The MS includes a number of pre-1739 variants, along with a new reading of l.82 as ‘artistement orné’.

The comtesse de Horn never sent this letter to Voltaire, instead sending it to an unknown male friend. In a postscript, she explains why. She notes that this letter is smoother and softer than the other, D15188, which is hard and dry. She asks the recipient to give his opinion on this letter and send it back to her as she does not want it to see the light because of her own poor judgement.

The letter was found within a copy of Voltaire’s Essai sur l’histoire universelle, tome troisième : contenant les temps depuis Charles VII roi de France jusqu’à l’empereur Charlesquint (Leipzig & Dresden, 1754), housed at the BCU Lausanne (1D 110 Armoire 46). This book contains numerous additions in a secretarial hand, themselves corrected by Voltaire, which were written on separate slips of paper and affixed to the book.