.
Here follows a translation of the preface to this volume, entitled "Avertissement" (for Advertisement or Message), page 2 of the volume:
Since the year 1679, the different membrs of the Academy, who have been in charge successively for the composition of this work, have always enriched more and more the objective which could contribute best to the perfection of Astronomy & the Navy. Following the plan of these clever predecessors, one has observed what was very important to supply for the advantage of navigators, a manual which is for having the greatest utility; of which one has accelerated the publication of its volumes as much as possible; this one, which is the onehundred sixth of the series, appears more than two years before its true epoch.
One has given; on page 6, the true & apparent obliquity of the Ecliptic, such as M. Cassini the son [Cassini IV] has re-established it from the table he has created, after the observations made by him, by his ancestors & others, at the royal Observatory of Paris, within a long series of years, with one and the same instrument, constructed by Sir Langlois, celebrated for his art to divide [circles for] these instruments.
One finds on pages 227 & following, the excellent Catalog of Nebulae & clusters of Stars by M. Messier, enlarged by the Author: this Catalog is followed, pages 271-301, by the one of principal stars [with positions] reduced for January 1, 1784.
The Table of the geographic positions of different places on Earth is on page 302, & that of the ports is on page 348, both with considerable extensions.
Here are the Errata of printing faults which have occurred in the two preceding volumes of this work.
Here follows a translation of an excerpt of the Members of the Academy list, including the entry for Charles Messier, on page 404 of the volume:
ORDINARY ADJOINTS.
..
Pour l'Astronomie:
Here follow extracts from the Table of Contents, which is printed at the end of the volume, following the last numbered page 418.
Interesting Catalog of Nebulae & Star clusters
observed by M. Messier at the Observatory of the Navy
227-268
Nebulae discovered by different astronomers, which
M. Messier has looked for without success 268-269
Nebulae of the southern sky, observed by M. l'Abbé de
la Caille, at the Cape of Good Hope 270-272