In Sept., 1870, on the fall of Louis Napoleon, he was in Paris, and fearing for the safety of his relative, the empress Eugenic, he placed himself at her side, and saw her safely beyond the city. Iu addition to numerous brochures on the subject of the Suez canal M. de Lesseps is author of a .illemoire a l' Academie des Sciences sur le Nil blunt et is Soudan; also Prindpaux faits de Histoire d' Abbysinie.
The connection of M. de Lesseps with the project of an interoceanic canal, across the isthmus of Pafiama is recent. An international society, for cutting an interoceanic canal through that isthmus, was organized in Paris in 1876; in which lieut. Wyse, of the French navy, and gen. Turr were the leading spirits. That society procured from the government of the Grated States of Colombia a concession or right to build a canal on its territory. M. de Lesseps secured to himself the and assumed the condi tions of that grant. Although the U. S. government (of North America) had spent several hundred thousand dollars in thorough surveys of several canal routes, and had published elaborate illustrated reports of its engineers, no national, international, or private organization for the construction of the canal had been effected before M. de Losseps took steps to convene the international congress of Paris for that purpose in May, 1879. De Lesseps was its president. That congress, after examining all the proj ects, dtcided in favor of the plan of a sea-level thorough-cut. De Lesseps was made president of a preliminary organization to make further surveys on the route selected. On Dec. 6, 1879, he went with his family to the isthmus. In the Jan. number of the North American Review of 1880, De Lesseps contributed what may be considered a talk to the American people on the canal question. In the Feb. number following. rear
admiral Ammen, who has been engaged many years in studying the canal routes, and who was one of the U. S. delegates to the Paris congress, reviewed 31. de Lesseps's state ments in a vein of polished satire indicating some irritation at the assumption of the latter. On Feb. 24, 1880, M. de Lesseps came from Aspinwall to New York with his family, with his project matured, and submitted it to American capitalists in a circular of information concerning the canal grant, cost, etc.; and visited ViTashington, Chicago, and San Francisco, in furtherance of his scheme. Having been the organizer, he is now the president of a company for the construction of a ship-canal across the isthmus of Panama.
The appearance and personal magnetism of M. de Lesseps are remarkable. A cor respondent of the N. Y. Tribune, writing in June, 1880, gives the following descr:p tion of him as seen at a dinner party given by Cyrus W. Field in London: "The shrewd est and most powerful of all the faces belo,;4ed to M. de Lesseps. I saw him at the opening of the Suez canal in 1869." Now, in his 75th year, "he is just as erect in figure, and alert in manner; his eyes are as bright and full, and his conversation has all the old power and vivacity." Theff. Y Times correspondent who met him on his arrival from Aspinwall, thus describes him: " In conversation, Lesseps is frank, eloquent, and kind, to a reingrkable degree; and his age and white hairs are forgotten in the presence of his demonstrative gestures and his vigorous diction." M. de Lessens married a second wife soon after the completion of the Suez canal, a young creole lady, by whom lie has a family of young children. IIe has also children by a former wife. See 1NTEROCEINIC SHIP CANAL.