Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps was a French Orientalist diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal, which in 1869, joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times between Europe and East Asia.
He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a Panama Canal at sea level during the 1880s, but the project was devastated by epidemics of malaria and yellow fever in the area, as well as by financial problems, and the planned Lesseps Panama Canal was never completed. Eventually, the project was bought out by the United States, which solved the medical problems and changed the design to a non-sea- level canal with locks. It was completed in 1914.

Ancestry

The origins of Lesseps' family are traceable back as far as the end of the 14th century. His ancestors, it is believed, came from Spain, and settled at Bayonne during the period of the Angevin Empire. One of his great-grandfathers, Pierre de Lesseps, son of Bertrand Lesseps and wife Louise Fisson, was town clerk and at the same time secretary to Queen Maria Anna of Neuburg, widow of Charles II of Spain.
From the middle of the 18th century, the ancestors of Lesseps followed diplomatic careers, and he himself occupied several diplomatic posts from 1825 to 1849. His uncle was ennobled by King Louis XVI, and his father was made a count by Emperor Napoleon. His father, Mathieu de Lesseps, was in the consular service; his mother, Catherine de Grévigné, was Spanish on her mother's side and aunt of the countess of Montijo, mother of the Empress Eugénie. She was a daughter of Henri de Grevigné and wife Francisca Antonia Gallegos.

Early years

Ferdinand de Lesseps was born November 19, 1805, in Versailles. He had a sister, Adélaïde de Lesseps, married to Jules Tallien de Cabarrus ; and two brothers, Théodore de Lesseps, married in 1828 to Antonia Denois ; and Jules de Lesseps, married on 11 March 1874 to Hyacinthe Delarue.
His first years were spent in Italy, where his father was occupied with his consular duties. His father then was appointed the first consul of France in Morocco and in 1800 joined the Egyptian army as commissioner of commercial relations. There the Lesseps struck friendship with the local ruler, Muhammad Ali of Egypt. Ali Pasha wanted his fourth son Sa'id to have an athletic body, and to get rid of his obesity, so he ordered his young son to exercise daily for two hours and follow a very simple diet. To safeguard the child's morals, he could visit no other house than that of de Lesseps. The young prince became friend of Ferdinand and "both of them revelled in devouring immense quantities of spaghetti. This intimacy and his longing for pasta caused Muhammad Said to hurry to the French consulate whenever the frugal diet of the viceregal table left a void in his stomach".
After Ferdinand returned to France he was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. Sa'id was educated in Paris as well, and kept the friendship. From the age of 18 years to 20 he was employed in the commissary department of the army. From 1825 to 1827 he acted as assistant vice-consul at Lisbon, where his uncle, Barthélemy de Lesseps, was the French chargé d'affaires. This uncle was an old companion of Jean-François de La Pérouse and the only survivor of the expedition in which La Pérouse perished. Barthélemy de Lesseps had left the expedition in Kamchatka to travel to St Petersburg overland.

Career

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 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, 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, Charles Aimé de Lesseps, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, Ferdinand Victor de Lesseps and Aimé Victor de Lesseps.
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

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. During the following ten years, Lesseps had to overcome the continuing resistance of the British government, which kept the Sultan from approving the construction of the canal; at one stage even seeking the support of his cousin, Empress Eugenie, to persuade the Emperor Napoleon III to act as arbitrator in the disputes. Finally, on 17 November 1869, the canal was officially opened by the Khedive, Ismail Pasha.
While in the interests of his canal, Lesseps resisted British government opposition to an enterprise which threatened to give France control of the shortest route to India, he acted favourably towards Britain's interests after Benjamin Disraeli acquired the Suez shares belonging to the Khedive, by admitting to the board of directors of the company three representatives from the government of Britain. The consolidation of interests which resulted, and which was strengthened by the addition in 1884 of seven more British directors, chosen from among shipping merchants and business men, increased, for the benefit of all concerned, the commercial character of the enterprise.
Lesseps steadily endeavored to keep out of politics. If, in 1869, he appeared to deviate from this principle by being a candidate at Marseille for the Corps Législatif, it was because he yielded to the entreaties of the Imperial government in order to strengthen its goodwill for the Suez Canal. Once this goodwill had been shown, he bore no malice towards those who rendered him his liberty by preferring Léon Gambetta. Afterward, Lesseps declined the other candidatures that were offered to him: for the Senate in 1876, and for the Chamber in 1877. In 1873, he became interested in a project for uniting Europe and Asia by a railway to Mumbai, with a branch to Beijing. The same year, he became a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He subsequently encouraged Major Roudaire, who wished to transform a stretch of the Sahara into an inland sea to increase rainfall in Algeria.
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.