This version of the text reproduces only the dialogue, omitting the Mandarin’s ‘profession of faith’ at ll.393-504.

The copy is part of a wider collection, Recueil de divers ouvrages, owned by Marie de Vichy Chamrond, marquise Du Deffand.

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

This is possibly the MS copy of the work sent from Voltaire to Louise Honorine Crozat Du Châtel, duchesse de Choiseul on 2 February 1769 [D15457].

A collection of about 60 poems and essays, primarily elegies, occasional verses, and verse epitaphs on the subjects of solitude, death, and the nature of humanity. The volume contains poems by Joseph Butler, John Dyer, David Garrick, James Grainger, Thomas Gray, Richard Jago, Charlotte Lennox, James Marriott, Ambrose Philips, Petrarch, William Vernon, Thomas Wharton, Isaac Watts, William Whitehead, Anthony Whistler, and Mrs. Barber. Other poem titles include: Ode to death, possibly by Abraham Richard Hawksworth; Virgil’s tomb; Ode to solitude and one in French, Epistle de Mr. Voltaire.

Circa 500 letters written by and to Madame du Deffand, arranged in chronological order. The main correspondents are the Duc and Duchesse de Choiseul; the Abbe Barthelemy; and and with three to Horace Walpole. The letters primarily discuss social events and activities such as dinners, news about friends, quotations from acquaintances’ letters, popular songs, current reading, and routine expressions of friendship. Du Deffand frequently mentions Walpole and Voltaire in her letters to others; other topics include Barthelemy’s desire for a harpsichord; gossip about the comte de Guerchy, ambassador to London; a description of a gift of a chamber pot; her irritation with the incessant talk of the mathematician Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise Du Châtelet; and her opinions on the works Memoire de la Chalottais and La rivalte de l’Angleterre et de la France.