[A psychopathologic conflict in the 18th century in the East Indies Squadron]

The authors first give a psychological evocation of the Bailli de Suffren, a great captain who vastly contributed to improve the image of the French Navy after the appalling seven years war, but whose character showed, nevertheless, originality, authoritarism, violence, sometimes vindictiveness and often negligence. The quarrels he had with most of his subordinates culminated as he was in command of the East Indies Squadron, applying sometimes exaggerated punishments. Chevalier de Tromelin was hierarchically just under him; this Chevalier had a character as chilly and stiff as the Bailli was the opposite; both were ambitious and deserving officers, the Chevalier being as much conformist as his "adversary" was fiery and bold. The shouts and rancours of the Bailli, when confronted to the rigidity and cold technicity of the Chevalier, marked their relationship. More than objective reasons arising from their duties, the fundamental incompatibility of their characters, explain their conflicts. Suffren played a double-game with his immediate subordinate; not lacking verbal smoothness, he nevertheless abused him in such a way in his reports to the authorities, that when Chevalier de Tromelin, being ill, asked to return to France, he learned that he had been dismissed of the Navy without having ever been heard or able to attempt to defend himself. He then spent his time trying to claim for a hearing without ever obtaining it, writing justificatory reports. He was "rehabilitated" in 1793 and died in half-exile in 1815. The authors were struck by the fact that for 200 years, no historian of the Fast Indies has ever taken into account the Squadron's distinctive features and the personality of Suffren. Thanks to their research in family documents, in the National and especially Navy Archives, they are able to show the importance of this psychological, not to say the psychopathological, aspect. One can only be struck by the silence of the various historians who worked on the subject, misjudging this "conditioning" which explains excessive punishments and long-harboured grudges. It is possible that Tromelin was the most affected because he was hierarchically the nearest. As the various documents or testimonies show, no fault or error could ever be retained against him that he could non justify. A detailed study of the handwritings of the two protagonists is presented in the text. Such conflicts are rather common within the Administration, but they seldom are of such duration.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)