“By a single fortunate blow,” says Leibnitz, “empires may be in an instant overthrown and founded. In such wars are found the elements of high power and of an exalted glory.” It is unnecessary to repeat all the seductive terms which Leibnitz employs to induce Louis XIV. to set his chivalry in motion against the Turkish power. Egypt he calls “the eye of countries, the mother of grain, the seat of commerce.” He hints that Muscovy was even then ready to take advantage of any circumstance that might facilitate her way to the conquest of Turkey. The conquest of Egypt then was of double importance to France. Possessing _that_, France would be mistress of the Mediterranean, of a great part of Africa and Asia, and “the king of France could then, by incontestable right, and with the consent of the Pope, assume the title of Emperor of the East.” A further bait held out is, that in such a position he could “hold the pontiffs much more in his power than if they resided at Avignon.” He sums up by saying that there would be on the part of the human race, “an everlasting reverence for the memory of the great king to whom so many miracles were due!” “With the exception of the philosopher’s stone,” finally remarks the philosopher, “I know nothing that can be imagined of more importance than the conquest of Egypt.” Leibnitz enters largely into the means to be employed, in order to insure success; among them is a good share of mendacity; and it must be acknowledged that the spirit of the memorial and its objects, touching not Egypt alone, but the Turkish empire generally, had been well pondered over by the Czar before he made that felonious attempt in which he failed to find a confederate. The original of the memorial, which is supposed to have been presented to Louis XIV. just previous to his invasion of Holland--and, as some say, more with the intention of diverting the king from his attack on that country, than with any more definite object--was preserved in the archives of Versailles till the period of the great revolution. A copy in the handwriting of Leibnitz was, however, preserved in the Library at Hanover. Its contents were without doubt known to Napoleon when he was meditating that Egyptian conquest which Leibnitz pronounced to be so easy of accomplishment; a copy, made at the instance of Marshal Mortier for the Royal Library in Paris, is now in that collection. The suggestion of Leibnitz, that the seat, if not of universal monarchy, at least of the mastership of Christendom, was in the Turkish dominions, has never been forgotten by Russia; and it is very possible that some of its seductive argument may have influenced the Czar before he impelled his troops into that war, which showed that Russia, with all its boasted power, could neither take Silistria nor keep Sebastopol.