Catholic. Divisions caused by the French Wars of Religion meant both Protestant and Catholic scholars like Jacques Bongars and Catholic Pasquier used the Crusades as a symbol of French unity. They presented them as primarily a French experience, rather than an alliance between European Christians, and praised the role of individuals while dismissing the Crusades themselves as immoral. Age of Enlightenment literature Enlightenment writers such as David Hume, Voltaire, and Edward Gibbon used crusading as a conceptual tool to critique religion, civilisation, and cultural mores. They argued its only positive impact was ending feudalism and thus promoting rationalism; negatives included depopulation, economic ruin, abuse of papal authority, irresponsibility and barbarism. These opinions were later criticised in the 19thcentury as being unnecessarily hostile to, and ignorant of, the crusades. Alternatively, Claude Fleury and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz proposed that the crusades were one stage in the improvement of European civilisation; that paradigm was further developed by rationalists. In France the idea that the crusades were an important part of national history and identity continued to evolve. In scholarly literature, the term "holy war" was replaced by the neutral German kreuzzug and French croisade. In 1671 while working for the Elector of Mainz, Leibniz wrote a proposal to Louis XIV for a French conquest of Egypt along the lines of the crusaders' Egypt strategy. The strategic intent was maybe to distract French aggression but the argument was France's role in the crusades aligned to its destiny, it would be for the benefit of Christendom, the Ottomans were decadent, and it would support French colonisation in the Near East. The proposal wasn't accepted, in the words of the French ambassador to Mainz I say nothing about the schemes for a holy war: but you know that they have ceased to be since Saint Louis. However, the proposal was rediscovered and Leibniz's ideas regained currency in the run up to Napoleon's French campaign in Egypt and Syria at the end of the 18thcentury. Gibbon followed Thomas Fuller in dismissing the concept that the crusades were a legitimate defence on the grounds that they were disproportionate to the threat presented. Palestine was an objective, not because of reason but because of fanaticism and superstition. William Robertson expanded on Fleury in a new, empirical, objective approach; placing crusading in a narrative on the road to modernity. The cultural consequences of progress, growth in trade and the rise