Diplomatic In 1828, Lesseps was sent as an assistant
vice-consul to
Tunis, where his father was
consul-general. He aided the escape of Youssouff, pursued by the soldiers of the
Bey, of whom he was one of the officers, for violation of the
seraglio law. Youssouff acknowledged this protection given by a Frenchman by distinguishing himself in the ranks of the French army at the time of the
French conquest of Algeria. Lesseps was also entrusted by his father with missions to Marshal Count
Bertrand Clausel, general-in-chief of the army of occupation in Algeria. The marshal wrote to Mathieu de Lesseps on 18 December 1830: "I have had the pleasure of meeting your son, who gives promise of sustaining with great credit the name he bears." In 1832, Lesseps was appointed vice-consul at
Alexandria. While the vessel, in which Lesseps sailed to Egypt, was in quarantine at the Alexandrian
lazaretto, M. Mimaut, consul-general of France at Alexandria, sent him several books, among which was the memoir written upon the previously filled and abandoned
Ancient Suez Canal, according to
Napoleon Bonaparte's instructions, by the civil engineer
Jacques-Marie Le Père, one of the scientific members of the French expedition. This work struck Lesseps's imagination, and was one of the influences that gave him the idea of constructing a canal across the African isthmus. Fortunately for Lesseps,
Muhammad Ali, the viceroy of Egypt, owed his position in part to the recommendations made on his behalf to the French government by Lesseps himself, who was consul-general in Egypt when Ali was a colonel. Because of this, Lesseps received a warm welcome from the viceroy and became good friends with his son, Said Pasha. Politically, the
British were allied with the
Ottoman government in
Istanbul (doing so in order to prevent the
Russians from gaining access to the
Mediterranean) and had also assisted in repelling
Ali's attempt to capture Istanbul in 1833. The French were able to manoeuvre in Egypt under Ali's graces by playing off the British intervention against Ali in Istanbul. In 1833, Lesseps was sent as consul to
Cairo, and soon afterwards given the management of the consulate general at Alexandria, a post that he held until 1837. While in Egypt he encountered and was influenced by
Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, who was working on a
dam north of Cairo for Ali while preaching for a union of the Mediterranean and Red Seas. While he was there an epidemic of plague broke out and lasted for two years, resulting in the deaths of more than a third of the inhabitants of Cairo and Alexandria. During this time Lesseps went from one city to the other with zeal and energy. Towards the close of the year 1837 he returned to France, and on 21 December married Agathe Delamalle (1819–1853), daughter of the government prosecuting attorney at the court of
Angers. By this marriage de Lesseps became the father of five sons: Charles Théodore de Lesseps (1838–1838), Charles Aimé de Lesseps (1840–1923), Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps (1842–1846), Ferdinand Victor de Lesseps (1847–1853) and Aimé Victor de Lesseps (1848–1896). In 1839, Lesseps was appointed consul at
Rotterdam, and in the following year transferred to
Málaga, the ancestral home of his mother's family. In 1842 he was sent to
Barcelona, and soon afterwards promoted to the grade of consul general. In the course of a bloody insurrection in
Catalonia, which ended in the
bombardment of Barcelona, de Lesseps offered protection to a number of men threatened by the fighting regardless of their factional sympathies or nationalities. From 1848 to 1849 he was minister of France at
Madrid. In 1849, the government of the French Republic sent Lesseps to Rome to negotiate the return of
Pope Pius IX to the
Vatican. He tried to negotiate an agreement whereby Pope Pius could return peacefully to the Vatican but also ensuring the continued independence of Rome. But, during negotiations, the elections in France caused a change in the foreign policy of the government –
Alexis de Tocqueville replaced the previous foreign minister. Lesseps course was disapproved; he was recalled and brought before the Council of State.
Louis-Napoleon needed a scapegoat and Lesseps was an easy target. Lesseps was accused of causing dishonor to the French army and was censured although he was not told to leave the Foreign Ministry. Lesseps was created on 30 August 1851 the 334th
Commander and then the 200th
Grand Cross of the
Order of the Tower and Sword. Lesseps then retired from the diplomatic service, and never again occupied any public office. In 1853, he lost his wife and his son Ferdinand Victor at a few days' interval. In 1854, the accession to the viceroyalty of Egypt of Said Pasha gave Lesseps a new impulse to act upon the creation of a Suez Canal.
Suez Canal , 1867. , 1955; the outstretched hand indicated that the way was now open to the East. . Lesseps had corresponded at least once with the
Société d'Études du Canal de Suez during the reign of
Abbas I in Egypt, but Abbas had closed off most of Egypt to foreign influence. Upon Abbas' assassination in 1854, Lesseps made inquiries with a former, if short-term, acquaintance and successor in Egypt,
Said Pasha. On 7 November 1854 he landed at Alexandria; on the 30th of the same month Said Pasha signed the concession authorizing him to oversee the French portion of the Suez Canal's construction. A first scheme, initiated by Lesseps, was immediately drawn out by two French engineers who were in the Egyptian service,
Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds called "Linant Bey" and Mougel Bey. This project, differing from others that were previously presented or that were in opposition to it, provided for a direct link between the Mediterranean and the
Red Sea. After being slightly modified, the plan was adopted in 1856 by the civil engineers constituting the
International Commission for the piercing of the isthmus of Suez. Encouraged by the engineers' approval, Lesseps no longer allowed anything to stop him. He listened to no adverse criticism and receded before no obstacle. Neither the opposition of
Lord Palmerston, who considered the projected disturbance as too radical and
a threat to the commercial position of the
British Empire. Lesseps was similarly not deterred by the opinions entertained, in France as well as in Britain, that the sea in front of
Port Said was full of mud which would obstruct the entrance to the canal, and that the sands from the desert would fill the trenches. Lesseps succeeded in rousing the patriotism of the French and obtaining by their subscriptions more than half of the capital of two hundred million francs which he needed in order to form a company, but could not attract any substantial capital contribution from the general public in British or other foreign countries. The Egyptian government thus subscribed for eighty million francs worth of shares. The
Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez was organized at the end of 1858. On 25 April 1859, the first blow of the pickaxe was given by Lesseps at Port Said. Lesseps accepted the presidency of the French committee of
Leopold II of Belgium's
International African Society. From this position he facilitated
Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza's explorations, and acquired stations that Brazza subsequently abandoned to the French government. These stations were the starting-point of
French Congo. Lesseps was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1879. From 17 November 1899 to 23 December 1956, a monumental statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps by
Emmanuel Frémiet stood at the entrance of the Suez Canal.
Panama Canal attempt In May 1879, a congress of 136 delegates (including Lesseps) assembled in the rooms of the
Société de géographie in Paris, under the presidency of Admiral de la Roncire le Noury, and voted in favor of the creation of a
Panama Canal, which was to be without locks, like the Suez Canal. Lesseps was appointed President of the
Panama Canal Company, despite the fact that he had reached the age of 74. It was on this occasion that Gambetta bestowed upon him the title of "Le Grand Français". However, the decision to dig a Panama Canal at sea level to avoid the use of locks, and the inability of contemporaneous medical science to deal with epidemics of malaria and yellow fever, doomed the project. , medal by
Louis-Oscar Roty In February 1880, Lesseps arrived in New York City to raise money for the project. When he stayed at the
Windsor Hotel, its staff flew the
French flag in his honor. He met the
American Society of Civil Engineers and the Geographic Society while touring the area. Lesseps then went to
Washington D.C., met with President
Rutherford B. Hayes, and testified to the House Interoceanic Canal Committee. He later went to
Boston,
Chicago, and several other American cities to raise interest and capital for the project. In June 1880, Lesseps gave a speech in
Liverpool where he was able to find support from a Captain Peacock, who felt the canal project was worth supporting as it would provide routes to save time. Lesseps went with his youngest child to
Panama to see the planned pathway. He estimated in 1880 that the project would take 658 million
francs and eight years to complete. After two years of surveys, work on the canal began in 1882. However, the technical difficulties of operating in the wet tropics dogged the project. Particularly disastrous were recurrent
landslides into the excavations from the bordering water-saturated hills, and the death toll from
malaria and
yellow fever. In the end, insufficient
financial capital and financial
corruption ended the project. The Panama Canal Company declared itself bankrupt in December 1888 and entered
liquidation in February 1889. The failure of the project is sometimes referred to as the
Panama Canal Scandal, after rumors circulated that French politicians and journalists had received
bribes. By 1892 it emerged that 150 French deputies had been bribed into voting for the allocation of financial aid to the Panama Canal Company, and in February 1893 Lesseps, his son Charles (born 1849), and a number of others faced trial and were found guilty. Lesseps was ordered to pay a fine and serve a prison sentence, but the latter was overturned by the
Court of Cassation on the grounds that it had been more than three years since the crime was committed. Ultimately, in 1904 the United States bought out the assets of the Company and resumed work under a revised plan. ==Second marriage and issue==