and people in France began to talk about a Turkish War the very issue involved in Leibniz s design. It therefore seemed after all well worth his while that, while he was waiting at Paris with more or less hopefulness for the return of the King from his Dutch campaign, he should compose a full statement of his design for the use of the great monarch. The statement drawn up by him was afterwards known as De expeditione Aegyptiaca regi Francicz proponenda Justa Dissertatio; while a shorter form of the same—a first draft, or more probably a summary—which he intended for Boineburg, was preserved under the title of Consilium Aegyptiacum.
My account of the contents of these documents must necessarily be quite brief, and pretermit preamble, illustrations and peroration. In a word, then, the Egyptian scheme is here represented as the greatest and the most important undertaking upon which France could possibly enter; for its accomplishment implies the acquisition by her of the arbitrium of the known world and the military leadership of Christendom. It is at the same time the easiest and the least dangerous of great designs open to France, and its failure would not be fatal to her. Moreover, no time could be so favour able for carrying it out as the present. The conquest of Egypt by France would be the conquest of the Holland of the East, and would at the same time bring about the overthrow of the actual Holland, whose strength lies in her colonies and in the trade of the East Indies. The master of Egypt can render either infinite service or infinite disservice to the world—the former by stopping trade as the Turks have done, the latter by developing it through the union of Mediterranean and Red Sea by means of a canal.
All this comes home; and it is almost by way of a parenthesis only (though we know how much is some times hidden in parentheses) that it is pointed out how, in comparison with such gains as these, the conquest of a few towns on the Rhine or in the Low Countries is worth very little, while, moreover, the kindling of a
