Marine et Révolution. Les officiers de 1789 et leur devenir

[fre] Résumé En 1789, le corps de la marine royale - 1700 officiers et élèves - est instruit. Des établissements scolaires lui sont propres, depuis Colbert. L'officier de vaisseau sait l'Anglais et son «Bezout», lit les philosophes, écrit, publie, siège à l'Académie de Marine, connaît les institutions anglaises et américaines. C'est le Français d'Ancien Régime qui a le plus voyagé et comparé mœurs, coutumes, usages (au Canada, aux Antilles, au Maroc, à Boston, en Inde). Compétent, sorti victorieux de la guerre d'Indépendance, pétri de l'esprit des Lumières, l'officier va confiant au-devant des idées nouvelles, des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen, siège aux Etats-Généraux, collabore au système métrique. Mais il ne rencontre que violences populaires et incompréhension bourgeoise. Face aux jacqueries frumentaires, à la grève ouvrière dans les arsenaux, aux mutineries ponantaises des escadres, la marine royale, devenue «service public» (28 novembre 1789), l'officier «entretenu» par le Roi, devenu le «salarié du peuple» (2 janvier 1790) se retire sur l'Aventin. Peu d'officiers s'engagent dans une Révolution qui les guillotinera. Un peu plus s'engagent dans une contre-révolution qui leur coûtera aussi la vie, à Toulon, en Vendée, en Bretagne ; une centaine à Quiberon en 1795. La plupart se réfugient dans une émigration qu'ils redoutent (plus de toit, plus de solde), donc tardive (à partir de 1792). Nationale bien avant Valmy, dans ses structures (enseignement, recrutement, avancement), la marine avait une formidable avance sur son temps : corps sans vénalité, élite intellectuelle, première méritocratie, à la pointe du progrès technique et technologique la marine aurait pu être un modèle pour l'Etat moderne. La Révolution ne le comprit pas : en fermant les collèges de Vannes et d'Alais, en supprimant les corvettes d'instruction (1790-1791), en destituant les officiers sous prétexte de noblesse (1793), en n'offrant aucune continuité dans les affaires (valse des ministres, des commandants des ports), elle ouvrit la voie à Aboukir et Trafalgar aux successeurs des vainqueurs de la Chesapeake. [eng] Abstract In 1789, the «Marine Royale» corps (1700 officers and cadets) was learned. It had had its own schools since Colbert's time. A naval officer could speak English and mastered his «Bézout». He read the philosophers' works, wrote, published, sat at the «Académie de Marine» and was acquainted with the English and American institutions. In pre-revolutionary France, he was the person who had travelled most and had been able to compare different habits and customs (in Canada, the West Indies, Morocco, Boston and India). Officers were competent people who had taken part in the War of Independence, were influenced by the spirit of Enlightenment and attracted by the new ideas and «The Rights of Man and the Citizen». They participated in the «Etats Généraux» and contributed to the metric system. But they only met with violence from the people and incomprehension from the middle-class. As they were confronted with the wheat jacqueries, the workers' strike in the dockyards and mutinies in the western fleets and as the «Marine Royale» had become a public service on November, 28th 1789, its officers (who, being no longer «kept» by the King, had turned «wage-earners paid by the people» on January, 2nd 1790) retired from the scene. Few took part in a revolution that was to guillotine them. A few more joined the counter-revolution, which also was to cost them their lives, in Toulon, Vendée, Brittany - a hundred of them being killed at Quiberon in 1795. Most of them eventually chose emigration, which they had feared (as it meant no home and no pay) and which therefore only started in 1792. The «Marine Royale», which had been national long before Valmy, as its structures show (regarding education, recruiting, promotion), was well ahead of its time : it was a corps with no venality, an intellectual élite, the first meritocracy and in the forefront of technical and technological progress. As such it could have been a model for a modern State. The French Revolution failed to understand this : by closing the Vannes and Alais «collèges», by suppressing training corvettes (1790- 1791), by relieving officers of their duties on account of their noble birth (1793), by making continuity in the management of affairs impossible (ministers and «commandants de ports» were too often changed), it paved the way to Aboukir and Trafalgar for the successors of the officers who had won in Chesapeake Bay.