The letter contains a copy of a short verse titled ‘À Mme la Duchesse de ***’. The lines of the poem have been added to the bottom of f.97v in two columns of four lines each.

The letter features a poem on the death of Emanuel Falckner (1718-1739), the uncle of Bernoulli.

Count von Manteuffel sent this copy of the poem to Count von Brühl from Berlin on 21 October 1740.

This MS is a copy of Acts One and Two only. It is probable that the princess drew parallels between Lusignan’s fate and her own captivity. After her liberation, engraved words etched into the wallpaper of her antechamber at the prison were found. These read: ‘je désire Zaïre, Alzire, Amenaïde’.

An account of the Princess writing this manuscript survives. Alcide de Beauchesne noted that the guardian of the Temple prison, Gomin, found the Pricess with a copy of Zaire the day after the death of the Dauphin. He writes: ‘elle écrivait, elle avait un livre ouvert sous les yeux ; ce livre c’était un volume du théâtre de Voltaire, et ce qu’elle copiait, c’était la tragédie de Zaïre. Je possède les deux premiers actes de cette tragédie écrits, sous les verrous du Temple, de la main de la jeune Marie-Thérèse’. A letter from Gomin’s widow, Jeanne Madeleine Antoinette Lafontaine, to Alcide de Beauchesne was sold alongside this MS copy of Zaïre in which she bequeaths him several manuscripts including this one.