De 1864 à 1880 : Valentin Magnan (1835–1916), un anatomo-clinicien, expérimentateur, enseignant et fondateur d’une maison de santé privée à Suresnes fondée en 1875 avec Gustave Bouchereau (1835–1900) et Gustave Lolliot (1837–1882) ou l’histoire d’un évincement d’un aliéniste radical-socialiste à la chaire des maladies mentales et de l’encéphale en 1877 (Partie I)

Abstract

In November 1874, Gustave Bouchereau (1835–1900), Gustave Lolliot (1840–1882) and Valentin Magnan (1835–1916) purchased the chateau of Suresnes from the widow of Louis-Marc Chabrier de Lic (1783–1864) who held the concession for the oil lamps in the city of Paris and who was the director of the “Théâtre des Variétés” in Paris. The buyers subsequently founded a company whose purpose was to establish and operate a nursing home for patients suffering from mental and nervous disorders in this chateau located in the municipality bearing the same name. The facility was divided into two distinct parts and accommodated normal pensioners and mentally ill patients in the two separate wards. It thus became one of the eleven private asylums, which, along with the public institutions for the mentally ill, were authorized to hospitalize mentally ill patients by a decision of the prefect of police in the department of the Seine. Opening soon after the end of the war of 1870, the establishment became part of the larger context of the upheaval in the financial situation and the functioning of the post-war psychiatric institutions and in the professional vicissitudes experienced be G. Bouchereau and V. Magnan in the central admissions office. These conditions were notable for the marked overcrowding of the asylums and the services for the mentally ill, the inability to transfer patients to the provinces because of the opposition of families, the impossibility of admitting early on patients who were in need of psychiatric care, whether or not under constraint, but who failed to meet the criteria for admission to an asylum. The establishment of this private facility was made possible thanks to a prefectorial decree (4 July 1874), which profoundly modified their professional position. It was followed by an authorization to open the facility issued by the prefect Léon Renault (1839–1933). The first decree was signed by the monarchist prefect from Orleans Ferdinand Duval (1827–1887). He was the director of Magnan's studies at the Sainte-Anne asylum and who, by his speech to the General Council of the Seine, delayed the establishment of the chair of mental illness studies of the brain. The second was signed by a moderate republican. These two decisions were made at the dawn of the time when France was on its way to adopting the term “Republic” in its Constitution of 1875, which could function with equal importance in a republic or in a moderate monarchy. Many famous patients were hospitalized in this establishment. The most famous of whom was Adèle Hugo (1830–1915). The Suresnes Asylum was renovated after the First World War. Alfred Fillassier (1871–1953) who was the director at that time and also Magnan's son-in-law called upon the most celebrated architects such as Pierre Lahalle (1877–1956), Georges Octave Levard (1887–1977) and Maurice Lucet (1877–1941). For almost a century, many alienists or psychiatrists worked in the establishment: Jules-Albert Baronnet, Aimable-Clovis Crété, Jean Durand-Saladin, Félix Guillot, Gabriel Jacques, Socrates Lalou, Léon Pruvost, Jules Renaux, Léon Revertégat, Jean-Maurice Sardain, Honoré Saury and Jacques Tison. In 1953, the management reverted to Magnan's grandson Jean-Noël Péron-Magnan (1898–1967) and then to his great-grandson Pierre Noël Péron-Magnan (1924–2013). Finally, in 1973, as it neared its centennial, the Suresnes Asylum closed its doors for good.