très remarquable. Une dame de qualité de Franch-Comté se trouvant à Paris grosse de huit mois en 1664, son mari absent depuis un an arrive; elle craint qu’il ne la tue; elle s’adresse à Lainet sans le connaître. Celui-ci consulte l’ambassadeur d’Espagne; tous deux imaginent de faire enfermer le mari par lettre de cachet à la Bastille jusqu’à ce que femme soit relevée de couche. Ils s’adressent à la reine. Le roi en riant fait et signe la lettre de cachet lui-même; il sauve la vie de la femme et de l’enfant; ensuite il demande pardon au mari et lui fait un présent.’

Voltaire writes that odious tactics were used on both sides, with one M. Joly [Jean François Joly de Fleury de La Valette] conspiring to cut his arm and be shot in his carriage to make the public believe that the Court had wanted to murder him. A few days later, shots were fired in the Prince of Condé’s carriages, killing one servant. Cardinal de Retz, the Duke of Beaufort, and [Pierre] Broussel were all accused in parliament and justified. Voltaire then writes that every important man, or every man who wanted to be important, claimed to be acting in the interests of the public good and wanted to get as close to the Crown as possible. The text includes some passages not featured in the printed edition.

F.1 is a draft of the Siécle de Louis XIV in the hand of Wagnière. recounting the low and odious means employed by all factions at the royal court. The text is interrupted by Voltaire’s symbol at the end of the sentence reading: ‘Condé ne les aimait ni tres les estimait’. The text to be inserted at this point is introduced on f.2 and 3 by the same symbol, beginning: ‘le coadjuteur de larcheveché de paris voulait etre cardinal par la nomination de la Reine et il se devouait alors a elle pour obtenir cette dignité etrangere qui ne donnait aucune autorité mais un grand relief.’ F.3 ends with the phrase: ‘le prince de condé eut pu gouverner.’ The remaining text on fol.1v is split into three sections. The first section, in Wagnière’s hand, continues the text from the recto side which appears to have been cut by Voltaire from the printed edition. The second section, also in Wagnière’s hand beginning ‘ce qui montre encore combien les évênements trompent les hommes, c’est que cette prison des trois princes qui semblait devoir assoupir toutes les factions, fut ce qui les releva’, provides a section that was eventually added to ch.4 of the Siècle (OCV, vol.13A, pp.74-5, ll.495-510). The final section in Collini’s hand, beginning ‘Toute la France redemandait le grand condé’ continues the second section of text on f.1v.

The recueil largely consists of satirical political songs, most of which are accompanied by a musical score and date to 1600-1745. The subjects of these works include: courts and courtiers of Henry IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV; the Fronde; and other political events of the 17th-18th centuries. The last volume contains a collection of epigrams, 1758-1759 and undated, some attributed to Voltaire.