New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-02-12
THE GRAND FRENCHM1N.

THE GRAND FEENCHM1N
The worlds working stock of genius never
is 50 large that the downfall of commanding
personality like Ferdinand de LoSseps can he
regarded with cynicism. There is nothing in
modern annals more pathetic than the vlcS,i
tudcS Ct fortune by which the picturesque and
heroic figure, alike the first citizen OF the
Empire and the Rcpublic. has been transformed
into sentenced convict. Not even the col
lapse of the Panama enterprise and the shock
ing disclosures of financial mismana cement and
legislative corruption have prepared either
France or the world for so tremendous Il re-
vcrSal of the conditions of mortal greatness.
1t is too long an arc for the swinging pendulum
of human destiny. Imagination and intelli-
ccnce instinctivcly revolt against the ignomini-
Gus sentence to a convict'S cell of the one man
who has helped to make France really great
during a generation when statesmen and in
trguors have combined to bettle her reputa-
ton among nations
NJ de I.esSeps'S misfortuneS may be attributed
in large decrc, to his extraordinary successes
At Sucz he achieved what statesmen capital
lists and engineers throughout Europe had pro-
nouncod impossible and chimericll. trained
cign service. he was recalled from Rome by
Napoleon the Little in disgrace because he had
recognized in Mazzinis revolution patriotic
UPRISING against foul disagreement, and had
refused to fasify his convictions. Summoned
TO Cairo in 1854 by the Khcdivc, he entered
upon a fifteen years struggle for an idea with
all the world against him. If he had been an
engineer he would never have undertaken tho
Sucz Canal. He was diplCmatist whose imaSi-
nation had been fascinated by the changes to
be wrought in trade routes and international
affairs by the cutting of the lsthmus. lie had
also lived under the shadow of the pyramids
long enough to be convinced that anything
could be donc in Egypt, if only h. had faith
in himself. He was essentially faalist and
believed that he could not fail. The Sucz
Canal was prc-eminently the work OF one man
Of genius. inexhaustible force of character and
sublime faith in his own destiny. No other
European could have achieved the triumph
which was peculiarly his own when the canal
proyed TO be one of the greatest engineering
works of the age.
Because NJ. de Lesseps had succeeded once
with all the famous engineers and the great
European capitalists and Governments against
him and only a creduous Eastern monarch
and the savings of small French investors
behind him, he thought that he could never
fail in anything or anywhere. When he ap-
pealed to the same class Of investors to pro-
vide the capital required for cutting the rock
ribbed Panama Isthmus, he had the enormous
advantage of trading upon his previous success.
Their confidence in him was as profound as
r.. - b;r,co1f I npp1ICh for them
70 know that he staked his reputation upon
the feasibility of the work. Year after year
they poured their accumulated savings into the
rocky defiles and shifting quicksands OF the
Isthmus. 1t meant nothing either TO him or
TO them if conservative engineers condemned
the project and sober minded capitalists were
alarmed by the estimates of cost and the mar
row margin for returns upon the investment
So had the failure of the Suez project been
forecast and trumphantly demonstrated in
every European capital. lie believed, and the
investors also, that his new enterprise, while
immeasurably moro difficult than the first inter-
oceanic canal was safe. and that genius and
good foltune-the Ferdinand de Lesseps luck
would carry it through. Even when the mis-
managed company was on the verge of bank
untcy he was still intoxicated with crcdulOus
homes and unable to perceive the impending
collapse of the most reckless speculation since
tho South Sea bubble
If NJ. dc LcSseps succeeded at Suez it was
because he was not an engineer If he failed
at Panama it was because he was only specu-
lative diplomatist and not practical man of
business. The very qualities which enabled
him to overcome every obstacle at the lsthmus,
whore a tide-lcvel canal was to be cut through
desert levels and an ancient sea-bed disquali-
fed him for taking a sober view of the diff
culties of rock ribbed Panama or for controlling
the food of reckless financial waste and cor
rIpton which swept everything before it. In
the end he was like drowning man catching
at straws, an Oriental fatalist, parayzed and
disenchanted but neither France nor the world
will ever believe that he was a common
svindler. or that he merited when dying in
his old agc-the Grand Frenchman still at
eighty -oight-the grotesque and horrible sem
tence which has been pronounced against him.