The capture of the English ship "Kent" by Robert Surcouf in 1800 in the Bay of Bengal • THE HOLBARN ARCHIVE/ BRIDGEMAN IMAGES Pronouncing certain surnames such as Surcouf, Duguay-Trouin or Chateaubriand immediately brings to mind Saint-Malo, whose name alone evokes the memory of a "corsair city". Through his mother, Robert Surcouf (1773-1827) is a cousin of Duguay-Trouin (1673-1736), born a century before him in this port. Chateaubriand (1768-1848), on the other hand, is only his contemporary, but the Surcouf family and that of the man of letters had, on different occasions, business interests (sales or purchases of ships or goods real estate). To write the biography of a man always requires to write the X-ray of his time. A family from Saint-Malo The Surcoufs, in 1640, were poor people. Arriving from his native Basse-Normandie, the first Surcouf landed in Saint-Malo with his wife and children. It was the time of the "barefoot", poor wretches collecting salt on the Normandy beaches, who had a gabelle regime (salt tax) different from the rest of the kingdom. This couple died in 1690, very old, in the hospice of Saint-Malo created by the charitable wife of the governor of the place. Their sons are caulks:with oakum, old hemp, used fabrics, they drive with their scissors called "calfaix" this textile mixture between the oak planks of the ships under construction, then cover them with a kind of tar from softwoods, often Swedish, the pines of the Pyrenees being reputed to be too brittle – hence the alliance of the France of Richelieu with the Sweden of Queen Christine. A son of these caulkers progresses in the social hierarchy:pilotin, pilot, lieutenant on board merchant ships, captain in commerce, this great-grandfather of Surcouf dies too young to "succeed". But his widow begins to embark on the race, the maritime trade with the sugar islands of the Antilles and the slave trade; hence the fabulous success of his son, grandfather of Surcouf. A shipowner, he alone owns 10% of Saint-Malo shipowners, buys land and hotels. He leaves 500,000 pounds to his children, which represents the pay of a naval lieutenant (1,000 pounds annually) for 500 years. But, out of his twenty children, only ten survive and share his estate. Surcouf's father was therefore reduced to a modest inheritance of 50,000 pounds and left to live in Cancale with his wife and children. Sailing the seas of the globe Robert Surcouf was raised there with his maternal grandmother. Born Porçon, of very old Breton nobility, probably quite contemptuous of her mediocre son-in-law, a commoner drawn into the ruin of his brothers, she instilled in her grandsons all the values reputed to be those of nobility:honor of the name, the necessity of combat, of victory and of glory. His ancestors died for the kings of France (Charles VIII, Louis XII, François I st ) in Mediterranean. Those of her late husband were the first in Pondicherry (1674). The history of the Indian Ocean and the island of France (now Mauritius), they wrote it. Surcouf, child and adolescent, is an heir. He wants to regain the fortune of his grandfather Surcouf and the glory of his Porçon ancestors, who are also the ancestors of Duguay-Trouin. As a young man, Surcouf distinguished himself in the Indian Ocean by practicing running, which had just been banned in France by the Council of Five Hundred. Once his motivations are understood, Surcouf fulfills this kind of mental contract tacitly made with his family. Embarked at 14, he sails, he gets rich, he shines. He was 16 in 1789, but he was at sea. In 1792, the republic was proclaimed. The Terror arises. He is in the Indian Ocean with many cousins. His father's brother is venerable of his Masonic lodge in Saint-Malo. Masonic "brothers" militate for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Their "sister" Olympe de Gouges participated in the creation of the Society of Friends of Blacks; at 45, she climbed the scaffold. And yet, the Convention wants to abolish slavery, the slave trade, racing. Laws, measures, decrees follow one another, contradict each other, cancel each other out. They arrive in Ile de France 100 to 110 days after being voted on in Paris. Surcouf, with permission to sail commercially, finds himself outlawed, because he practices racing there. The Council of Five Hundred seizes its prizes for the benefit of the Republic. Its shipowners protest, feeling robbed. The Council of Five Hundred summoned him to Paris in 1797. Surcouf was illegal. The orator of his lodge in the Ile de France defends him. Condorcet fights the race, but "laws are ephemeral and the magnificence of the state" must prevail. Catches are returned. Surcouf, 24, triumphs. The press talks about him. His surname comes out of anonymity. Parisian, overjoyed, he impregnates his mistress:it will be a son. A fortune from the West Indies Thus encouraged by the state, Surcouf distinguished himself with the capture of Kent , a large British commercial vessel. Napoleon I st receives him in Paris. He would like to entrust him with the Boulogne flotilla to land troops across the Channel. He made him a Knight of the Legion of Honor at the first promotion of the order, in 1804. But Surcouf wanted to restore his grandfather's fortune. He refuses to enter the Imperial Navy. He was not in Aboukir in 1798. He will not be in Trafalgar in 1805. By fighting in the Indian Ocean against British trade, he grew rich and married the daughter of the mayor of Saint-Malo, knighted by Louis XVI . His brother became a baron in 1823. As for him, he bequeathed to his children a fortune equal to four times the price of the Château de Combourg, property of Chateaubriand:Breton and Norman mansions; 800 hectares; its tobacco plantations in Brittany. Read also Slavery:from the Atlantic slave trade to abolition This fortune comes from trade with the West Indies, but also from the slave trade. Europe after 1750 consumes coffee. He is bitter. Sugar is added to it. The café au lait was born under Louis XV – like the pedestal table (or table-bouillotte) to place a coffee maker, sugar bowl, silver chocolate pot, earthenware or porcelain cups and saucers. Cabinetmakers put two wheels under the front legs of light armchairs (convertibles) to approach our future living room coffee tables. Goldsmiths, porcelain makers, earthenware makers, cabinetmakers, cigarette makers in the tobacco factories of Le Havre, all live off the slave trade, and General Pascal Paoli offers hot chocolate to the Scotsman Boswell received in Corsica, and not muscat wine . Unbolting the statue of Colbert or Surcouf, decapitating that of Joséphine de Beauharnais does not make sense. Slavery was a long tragedy. It was not a man or a woman – Joséphine or Surcouf's great-grandmother – who was individually responsible. It was a civilization, collectively. A bit like us who use laptops made by Asian children for starvation wages. How will we be judged in 300 years? Hence the interest of re-reading Cato the Elder:"It is painful to have to give an account of one's life to men of another century than the one in which one lived. » Find out more Surcouf. The end of the corsair world, M. Vergé-Franceschi, Pasts compounds, 2022. Find the podcast "Surcouf, the end of a world" with Michel Vergé-Franceschi on storiavoce.com Storiavoce · Surcouf or the end of a world Saint-Malo, the city of corsairs When Surcouf was born, Brittany had been French since 1532. His ancestors sailed from the port in 1534 with Jacques Cartier, who wrote:in Canada, "I saw a bear so old that it was all white". Listed in the XVI th century in the era of the great discoveries, the port became the corsair city that we know in the 17 th century, with a cousin of Surcouf:Duguay-Trouin. Brest was then, according to Colbert, only a "beggar's shop" of 2,000 inhabitants. In the 1760s, Surcouf's cousins sailed with Bougainville to the Falklands. Sailor like Cartier, corsair like Duguay-Trouin, enlightened mind like Bougainville, the compatriot of Chateaubriand is the synthesis of three centuries of Saint-Malo and French history.
