Creator of the Suez Canal. Born in Versailles, into a family raised to the nobility in 1777, son of Mathieu de Lesseps, French Consul, and nephew of Barth?lemy de Lesseps, one of the members of the La P?rouse expedition and subsequently French Consul General in St Petersburg during the First Empire. Ferdinand, who was schooled at the Coll?ge Henri-IV and then studied law, took up a career in the diplomatic service in his turn. He was made Vice-Consul in Alexandria in 1832 and Consul in Cairo the following year.

Born on November 19, 1805 in Versailles, France. His Family was long distinguished in the French diplomatic service. At age 19, having studied law, he was appointed eleve-counsel to his uncle, then the French ambassador to Lisbon. He served in Tunis later with his father, until 1832 the year of his fathers death.

During this first period of residence in Egypt, Ferdinand de Lesseps read the Description of Egypt by the engineer Le P?re, who had accompanied Bonaparte on his campaign in this country. On looking at Le P?re?s construction projects, de Lesseps was inspired with the idea of a canal linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

However he was then appointed Consul in Rotterdam, and after that in Barcelona, where the protection he provided to civilians during the uprising of 1842 earned him the cordon of Officer of the L?gion d’honneur. In 1848, de Lesseps was appointed French Minister in Madrid by Lamartine.

In 1854, learning of the accession of Mohammed Said, an old friend of his, to the post of Viceroy of Egypt, he hastened to Cairo and obtained from the new sovereign “the power to found and head a universal company for the digging of a channel through the Suez isthmus and the operational development of a canal between the two seas”.

This on condition that it was approved by the Sultan of Constantinople, the de facto ruler of Egypt. The project was submitted to and passed by an international scientific commission, and preparatory exploration was begun immmediately. However the project ran into serious difficulties, principally of a diplomatic nature.

Further issues of securities made it possible for work to continue, after it had been slowed down by a cholera epidemic. Finally, the Sultan of Constantinople issued the firman sanctioning the company in 1865, and the following year Great Britain agreed to acknowledge its existence officially.

Work was successfully completed in 1869. The waters of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea were united on 15 August, and on 17 November the canal was officially inaugurated with magnificent ceremony in the presence of numerous world leaders. At the head of the flotilla was the Eagle bearing the colours of France. At his side, Empress Eug?nie accompanied Ferdinand de Lesseps, President of the Suez Canal Company, as he savoured his triumph.

It was after all thanks to his energy, dynamism and negotiating skills, and his managing to find the support necessary to overcome all opposition, that this great work was accomplished. When the war of 1870 broke out, de Lesseps was in London being received by Queen Victoria.

Under the Third Republic, he became “the Great Frenchman”, “the most famous man in the world”. His interest turned to the exploration of Africa and, among other things, to the expeditions of Savorgnan of Brazza. In 1884, he was elected to the Acad?mie Fran?aise.

1875 de Lesseps made his first public declaration of interest in an interoceanic canal. On the first day of the new year of 1880, on board a steam launch standing of the mouth of the Rio Grande, de Lesseps young daughter Fernanda dug the first shovel of sand into a champagebox and the Panama Canal was symbolically begun.

By the end of January 1881, the first group of French engineers of the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique arrived at Colon and the great task of construction commenced. In the years to follow men and machinery poured into Panama to confront the geographical obstacles of the Isthmus: the backbone of the continental divide at the Culebra Cut and the mighty Chagres river.

At this time the French stood at the pinnacle of 19th century engineering. Their finest engineers and machinery were sent to work. For 8 years a valiant and determined effort was made on the isthmus. Geographical and financial difficulties along with the opposition of the United States brought about the failure of the project, ending in a serious political and financial scandal (1888-1892). Ferdinand, sentenced to five years in prison in 1893, died the following year in France, ten years before the Panama Canal was opened under the aegis of the United States.

Tag: Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894)