The hand suggests that this copy was produced in the eighteenth century.

This copy is limited to the verse only. The autograph copy is dated 2 November 1744, rather than 1 November as stated on this MS.

The letter features a poem titled ‘L’homme inutile’.

In the manuscript, the poem is titled: ‘Quatrains par Voltaire sur le malheur d’avoir près de 50 ans’.

This copy, produced by Gouroff, rector of the University of St Petersburg, is addressed to Beuchot. It is a copy of a manuscript said to have been held in the archives of the Bastille which was is missing from the folder ‘Autographes 288’ at the National Library of Russia.

The copy differs from the printed version of the text in two key ways: the section on Rousseau is less developed, and the conclusion is different as it does not include the letter to P. Tournemine.

The collection contains poetry by:

• Jules Michelet
• Jean-François de La Harpe
• Voltaire
• Philippe Quinault
• Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
• Jacques Delille
• Casimir V
• Classical Latin poets

The collection includes poems by:

• Alexander Pushkin
• Kondraty Ryleyev
• Pyotyr Vyazemsky
• Arkady Rodzianko
• Alphonse de Lamartine
• Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
• Évariste de Parny
• Pierre-Louis Ginguené
• Voltaire

Turgenev has copied out a quatrain from the larger work reading:

“S’occuper c’est savoir jouir
L’oisiveté pèse et tourmente;
L’âme est un feu, qu’il faut nourrir
Et qui s’éteint, s’il ne s’augmente”.