Lesseps, Ferdinand de, French diplomatist, born at Versailles; conceived the scheme of connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean in 1854, and saw it finished as the Suez Canal in 1869; projected a similar scheme for a canal at Panama, but it ended in failure, disgrace, and ruin to the projectors as well as others (1805‒1894).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Lespinasse * Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim