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At Chimkend our course turned abruptly from what was once the main route between Russia’s European and Asiatic capitals, and along which De Lesseps, in his letter to the Czar, proposed a line of railroad to connect Orenburg with Samarkand, a distance about equal to that between St. Petersburg and Odessa, 1483 miles.
One thing, at least, that Lesseps said in this interview was strictly true, namely, that Mazzini must not count on the French republican soldiers objecting to fire on republicans: 'The French soldier would burn down the cottage of his mother if ordered by his superiors to do so. The discipline of a great army is proof against politics. Lesseps was himself in much fear of being assassinated.
About 1880, the French under Count De Lesseps undertook to construct a canal from Panama to Aspinwall, but after half a dozen years the French company suspended work, partly for financial reasons, and partly on account of the enormous loss of life among the diggers from the pestilent nature of the climate and the country.
Fresh difficulties chiefly of a political nature interposed, but the indefatigable Lesseps never despaired. In 1859 he had the satisfaction of seeing his company and work placed upon a firm footing, though the final decision of the French Emperor was not given till July, 1864. From that time to the present hour the Canal has steadily progressed toward completion.
The Empress Eugénie was beautiful and gracious, and her court at Versailles, Fontainebleau, and the Tuileries compared well in splendor with the traditions of the past. The emperor's ambitions began to take on a larger form. Under the auspices of the government, M. Lesseps commenced a transisthmian canal, which would open communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
The ingenuity displayed in the invention of this machinery, and its application to this vast undertaking, constituted one of the chief glories in the enterprise of M. de Lesseps.
Och! but he is a great jainius that Frenchman as tied the two says togither Lips Lisps what is it they calls him? I've clane forgot." "Lesseps," said Miles, as he gazed with unusual interest on this wonderful highway of nations. The troops reached Suez after a ten hours' journey, the distance being about 230 miles.
A certain club of good fellows of both sexes, journalists, authors, illustrators, actors, men of pleasure, and Bohemians generally, used to gather on Sunday evenings, a merry decade ago, round the hospitable table of an Italian lady who had acquired her culinary accomplishments under the distinguished eye of M. Martin late chef to M. de Lesseps, and present proprietor of Martin's Restaurant before she attempted to practice on her own account, so to speak, in the basement of a dingy brick house in West Twelfth Street.
All doubt was dispelled when the Comte de Lesseps, who had landed at Kamtchatka from La Pérouse's party, identified the cannons and the carved stern of the Boussole, and the armorial bearings of Colignon, the botanist, were made out on a silver candlestick. All these interesting and curious facts, however, D'Urville did not know until later; at present he had only heard Dillon's first report.
In 1858 M. Lesseps succeeded in raising two hundred millions of francs in France, and in 1859 he proceeded to Egypt and planted the Egyptian flag in the harbor of the ancient Pelusium, the great sea-port of Egypt thirty centuries ago, where Port Saeid now stands. He laid, at the same time, the foundation of a lighthouse, and proudly proclaimed the work commenced.
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