In this reworked letter, Voltaire recounts to his niece an amusing anecdote in which the marquis de Montperny, chambellan of the margravine of Bareith, mistakes a priest for an apothecary. Voltaire’s secretary of the time, Ponce-Simon Tinois, wrote verses about the episode, which circulated in September 1750 and were attributed to Voltaire (Vers de l’illustre Voltaire sur le cul d’un chambellan de Bayreuth).

The copy forms part of a recueil of various works, including those by:

• Gabrielle-Émilie Du Châtelet
• Frederick II of Prussia
• Christian Gellert
• Salomon Gesner
• Jean-Jacques Le Franc de Pompignan
• Simon Lefrance de Pompignan
• Tunisie Tunis

The text was one of the works included in the 1764 edition of Contes de Guillaume Vadé.

In this letter, Voltaire claims that he has become involved inone of the most ridiculous scandals of the century in the Mémoire de Desfontaines written by Pierre François Guyot Desfontaines. Voltaire mocks Desfontaines’s attempts to portray himself as a modest, quality, and moral man and further critiques Desfontaines’s claim to have friends. Voltaire hides behind the pseudonym ‘Malicourt’ in this letter so that he can insult Desfontaines with greater vehemence.

Voltaire recounts a meeting he had with Mr. Paff, an illustrious professor at Tubingen, and Mr. Crokius Dubius, whom Voltaire describes as one of the finest men of our time. Voltaire claims that he showed Mr. Paff and Mr. Crokius Dubius passages from Chapter XXXIX of Ezekiel which he believed provided proof of Jewish people eating human flesh. Mr. Paff replied that the passage was only relevant to the birds whilst Mr Crokius Dubius conducted a long examination of the passage and concluded that it was merely figurative and not proof at all. Voltaire begs the men to consider that Ezekiel lived at the time of Cambyse who had in his army many Scythians and Tartars who commonly ate both men and horses, and to remember various tales about Jewish people cooking and eating their children. Again, Voltaire recounts that Mr. Paff and Mr. Crokius Dubius rejected his claims. He went on to tell them that the most polite of nations had been canibals, including the Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, and Greeks and added that when Samuel cut King Agag into pieces it was in order to cook him in a stew. Mr. Paff and Mr. Crokius Dubius returned that the Jews do not eat stew and Voltaire then countered this by suggesting that the Jews stewed goats, leading to a debate about the superiority of human flesh over the flesh of other animals. Voltaire then claims that the discussion was interrupted by a soldier who informed them that he had eaten Cossacks during the Siege of Kolberg (1760) and that the meat was not superior but rather tough.