We prefer developing some of the ideas of Leibnitz, who, in order to revive the spirit of distant expeditions, addressed himself to the ambition of princes, and whose political views have received a memorable application in modern times. At the moment in which Louis XIV. was preparing to carry his arms into the Low Countries, the German philosopher sent him a long memorial, to persuade him to renew the expedition of St. Louis into Egypt. The conquest of that rich country, which Leibnitz calls the Holland of the East, would favour the triumph and the propagation of the faith; it would procure for the Most Christian king the renown of Alexander, and for the French monarchy vast means of power and prosperity. After the occupation of Alexandria and Cairo, fortune would offer the conquerors some happy opportunity for restoring the empire of the East; the Ottoman power, attacked by the Poles and the Germans, and troubled by internal divisions, was ready to sink into ruin; Muscovy and Persia were already preparing to take advantage of its fall; if France put forth her strength, nothing would be more easy than to gather together again the immense heritage of Constantine, to dominate over the Mediterranean, to extend her empire over the Red Sea, over the Sea of Ethiopia, over the Persian Gulf, and obtain possession of the commerce of India; everything the most brilliant in the glory and grandeur of empires then presented itself to the imagination of Leibnitz; and this exalted genius, dazzled by his own idea, and allying his policy with the prejudices of his age, could see nothing greater than the conquest of Egypt, but the discovery of the philosopher’s stone: he beheld already, in a shortly distant futurity, the Christian religion flourishing again in Asia, the empire and the commerce of the East and the West divided between the king of France and the house of Austria and Spain, the world rendered peaceful, and governed by these two conquering powers!
After having developed the advantages of the vast enterprise he proposed, Leibnitz neglected none of the means that would be likely to secure the success or facilitate the execution of it. It was in this part of his memorial that he showed all the superiority of his genius; and when we read the account of the last war of the French in Egypt, we cannot but feel persuaded that Buonaparte was well acquainted with the plan of campaign addressed by Leibnitz to Louis XIV. But certainly this gigantic enterprise, whose result was likely to be more brilliant than either solid or durable, was less suited to a monarch guided in his policy by the sentiments of real greatness, than to the modern hero, always enamoured of an adventurous and romantic glory. Nevertheless, the ideas of Leibnitz, although not favourably received by the cabinet of Versailles, did not fail to produce a lively impression upon the statesmen of the seventeenth century. It is known likewise, that the king of France had already thought seriously of a war against the Turks; and we have reason to believe that Boileau alluded to all these projects of distant conquests, when he said in his epistle to the king:
Je t’attends dans six mois aux bords de l’Hellespont.[90]
The eloquence, or even the flattery of authors, could not induce princes to take up arms against the infidels; and the Crusaders finished, as they began, with pilgrimages. Among the celebrated pilgrims who repaired to the East after the holy wars, one of the most remarkable was Ignatius Loyola. He visited the holy places twice, and, like St. Jerome, would have ended his days in Palestine, if the Latin priests had not advised him to return into Europe, where he established the order of the Jesuits. As was the case before the crusades, princes mixed with the crowd of Christians who went to the Holy Land. Frederick III., before he ascended the imperial throne, went on a pilgrimage to the holy city. We still possess an account of the voyages which were made successively into Palestine by a prince of Radziwil, a duke of Bavaria, a duke of Austria, and three electors of Saxony, among whom was he who was the protector of Luther.
Pilgrims from the West were no longer received at Jerusalem, as in the early times, by the Knights of St. John, but by the Latin fathers of the order of St. Francis of Assisi, who devoted themselves to the guardianship of the holy sepulchre. Preserving the hospitable manners of ancient times, the guardian father himself washed the feet of travellers, and furnished them with the necessary assistance for their pilgrimage. Pilgrims embarked at Venice, where vessels were always ready to transport them to the coast of Syria. People could obtain all the benefits attached to the pilgrimage of the Holy Land, without quitting their homes; either by commissioning pious men who were sent beyond the seas, or cenobites who resided on the spot.
The greater part of the sovereigns of Christendom, after the example of Charlemagne, thought it consistent with their glory, not only to deliver, but to protect the city of Jesus Christ from the outrages of the Mussulmans. The capitulations of Francis I., renewed by most of his successors, contain[91] several conditions which contribute to secure peace to the Christians, with the free exercise of their religion in the East. In the reign of Henry IV., Deshayes, the ambassador from France to Constantinople, went to visit the faithful at Jerusalem, and conveyed to them the consolations of a charity worthy of royalty. The count of Nointel, who represented Louis XIV. at the court of the sultan of Turkey, also went into the Holy Land; and Jerusalem received in triumph the envoy of the powerful monarch, whose credit and renown were employed to protect the Christians beyond the seas.
Most of the princes of Christendom every year sent their tributes to the holy city; and in solemn ceremonies, the church of the Resurrection displayed the treasures offered by the kings of the West. The guardians of the holy places, who entertained and took charge of pilgrims, possessed nothing on earth; but the gifts of the faithful were for them like the manna of the desert, sent every day from heaven. By a species of miracle constantly renewed, the holy monuments of the Christian religion, for a long time defended by the armies of the West, having no longer any defence but religious remembrances, preserved themselves amidst the barbarous sectaries of Islamism: the security enjoyed by the city of Jerusalem made its deliverance less thought of. That which produced the spirit of the crusades in the eleventh century was, above all other causes, the persecution directed against pilgrims, and the state of misery in which the Christians of the East existed. When they ceased to be persecuted, and had fewer miseries to endure, lamentable accounts no longer awakened the pity and indignation of the western nations; and Christendom satisfied itself with addressing prayers to God for the preservation of peace in the places he had sanctified by his miracles. There was then a spirit of resignation[92] which took place of the enthusiasm of the crusades; the city of David and of Godfrey became confounded in the minds of Christians with the heavenly Jerusalem, and as sacred orators said, “it was necessary to pass through Heaven to arrive at the Holy Land,” it was of no use appealing to the bravery of warriors, but to the devotion and charity of the faithful.