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10 The memoranda never reached the King, for he never asked to see them. The two versions of the scheme remained buried among the author's papers at Hanover for a century and a quarter; but Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1798 led the British Government, which had received a copy of the larger document, to publish a summary in pamphlet form in 1803. When the French seized Hanover shortly afterwards, they obtained a copy of the Consilium Aegyptiacum, which was read by the First Consul. IV.

A spirited foreign policy in the Levant was urged on Louis XIV in the same year 1672 by the French Ambassador at Constantinople, d'Arvieux, who was well acquainted with the Turkish Empire. The Turks, he complained, had permitted foreigners to enter and to trade with Turkey under the protection of other flags than that of France, had pillaged French subjects by land and sea, had imposed extra taxes on French goods, and had treated the King of France with disrespect by sending to him Ambassadors of lower grade than the French Ambassadors accredited to the Porte. It was time to show that these breaches of the Capitulations would no longer be tolerated.