viii THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



How active and how beneficent a life that of M. de 

 Lesseps has been we most of us know already, though 

 to posterity it must be left to assign the proper place 

 which his name will occupy among the worthies of the 

 nineteenth century. In the meanwhile, the glimpses 

 of the domestic and personal side of his life and 

 character which M. de Lesseps allows us to catch in 

 these volumes cannot fail to be interesting, and some 

 <>f' us may, perhaps, be selfish enough to regret that 

 he has not gone more into detail with regard to this 

 part of his life, even if, to do so, he had been com- 

 pelled to abridge the account of his diplomatic mis- 

 sion to Eome in 1849 and to omit one or two chapters, 

 such as those upon " Steam" and upon the " Origin 

 and Functions of Consuls, " which are of a more 

 general and technical character. I imagine, however, 

 that M. de Lesseps, feeling himself the repository of 

 many secrets, has deemed it best to reserve for some 

 future time the numberless anecdotes which he could, 

 if he were so disposed, relate about the celebrities of 

 every nationality and every profession with whom he 

 has been in contact for upwards of half a century. 

 But the reader of these two volumes will find an 

 abundance of interesting information relating first of all 

 to M. de Lesseps' s diplomatic missions to Madrid and 

 Rome, and secondly to the preliminary survey of the 

 Isthmus of Suez, and the intricate negotiations which 

 preceded the actual making of the Canal. As regards 

 the mission to Rome, with which M. de Lesseps com- 



