The English, though ambivalent, were as intrigued as the French. Some observers, recognizing that the canal would probably be up and running within months, assailed the long-standing policy of the British government to oppose the project. “The Suez Canal,” wrote the Daily Telegraph on August 26, “should have been constructed with English capital and by English energy; and we, as a nation, have little reason to thank the diplomatic authorities and the scientific experts who kept on assuring us, year after year, that the scheme was an absurdity…. If M. de Lesseps had not been a man of the stuff and stamp of which all great inventors are made, if he had not toiled on to the attainment of his end in spite of every hindrance, the Suez Canal would now exist only on paper…. The recollection of the period when our public men pooh-poohed the very notion that the canal could ever be anything other than a colossal folly ought surely make us somewhat sceptical of the assertion still frequently made, that when the canal is completed it can be of no practical use…. The opening of the new water highway between the East and the West will mark an era in the annals of humanity; and we shall be glad to find the French nation, in the person of Empress Eugénie, doing honour to the undertaking which will add no mean trophy to the glories of France and the British Empire.” Even if the lure of the impending inaugural festival was not as strong in London as in Paris, invitations were still coveted. Thomas Cook, who was fast developing the modern tourist industry, unveiled several packages that combined the wonders of ancient Egypt with a sightseeing tour of the newest marvel, the canal.
As the summer came to an end, Lesseps finalized his guest list. He was disappointed, though not surprised, when the sultan turned down an invitation to attend. The Porte had never warmed to the canal, and with relations between Cairo and Constantinople strained, Abdul Aziz did not wish to honor the khedive. There were other refusals, but there were far more acceptances. The emperor of Austro-Hungary Franz Josef, said that he would be happy to attend, in his own ship. The heir to the Prussian throne said yes, as did the prince of the Netherlands. Lesseps was involved in every stage of the planning for the festival, from deciding which ships would go in what order to which clerics would give the benediction at Port Said to the design of the company’s pavilions and tents.
In August, he hosted the annual meeting of the general assembly of shareholders. Though he remained as popular as ever and was treated to several standing ovations, he was required to present a tally of expenses. It was common knowledge that the project had exceeded its original two-hundred-million-franc budget. Lesseps announced that to date 404 million francs had been spent, and the work was not yet complete. Tens of millions more were needed in order to pay for the removal of the last cubic meters and to meet obligations on the next installments of interest on the loan. Borel and Lavalley would be subjected to a large fine if they did not finish in time, but would be owed a bonus of several million francs if they finished early. Lighthouses had to be built at Port Said in time for the opening. Though not as costly as the monument conceived by Bartholdi, they were not inexpensive. And though the tone was triumphant, buried in the report was a potentially embarrassing fact: even if the canal opened on schedule, some work would need to be done in the months after.3
In the middle of August, there was a brief ceremony to commemorate the last major stage of the construction. The Bitter Lakes had nearly filled up with the waters of the Mediterranean via Lake Timsah; the Chalufa ridge had been cleared; and the final miles to the city of Suez had been dug by hand. What remained was a final dike preventing the Red Sea from flowing north. When that dike was broken on August 15, the seas flowed quietly and peacefully together, putting to rest the age-old fears that something terrible would happen when the waters mingled. Voisin Bey who presided over the ceremony wrote to Lesseps, “The appearance of the canal was splendid. I regret that you were not there to enjoy it with us. The current was barely discernible; and the embankments were just as they should be.”4
That should have been the last dramatic event in the actual construction, but workers then discovered a huge block of stone in the channel that cut through Chalufa. Soundings of the channel’s depth revealed that the stone was close enough to the surface to prevent ships from passing through. The rock was too hard for dredgers, even if they could have been adapted to the correct angles and depth. The crisis was even more severe because Paul Borel died suddenly in mid-October. Distressed, Lavalley returned to France and was not able to lend his expertise to solving the problem. Lesseps asked the khedive for help, and they arranged for an emergency transport of gunpowder. Just before the flotilla was scheduled to leave Port Said, workers embedded powder in the hundred yards of rock and detonated it.
In the meantime, people had started to land at Alexandria. To prepare Cairo for their arrival, Ismail had used thousands of workers, and whether or not it was technically termed a corvée, it is a fair assumption that many of them would have preferred not to spend frantic weeks putting the final touches on a new guest palace in Gezirah, decorated in a hybrid style that combined the gilded excesses of the Tuileries with Moorish decorations more reminiscent of the Alhambra than of any building in Cairo. Workers were also dispatched to finish the Cairo Opera House in time for its November 1 premiere. The Ezbekkiyah Gardens, which were a perfect copy of a European park, were trimmed and decorated. Avenues were swept, and the Qasr al-Nil Palace was given a thorough sprucing. The streets and public buildings of Port Said were also made presentable, and the khedive’s chalet on the northern outskirts of Ismailia was renovated.
Eugénie’s yacht reached Alexandria on October 22. The city struck her, as it did most Europeans who arrived there that fall, as unimpressive. Pompey’s Pillar, Cleopatra’s Needle, and a few other scattered Roman ruins were historically significant but physically bland, and the city itself was dedicated to commerce. Even with the Ras al-Tin Palace and the ruined fort in the harbor, it was too similar to a European port to engender much gawking from European tourists. Eugénie left immediately for Cairo, which she found far more delightful. She wrote to her husband that the city reminded her of Madrid. “The dances, the cuisine, and the music are identical,” she said, though that probably owed more to the fact that she was staying in the new palace specifically designed for her by Ismail to evoke the beauty of medieval Spain. She did witness one exoticism on her first night—a performance staged by the dervishes. Already, the Sufi practice of ecstatic prayer was becoming a tourist attraction for Westerners. The empress also confessed to being slightly scandalized by the harem dances that were performed for her. Yet, in describing the belly dances, she sounded more like a blushing teenager than an offended matron. The next day, Auguste Mariette escorted her through the museum, but though he tried to give her long lectures, she constantly interrupted him with questions. The day after that, she departed for Upper Egypt on a Nile barge; she described to Napoleon how odd it was to see the “grandiose temples of the pharaohs” juxtaposed with the “semi-naked villagers living in miserable huts.”5
Her trip coincided with an expedition organized by the company. A select group of journalists, artists, scientists, and doctors of the French Academy who had been invited to the opening ceremonies were first taken to explore the antiquities. Among the luminaries in this group were the painters Jean-Léon Gérôme and Eugène Fromentin and the poet-essayist Théophile Gautier, who left a detailed and sometimes critical account of his experience. He was bemused by the accommodations in Cairo, even though he stayed at Shepheard’s Hotel, which would in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries become the watering hole of choice for Europeans in Egypt. Like many of his companions, Gautier was mesmerized by the local color, by the snake charmers and the fellah women in their long robes, but he did not take it altogether seriously. Rather than accompany his group to Upper Egypt, Gautier stayed in Cairo so he could mock the pretension of the Gezirah Palace built for Eugénie. “It is of debatable taste,” he wrote, “but absurdly sumptuous.”6
The rest o
f the party headed south. In theory, the temples of Karnak and the tombs of Luxor had nothing to do with a canal through the isthmus hundreds of miles away. The company, however, understood the power of indirect advertising. The canal benefited from its association with ancient Egypt, however tenuous that may have been. The romance with Egypt throughout Europe meant that people sometimes supported the canal because they were drawn to the pharaohs, and not because they had given serious thought to the cheaper shipment of goods. While aggressively marketing the canal as a more pragmatic route to Asia, the company also presented it as a journey through time. From the outset, Lesseps had shifted nimbly from visionary to pragmatist, speaking in the fulsome, idealistic language of a Saint-Simonian philosopher one moment, and in the accounts-and-ledger patois of a dry-goods merchant the next. No wonder, then, that the company saw an expedition to the ruins of the Nile as a logical prelude to the opening of the canal.
On November 1, Ismail proudly hosted a thousand guests for the opening of the Cairo Opera House. He had hoped to be able to present the premiere of a new opera by Giuseppe Verdi, who was arguably the most prominent composer in Europe. At the urging of Mariette, who had excelled as an archeologist and now aspired to be a librettist, Ismail approached Verdi with an idea for an opera based on Egyptian themes. In spite of the substantial amount of money offered, Verdi was uninterested. His cultural universe did not extend south of Rome, and the idea of premièring a new opera in what was for him the middle of nowhere held no appeal. He was also in the midst of a decades-long love-hate relationship between commerce and his art. “In these days,” he wrote to a friend, “art is no longer art but a trade…. I feel disgusted and humiliated.”7 He wanted nothing to do with what he took to be a naked publicity gesture. Instead, he agreed to let the khedive mount a production of one of his earlier works, Rigoletto, which was dutifully performed during the first weeks of November along with several cantatas and pieces composed especially for the opening. But Mariette was not willing to let go. He persisted and, with Ismail’s financial support, finally convinced Verdi to compose an opera based on an apocryphal story of a tragic love triangle in the time of Ramses III. In return for 150,000 francs, Verdi set his qualms aside and went to work. Shortly before Christmas 1871, Aïda premiered at the Cairo Opera House. Verdi himself did not attend. He waited instead for the European premiere at La Scala.
On November 16, ships filled the artificial harbor at Port Said, sixty or so vessels crammed into the five-hundred-acre space between the magnificent jetties devised by the brothers Dussaud. Dozens of other ships congregated just outside the enclosed harbor to witness the send-off of the flotilla. Many had just arrived and were bearing excited and skeptical passengers. As Sir Frederick Arrow wrote in an account of his trip, until the actual opening day “the canal was still… behind a cloud, and believed by many to be a myth.” Some English observers noticed the conspicuous dearth of English flags among the many banners on the shore; others joined the hyperbolic chorus. “The power of man’s mind, penetrating and compelling the powers of nature, achieved this,” wrote one. “Can it escape the mind of the European who beholds the work that he is standing but a short distance… from the spot where a man’s arm, animated by the powers of God, smote the hard rock and the waters flowed out?” Port Said looked better than it ever had. Flags were everywhere, and bunting hung from streetlamps and balconies. Ships were lined up, ready to proceed, and at their head was the empress’s yacht L’Aigle and the khedive’s yacht, the Mahroussah, which had been the scene of a reception the evening before.
The morning brought a parade of ships, better organized in theory than in practice, but in spite of some jostling and logjams, thousands cheered on the shore and enjoyed the spectacle. Naval vessels from various countries participated in a joint salute to the flags of Turkey, Austria, Egypt, Prussia, and Holland, and smoke and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. The afternoon was given over to a religious ceremony. A landing area had been set aside and decorated with a triumphal arch. On three platforms, arranged around an open square, sat nearly a thousand dignitaries.
Eugénie disembarked and skipped onto the shore, her hand guided by the khedive. The bands, the music, the decorations, and the protocol were not that different from similar festivities in Europe, but the guests were. The thousand who assembled on the platforms formed an international menagerie. The sharif of Mecca, the shaikh of al-Azhar, and the religious scholars of Cairo donned their finest robes and turbans for the occasion, as did their students and retainers. The palace guard of the khedive was in full dress with medals. Kings, princes, ambassadors, and assorted royalty of Europe wore uniforms laden with decorative epaulets and ceremonial swords encrusted with jewels. Queens, princesses, and assorted royal consorts wore the latest finery, with silk and damask fans. Also present was Emir Abd-el Kadir, who had led the Algerian resistance against the French and then became a voice of peace, said some, and a European stooge, said others. That afternoon he occupied a place of honor next to the empress, the khedive, and Lesseps, and people remarked on the contrast between the entrepreneur in his dark suit, and the emir, gray beard barely visible beneath his hood, his robes flowing to the ground.8
Watching the ceremony was a large crowd, attired in a cross-section of multicultural fashion, from frock coats and fez caps to Bedouin robes and Prussian helmets. Arab men mixed with Turkish officials, Circassian soldiers, and Armenian merchants, who in turn stood next to Nubian slaves, Greek businessmen from Alexandria, and English seamen. Half-veiled fellah women, with golden ringlets on their head-scarves, stood next to French and English ladies equipped with hats and parasols. They all grew silent to hear the sermons delivered by the heads of the respective religious communities. As with everything said in public during those three days, the oratory was bombastic and the imagery was florid. The speakers believed that this was the dawn of a new era, and they treated the occasion with the solemnity they thought it deserved. Some listeners chuckled at the rhetorical excesses; many others were moved.
First was a Muslim benediction given by a stately judge. He spoke softly but proudly of the achievement. The canal may have been conceived by a European company, but much of it had been carved by Egyptian hands, and most of it had been paid for by taxes collected by the Egyptian government. As a salaried official of the state, the shaikh had as much right to claim the canal for Egypt as Lesseps did for France and as the assembled nobles of Europe did for Western civilization. Next, the archbishop of Jerusalem recited a prayer asking God to bless the canal and the safe passage of the flotilla. And then Eugénie’s confessor, Marie-Bernard Bauer, gave the last and longest valediction. He spoke of the crescent and the cross, which had fought for centuries and were now being united. He spoke of Asia and Africa, which had “met without touching,” and were now closer for being linked by the canal. “Today, two worlds are made one. The splendid Orient and the marvelous Occident salute each other…. Today is a great festival for all of humanity.” He praised both Islam and Christianity, two faiths which worshiped the same God, no matter how much they had fought in the past. He praised the khedive for his wisdom and courage in supporting the endeavor, and then he turned to Eugénie. “Madame, and these are not idle words, history will say that all of this wondrous work is due to your warm sympathies.” Without her support, he told the spectators, the canal might never have been built. Finally, he saluted Ferdinand de Lesseps, “whose name should be placed side by side with Christopher Columbus,” because not since that explorer had landed in the New World had any one person so transformed the globe. Father Bauer finished by asking God to “bless this new highway… Make of this canal not only a passage to universal prosperity, but make it a royal road of peace and of justice; of the light, and of the eternal truth.”
The next morning, the flotilla was ready. But Lesseps had spent a chaotic night. Something had gone terribly awry. The Egyptian pilot ship, one of the most elegant frigates in Ismail’s fleet, had steered off course and run aground
near Kantara. The ship was blocking the only navigable line of the canal. A barge sent out to tow it failed. Another ship was used as a ram but could not dislodge it. Lesseps conferred with Ismail, who considered the situation and came to the only conclusion: “Blow it up!” Lesseps was relieved, and embraced the khedive. For the moment, they were on the same side. The pressure was intense, and Ismail chose to sacrifice one of his ships for the good of the canal. As it turned out, the frigate was spared, and hundreds of men working until dawn managed to unmoor it. When the flotilla arrived the next day, people had no inkling of the crisis the night before. All they saw was an Egyptian ship of the line saluting them as they glided past.9
The procession began with L’Aigle, three hundred feet long, with a sixty-foot beam, and not the subtlest of ships. Many years later, a letter-writer to The Times claimed that the official story had expunged one embarrassing detail. L’Aigle was so lumbering that a small British naval vessel took the opportunity to dart to the head of the line and enter the canal first. The ship was quickly hustled out of the queue and expelled from the flotilla. Eugénie and Lesseps had other reasons for smiling grimly as they passed by the wooden obelisks that had been erected at the canal’s entrance. The channel was deep enough, but it had only been dredged across a narrow width. Any ship that deviated from the prescribed course ran the risk of grounding. Lesseps and Eugénie feared that if that happened in broad daylight to the first ship, it would be a “disaster…. The national honor of France would be compromised. The future of the canal would be destroyed!” These fears may have been exaggerated, but the captain of L’Aigle was nervous; he repeatedly ordered the yacht to stop, and Eugénie paced back and forth from cabin to deck. Eventually, the ship cleared the narrows without incident, albeit behind schedule, and not without considerable muttering up and down the line.
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