The copy notes that the poem was produced in The Hague.

The inscription is a quote from Voltaire and reads: ‘Qui depuis…! Mais alors il etait vertueux. Voltaire.’ The quotation is taken from La Henriade (Chant 8).

Pieter Abraham D’Hondt writes to his partner, Thomas Becket, in London to discuss the publication of books by numerous authors, including Voltaire, and their being shipped to England. He speculates on the authorship of the Lettres Secrettes and the Dictionnaire philosophique, remarking that: ‘You may depend upon it that these 2 Books are really wrote by Voltaire; as to the Lettres Secrettes, they have in my opinion only the name of Voltaire, and the title wc. is good, to recommend them, but their intrinsic value is very trifling, it is otherwise with the Dictionnaire, wc. no doubt will sell much, but I do not know if it is advisable to advertise it, it is certainly a performance sc. by religious people will be numbered in the class of bad books, for it is clear that the Author makes a jest of revealed religion, this character is I believe sufficient to persuade you not to translate it’, adding that it has been burned in Geneva by the Common Executioner.

Samuel König begins by denyng that he has had any role in inciting attacks against Maupertuis, adding that Maupertuis has only himself to blame for them. He states that he has seen almost nothing in Germany which attacks Maupertuis, and has not requested that anyone produce anything to that effect. König then turns to Voltaire and Émilie Du Châtelet, saying that he did not know that they were on poor terms with Maupertuis before the publication of Voltaire’s Diatribe du docteur Akakia. He concludes with reference to Leonhard Euler and mocks his writings in defence of Maupertuis.