To consult archives for his history of the Brunswick-Lüneburg family, which he had been commanded to write, Leibniz travelled to Munich, Vienna, Rome and other cities. At Rome, the Pope, impressed by his great learning and controversial ability, offered him the custodianship of the Vatican library, if he would become a Roman Catholic, but Leibniz declined the offer. Apart from the fact that it involved submission to the Roman Church, it did not offer him a sufficiently wide field for his ambition. It is impossible to withhold some pity from this great scholar. He was one of those who put their trust in princes; he was greedy of money, honours and worldly fame; he loved the atmosphere of courts, and to have the ear of those who sit in high places, and so he deliberately prostituted his giant brain to writing panegyrics of the princes of paltry dukedoms, when he might have employed it to working out some of the greatest problems that interest mankind. His worldly prospects at this time largely depended on the Queen of Prussia. Sophie Charlotte had known him at Hanover, and she invited him to Lützenburg. Through his influence she induced the King of Prussia to found the Academy of Science in Berlin, and to make Leibniz its first president. At his suggestion also, similar societies were founded in St. Petersburg, Dresden and Vienna, under the immediate patronage of the reigning monarchs, who were thus able to pose as patrons of the arts and sciences. Leibniz received honours from all of them, and the Emperor created him a baron of the empire. Leibniz often met the Princess of Ansbach at the Queen of Prussia’s reunions, and he noted how high she stood in the favour of his royal mistress. He became attracted to her by her wit and conversation, which were unusual in a princess of her years. He spoke of her in glowing terms to the Electress Sophia, who later made acquaintance with the young princess at Berlin, and she, too, was charmed with her talents and beauty. Leibniz, who was much at Berlin in those days, kept his venerable mistress at Hanover acquainted with the movements of the princess. We find him, for instance, writing to tell the Electress that Caroline had returned to Berlin after a brief visit to Ansbach, and of the Queen’s pleasure at seeing her again. The Electress Sophia replied from Herrenhausen, desiring him to assure Caroline of her affection, and adding, “If it depended on me, I would have her kidnapped, and keep her always here”. This seems to show that, even at this early date, Sophia had it in her mind that she would like Caroline to marry her grandson, George Augustus.