<P> According to sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi , who later recounted the story , Laboulaye 's comment was not intended as a proposal , but it inspired Bartholdi . Given the repressive nature of the regime of Napoleon III , Bartholdi took no immediate action on the idea except to discuss it with Laboulaye . Bartholdi was in any event busy with other possible projects ; in the late 1860s , he approached Isma'il Pasha , Khedive of Egypt , a plan to build Progress or Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia , a huge lighthouse in the form of an ancient Egyptian female fellah or peasant , robed and holding a torch aloft , at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal in Port Said . Sketches and models were made of the proposed work , though it was never erected . There was a classical precedent for the Suez proposal , the Colossus of Rhodes : an ancient bronze statue of the Greek god of the sun , Helios . This statue is believed to have been over 100 feet ( 30 m ) high , and it similarly stood at a harbor entrance and carried a light to guide ships . </P>
<P> According to sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi , who later recounted the story , Laboulaye 's comment was not intended as a proposal , but it inspired Bartholdi . Given the repressive nature of the regime of Napoleon III , Bartholdi took no immediate action on the idea except to discuss it with Laboulaye . Bartholdi was in any event busy with other possible projects ; in the late 1860s , he approached Isma'il Pasha , Khedive of Egypt , a plan to build Progress or Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia , a huge lighthouse in the form of an ancient Egyptian female fellah or peasant , robed and holding a torch aloft , at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal in Port Said . Sketches and models were made of the proposed work , though it was never erected . There was a classical precedent for the Suez proposal , the Colossus of Rhodes : an ancient bronze statue of the Greek god of the sun , Helios . This statue is believed to have been over 100 feet ( 30 m ) high , and it similarly stood at a harbor entrance and carried a light to guide ships . </P>
who did the french offer the statue of liberty to first
who did the french offer the statue of liberty to first
Egypt
Egypt