Who is ferdinand de lesseps

He played an active role in assuring a successful outcome for the Suez Canal Company, for example when England bought up company shares owned by Ismail in , or during the Arabi Pasha revolt in , and managed to conclude a deal between the Company and British shipowners over rates payable on passage through the canal.

However in , on obtaining a concession from the Columbian government to build the Panama Canal, he embarked upon a new and high-risk venture. 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 Ferdinand, sentenced to five years in prison in , died the following year, ten years before the Panama Canal was opened under the aegis of the United States.

Alain Plessis. Go to menu Go to content Go to search. Share it twitter facebook. France en. Ferdinand de Lesseps en. Diplomat, entrepreneur en. Signatur Ferdinand de Lesseps. PNG en. Recollections of forty years en. Lesseps, Ferdinand de en. Indeed, Mehemet-Ali would become the real founder of the modern Egyptian State. Lesseps supported Mehemet-Ali all along his rise to power. When Mehemet-Ali became viceroy, Lesseps guaranteed him the support of France.

The friendship forged then was to be extremely useful to Ferdinand, some 50 years later. Ferdinand often travelled to Madrid to visit his cousin, the Countess of Montijo. Eugenie for her part followed the advice which her uncle lavished on her. In , Ferdinand was appointed as vice-consul in Alexandria in Egypt. By then, Mehemet Ali had already thoroughly transformed his Country. His ambitious policy had given the country modern institutions and Egypt was involved in major projects with the help of European engineers and administrators, a very large number of whom were French.

In , Ferdinand married Agathe Delamalle who was to die in and whom he had five children. Map of the proposed French sea-level canal in Panama. Nichols collection. De Lesseps was a national hero for the next twenty years in France. Unfortunately, with one canal under his belt, he decided in to dig another, across the isthmus of Panama fourth image. The effort was abandoned in , with the investors losing nearly everything.

De Lesseps, 87 years old, was actually hauled into court and convicted of fraud. He died in , a broken man. When we celebrated the centennial of the successful U. You may read about the French plan and the French attempt in our online version of that exhibit.