The Suez Canal runs in a straight line for 20 m.
It is said that he contemplated the conquest of India and that he was the first to conceive the idea of the Suez Canal.
If in 1869 he appeared to deviate from this principle by being a candidate at Marseilles for the Corps Legislatif, it was because he yielded to the entreaties of the Imperial government in order to strengthen its goodwill for the Suez Canal.
One of the consequences of the persecutions of which he was the object was to oblige him to spend three years, from 1896 to 1899, in England, where his participation in the management of the Suez Canal had won for him some strong friendships, and where he was able to see the great respect in which the memory and name of his father were held by Englishmen.
But when the Panama "scandal" has been forgotten, for centuries to come the traveller in saluting the statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps at the entrance of the Suez Canal will pay homage to one of the most powerful embodiments of the creative genius of the 19th century.
