Presented as a project to dedicate the Commentaires sur Corneille to the King, dating the MS to 1761 at the latest. Theodore Besterman refutes this idea, arguing that in 1761 Voltaire did not address the King in person. Jeroom Vercruysse has suggested that the MS was a draft dedication that did not succeed, and that can be dated from 1747.

The dedication was first printed in the Almanach des muses (Paris, 1767) p.6.

For more on the copy of the book, see PQ 2080 H4 1730.

The dedication of the tragedy d’Oreste to the duchesse du Maine, protector of Voltaire, which contains numerous corrections by Voltaire as well as passages that do not appear in the printed dedication. Voltaire recalls the splendour of Louis XIV, to which the duchesse du Maine contributed so much, particularly with regard to her taste for the interpretation of plays. Voltaire writes that he has not forgotten that the duchesse du Maine offered him a secret asylum in her Château de Sceaux four years earlier, where he wrote Zadig. In an appended note, Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, duchesse du Maine writes that she does not deserve such praises but that she approves of the epistle.