Voltaire opens the letter by saying that his taste agrees with that of the recipient; he likes mysteries to remain secret. He says that he does not know whether or not the recipient has used the thoughts on public administration in the story of the twelfth wolf [lupus duodecimus], adding that if not he will weave them into the patchwork. Voltaire goes on to say that with one hand he is preparing this repetition whilst with the other the continuation of the general jumble of history, adding that if he had a third hand it would be put to the service of the lovely pair of brothers [par amabile fratrum].

The MS was copied out by multiple people (possibly a group of students) before being bound as a single volume. Included in the commonplace book are excerpts from:

• C.A. Demoustier’s Cours de Morale (1804)
• Esprit Fleicher’s Oraison funèbre de Monsieur de Turenne (1676)
• Chateaubriand’s Martyrs (1809)
• The Gazette de France (9 April 1808)
• Voltaire
• Jean-Baptiste Massillon
• Fréderic César de La Harpe
• Marie Jeanne Riccoboni
• Jacques Necker
• François de Neufchâteau
• Jean-François Marmontel
• Marquis de Bonnay
• The letters of Catherine the Great
• Hayley’s Recette de faire une Tragédie moderne (undated).

Voltaire encourages the recipient to read a letter from Turgot, Contrôleur général des Finances to Louis XVI concerning the 30,000 pounds that had been set as the price for the Pays de Gex’s future immunity from taxation. Voltaire notes that Turgot’s letter shows he fought bitterly for this figure to be reduced and expresses his annoyance that the recipient did not keep him informed of their own negotiations over this price, negotiations Voltaire felt had jeopardised his own attempts to reduce the sum. He then turns to salt, a commodity that had been proposed as an alternative to taxation, stating that this idea had never come to fruition.