Diplomat, Developer. He is recognized as a French diplomat, yet more recognized for his involvement with the development of the Suez Canal. Born Ferdinand Marie Comte de Lesseps, into a family of career diplomats, he chose that career at a young age. His uncle was made noble by King Louis XVI and his father, Mathieu de Lesseps, made a count by Emperor Napoleon I. His mother was of Spanish ancestry. After graduating from Collège Henri-IV and studying law, he acted as assistant vice-consul in Lisbon from 1825 to 1827, sent to Tunis in 1828 and was made Vice-Consul in Alexandria in 1832 and Consul in Cairo the following year. While in Egypt, he was inspired to build a 120-mile manmade canal, linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez. He was transferred to another post before any further thought on the subject. In 1837 he married for the first time, and the couple had five sons. He became Consul in Rotterdam, and after that in Barcelona, protecting civilians during the uprising of 1842. He was appointed French Minister in Madrid in 1848. Although his actions in Barcelona earned him the cordon of Officer of the Légion d'honneur, his 1849 failed negotiations between France and Rome ruined his diplomatic career. Leaving on his own accord, he went in semi-retirement in central France for nearly five years. In 1853, his wife and son died within days. With the accession of his colleague Mohammed Sa'id in 1854, he returned to Cairo and was given, as the head of the Suez Canal Company, "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." After his plans passed an international scientific commission, he started preparatory exploration. The project met many snarls on the way to being completed. There was the question of established British East Indies trade routes being outdated, but a talk with the Prime Minister of England resolved the concern. There was the question of financing the project, but donations from French private sources, such as the House of Rothchild, allayed that problem. On September 25, 1859, the construction began. In 1863 Mohammed Sa'id died and his successor stopped the canal the next year. On July 6, 1864 an agreement was met and the work resumed with Europeans being brought to Egypt to dig the canal with modern equipment instead of being forced to use local laborers. This followed with a cholera epidemic. On August 15, 1869, the waters of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea were united completing the project. On November 17, 1869, the canal was officially inaugurated with a formal ceremony in the presence of a host of world leaders. On November 25, 1869 in Paris, he, at the age of 64, married a 21-year-old bride and the couple had twelve children. He was awarded the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts in 1870 and the Star of India. Even though he struggled to circumvent the politics between France and Britain, Britain attempted to gain control of the canal early and did by 1882. As the "Great Frenchman," he was elected a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1879 and the Académie Française in 1884. In May of 1879, he along with 135 other delegates met in Paris with the idea of creating the Panama Canal, linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. At the age of 74, he was appointed the head of the Panama Canal Company. Funding the project became a huge problem with him traveling to the United States and England to acquire financing. On June 11, 1884, he presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States from France. On October 28, 1886, he was an honor guest at the Statue of Liberty dedication. He had estimated that it would take 8 years to build the Panama Canal at a cost of what would be today nearly $690,000,000. With numerous landslides, the building of the Panama Canal at sea level without locks was proved to be a poor decision. The project not only met with this problem but the outbreak of epidemics of malaria and yellow fever, halting the work with many deaths. By December of 1888, the company was bankrupt and liquidated in February of 1889. In 1892 he, his son, and over 100 French officials were found guilty of bribing others for canal funding. As a man of advance age and declining health, he was sentenced to pay a fine and to serve time in prison, but his prison sentence was overturned in 1893 with him dying the next year. He was buried in his family's tomb in Paris. The United States purchased the rights of the company in 1904, resuming the building of the canal with locks and ending any more scandals. Unveiled posthumously in November of 1899, a 33-foot bronze statue of him on a huge base was erected at the entrance of the Suez Canal. In 1956, to symbolize the end of European control of the Suez Canal, the statue without the base was eventually moved to a small garden at the Suez Canal International Museum. At least two 20th century films have been made about his life.