This collection consists of 386 letters and documents of royalty, nobility, statesmen, and other celebrities of France, from the reign of Louis XII to the commencement of the French Revolution. It is comprised of examples of the most famous names of three centuries of French history, including Louis XII, Francis I, Henri II, Catherine de Medicis, Francis II, Charles IX, Henri III, Duc de Guise, Henri IV and his wives, Clement VIII, Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIV and his wife Marie Thérèse, Marquise de Maintenon, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Marquise de Sévigné, Cardinal Mazarin, Duc d’Orleans, Louis XV, his wife and daughters, Marquise de Pompadour, Comtesse du Barry, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Cardinal Fleury, Chevalier D’Éon, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Princesse de Lamballe, Charles X, Louis XVI, Jacques Necker, Mirabeau, and Lafayette.

The collection consists of over 2,000 autograph items of prominent English and European figures–the great and near great, the noteworthy and notorious–from the 16th to the mid-19th centuries. Groups of individuals represented in the collection include writers, lawyers, actors and actresses, opera stars, naval and military heroes, explorers, artists, clergyman, politicians, doctors and medical researchers, and royalty. While the emphasis is on autographs of Englishmen/women, there is a good number of French manuscripts, particularly two volumes of items dating from the French Revolution and the First Empire. By far, the largest group of manuscripts (8 volumes) consists of correspondence from mainly English 19th-century artists and engravers. Included are a letter (1550) by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to Pope Julius III against new Church policies; a document (1576) by Elizabeth I ordering from the Master of the Wardrobe various cloths, “two Greate hammers,” and a large iron shovel; documents and letters by Louis XIV (1674-1715), Louis XV (1724), and Louis Philippe (1816); a document (1720) signed by Issac Newton; a letter (1779) of fatherly advice by George III to his son William IV; and three letters (1786-1792) by Lavoisier. There is one volume devoted to the letters of cardinals, ranging from 1550 to 1738. Other notable names, by groups, include: artistic–Fielding, Reynolds, Turner; literary–Congreve, Goethe, Moore, Rousseau, Voltaire; military/naval–Bligh, Cook, Lafayette, Napoleon, Nelson, Wellington; theatrical–Booth, Kean, Siddons; and royal–Charles I, Charles II, Eugene of Savoy, Ferdinand I, George III, James I, James II, Sigismund II Augustus, and William III. In addition, the collection contains, bound with the manuscripts in a grangerized manner, numerous engravings, mezzotints, and other types of prints. Volumes 16, 18, 31, 32, 33, and 42 do not exist. Volume 40 was disbound and can be found in Box 1. Box 2 contains related lists and photographs.

This translation apparently predated the earliest printed edition of a Russian translation which appeared in 1820.

The collection includes copies of poems by Jonathan Swift (answer poem, “The nymph who wrote this in a humourous fit”, together with original “Rebus”), R. B. Sheridan (“Verses to the memory of Garrick”), Voltaire (verse epistle to Frederick the Great, 1747), William Congreve (epistle to Lord Cobham “Sincerest critic of my Prose or Rhime”), James Thompson (“Come gentle god of soft desire”), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Colley Cibber, and Earl Nugent (“Ode to William Pultney”), theatrical prologues and epilogues, two poems addressed to William Whitehead on his being made Poet Laureate, one poem addressed to Lord Cornbury, and various political satires (on Robert Walpole and other subjects), two poems addressed to Lady Charlotte Hyde of Rochester (1703-1746), “On seeing Mount Vesuvius burn” and “Written at Rome in the Year 1730” by the Honorable Lady Lechmere, writings titled “A Song on the Secret Expedition” and “The Qualifications necessary to make a Good Girl,” as well as various odes and verses written in honor of birthdays, weddings, and other occasions.

Included are letters by Robert Adam, Hugh Blair, William Cowper, Richard Cumberland, David Garrick, George Lyttelton, Conyers Middleton, Sir Walter Scott, Richard B. Sheridan, Voltaire, William Wilberforce, and Edward Young. In addition, there are twenty letters by Montagu to various members of her circle and four letters to her from Frances Reynolds.

The manuscript copies are accompanied by an engraved portrait of Voltaire.

The texts include a sequence of Latin odes given by Chopard at the Dijon Académie (probably in the 1740s) in his role as “paranymph” (an official assistant to doctoral candidates at their final defense) in which he extols the virtues of each of the named candidates. The collection also includes a set of satirical texts poking fun at the relatively recent foundation of the Dijon Académie and the quality of its teachers. Also included are copies of several Voltaire texts: the Epître de Mr de Voltaire à sa maison de campagne of 1755 (“O Maison d’Aristippe, o Jardins d’Epicure”); his poem on the Lisbon earthquake (1755), and “La Navigation,” dating from 1773. There is a strong anti-Jesuit bias with several long satires including a “Calendrier Jesuitique,” describing a series of emblematic prints (perhaps imagined). Among the numerous other texts are a satire on the British capture of Île-d’Aix in 1759 following the Battle of Quiberon Bay; verses entitled “Assassinat du Roy de Portugal” on the supposed Jesuit plot to kill the Portuguese king in 1759; a “Chanson sur la prise de Port Mahon sur les Anglois” celebrating the French victory in Minorca; “Stances a M. de Buffon sur son passage dans sa Patrie,” which are verses by M. Baillot of the Dijon Academy, read in 1773 at a public reception for the great naturalist on the occasion of his visit to his alma mater; “La Navigation, ” which is an early copy of La Harpe’s ode which won a prize from the Académie française in 1773; and “Éloge du vin de Rheims ou: la Champagne vangée.”