On board French imperial liners: Four transformative shades of intimacy in the Age of Steam

Abstract

This article explores how ocean liners operated by the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes became critical yet underexplored spaces where colonial and personal intimacies were renegotiated among first-class passengers. Positioned as imperial interstices, these ships served as liminal spaces where dominant social norms were tested and personal boundaries redefined. Drawing on travel accounts and company archives, the study reveals how the constrained environment of maritime crossings disrupted passengers’ sensory experiences and reshaped their intimate relationships – with themselves, each other and colonial hierarchies. Ships were arenas for voyeurism, political manoeuvring, and the reinforcement of racial and social divisions, functioning as both schools of domesticity and introductions to the colonial Other. They were also sites of health anxieties and mental distress, where practitioners diagnosed ‘anxious melancholy’ linked to the colonial journey. Ultimately, these crossings profoundly transformed passengers’ private lives, preparing and altering them long before they reached colonial shores.

On the night of 26 January 1909, aboard Salazie a few hours after departing from Singapore, Mr Massol shot his 20-year-old wife five times at point-blank range. Shortly before, witnesses had seen her leaving another passenger's cabin. Her husband soon found out and she confessed to adultery. Their arguing raged through the thin partitions of the cabins until Mr Massol's fatal act of violence. The captain's report was easy to write: everyone had heard everything. ¹

This tragedy underscores the difficulty of maintaining privacy at sea and demonstrates how the intimate lives of travellers often came under strain. This article situates the maritime experience – specifically, voyages aboard ocean liners – at the centre of the social processes that shaped both colonists and colonized. ² Ocean liners were an essential cog of the machinery of empires. Yet these formal and informal spaces were sites of the colonial situation, not colonial territories. ³ In this context, the ship was, in the words of Foucault, ‘the greatest reserve of imagination … a heterotopia par excellence’. ⁴ Historians have taken a growing interest in the liner as a social cell, a microcosm conducive to the study of human interactions and representations. ⁵ Before the advent of rapid transportation by air, sea crossings often marked a long and crucial episode in an individual's life. Long-haul passengers who completed these journeys arrived at their destinations profoundly transformed by their maritime experiences.

The notion of intimacy provides the conceptual framework for this article, encompassing both physical and psychological dimensions. Intimacy refers, first, to the ways individuals organize their personal and private spaces. On board a ship – an environment both constrained and unfamiliar – such arrangements inevitably suffered disruption. Intimacy also relates to one's inner life, typically concealed beneath appearances and social conventions, and subject to radical adjustment at sea. Furthermore, intimacy includes how individuals share secrets within perceived communities of class or belonging, where such revelations both reflect and support the exercise of colonial power. Finally, intimacy extends to the relationship individuals maintain with their own bodies, particularly in response to an environment that inflicts physical hardship – what might be termed a ‘suffering intimacy’. Drawing on Ann Laura Stoler's analytical framework, this article explores ‘the carnal, the domestic and the intimate’, ⁶ shifting the discussion on the construction of the colonial mindset from the colonized territorial space to the open sea. ⁷ This approach also aligns with contemporary reflections in other disciplines, such as architecture, that examine intimacy within public spaces, crowds and spaces of transit – precisely the situation experienced by passengers aboard ocean liners. ⁸

Two manifestations of intimacy need to be disentangled. First, there is a revealed intimacy: sources shed light on behaviours in a maritime context that may not differ significantly from land-based situations, such as adultery. Second, there is an exacerbated intimacy – that is, unprecedented emotions and experiences unique to the maritime context resulting from new forms of interaction and the specific conditions of life aboard ship, such as anxious melancholy. Long, monotonous days at sea, combined with the enforced proximity of different classes, genders and races, generated tensions unparalleled on land. Recent approaches in imperial historiography have foregrounded the psychological and emotional dimensions of empire – a perspective that informs the present study. Scholars have demonstrated how travel, displacement and colonial service generated distinctive forms of psychic strain within the imperial world, ⁹ especially the British Empire. ¹⁰ By situating the maritime journey within these debates, this study suggests that the ocean liner was not only a physical but also a psychological threshold where colonial subjectivities were reconfigured.

This article examines intimacy through the portholes of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes (CMM). Recent studies have shown the company's central role in structuring the French presence beyond Suez, ¹¹ and have shed light on its recruitment practices in a colonial environment. ¹² Yet few scholars have investigated the inner lives of passengers and seafarers during the often lengthy and arduous crossings. This study focuses on first-class passengers, with occasional forays into the lower decks to consider other classes and seafarers. Given that the separation of classes on board was relatively strict and easily enforceable, this choice avoids excessive dispersion while fostering conditions conducive to further fruitful developments. Archival sources further dictate this approach. CMM administrative reports concentrated on first-class passengers, whose comfort and amenities fell under close scrutiny, and so the most intimate aspects of their crossing. In addition, first-class passengers, often highly educated, produced travelogues and memoirs that provide valuable insights into their experiences and perceptions of sea travel. This cohort proves particularly instructive, as their accustomed standards of comfort and privacy suffered considerable disruption aboard ship.

From 1851 onwards, CMM established an extensive network spanning most of Greater France. By the late nineteenth century, its routes reached the Mediterranean (Levant territories), the Indian Ocean (Madagascar, Réunion Island), Oceania (New Caledonia), South East and East Asia (Indo-China and the French concessions in China), and Latin America (Argentina). This study concentrates on voyages to the most distant colonies, particularly the Far East line from Marseilles to Yokohama, the company's busiest and most frequent route. Heavily subsidized by successive governments until 1974, CMM ensured territorial continuity with the Empire by maintaining postal services, providing transport for government personnel, and offering regular passenger and freight services to the colonies. These shipping lines were the lungs of the Empire, inhaling manpower and raw materials and exhaling colonists and manufactured goods. The liner occupied a unique imperial interstice: it was simultaneously a space where intimacy was exposed more acutely than on land and a moment when dominant social norms underwent testing, outside the more rigidly controlled time and space of terrestrial society.

The company's management rarely concerned itself with the intimate lives of passengers – a fact clearly reflected in the archives. For those responsible for day-to-day operations at sea –captains, pursers and officers – discretion prevailed within the constrained environment of the ship, provided that passengers’ activities did not compromise security or discipline. For this intimacy to emerge from a sea of silent sources, it is necessary to question documents obliquely. In this regard, ship logs have proved invaluable, often unwittingly exposing relevant details while recording exceptional events or addressing specific problems. However, the sheer volume of these documents presents a considerable challenge: French Lines & Compagnies in Le Havre holds some 58,000 logs from CMM and the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. This study conducted spot surveys on vessels travelling the Far East line between 1880 and 1930. Additionally, medical reports often recorded matters concerning health or bodily secrets, offering further insight into the intimate sphere. An extensive collection of ship doctors’ logs is preserved in the Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône in Marseilles. Yet it is the passengers themselves who offer the most vivid accounts of life on board, through diaries and published travelogues. These highly subjective sources – although no less biased than official documents – reflect what their authors chose to disclose and what they preferred to omit. This study draws on a database of 65 of these books, each recounting a crossing aboard a CMM liner, and occasionally another company. ¹³

The documents consulted predominantly span the 1870s to the 1930s. Sanitary conditions at sea had already undergone significant reform prior to this period, particularly through enhanced regulations. In 1855, for instance, European and North American governments strengthened their legislation concerning food provision on board: meals were henceforth to be prepared by the crew rather than by the passengers themselves – a measure that significantly reduced mortality rates. ¹⁴ In France, the decree of 22 February 1876 profoundly transformed the system of health patents, revised the organization of quarantines and, above all, made it compulsory for a doctor to be present on board any vessel undertaking a voyage of more than 48 hours with passengers. ¹⁵ By the late nineteenth century, shipping lines run by state-subsidized companies had achieved a relatively uniform standard of travel. ¹⁶ The speed and scheduling of CMM services remained largely consistent until the late 1930s. This 60-year period thus provides a relatively homogeneous framework for examining travel conditions and, by extension, the intimate experiences of those on board.

A disrupted intimacy

Life on board CMM liners was boring. Far from the joyful and carefree crossings commonly associated with late modern transatlantic liners in the collective imagination, these voyages could become an excruciating ordeal. There is an obvious reason: by the late nineteenth century, the journey between Le Havre and New York took merely five days, while the passage from Marseilles to Indo-China could last up to 32 days, and the voyage to New Caledonia as long as 36. In contrast, travellers bound for colonies closer to metropolitan France, such as Algeria, spent little more than a day at sea – a completely different maritime exposure. Time and distance shaped perceptions; proximity facilitated the appropriation of the nearest territories, whereas more remote colonies often evoked apprehension and/or exotic fantasies.

For long-haul travellers, arrival in Port Said signalled entry into an unfamiliar world, where landmarks disappeared and uncertainty prevailed. At the turn of the twentieth century, writers described the Egyptian harbour as ‘a piece of Asia, a piece of Africa, invaded by mud everywhere’, and ‘a hotbed of rotten cosmopolitanism, the strainer of that immense sewer of Europe that is the Suez Canal’. ¹⁷ From the very first pages of most travel accounts, Port Said was the first encounter with a disturbing ‘Elsewhere’. The ship's confined space and the increasingly harsh climate forced travellers to confront their innermost selves, entering a phase of disrupted intimacy in which their personal compass underwent profound disturbances.

The exacerbation of all the senses challenged passengers physically and emotionally. Their bodies, more exposed than usual to the presence of strangers, were more vulnerable. Isolation among unfamiliar companions often caused significant distress, especially as escape from these conditions was impossible. Before the advent of Marconi's wireless telegraphy, voyages between ports of call left passengers entirely cut off from the outside world. Only after the 1890s did CMM equip its ships with wireless communication, allowing intermittent contact with land. ¹⁸ Even so, until the late 1920s, vast dead zones persisted – such as the stretch between Djibouti and Colombo – where no communication was possible. ¹⁹

More than a means of transport, the ocean liner itself constituted a formative encounter with empire, shaping both colonists and colonized through a shared experience of displacement. The voyage stripped passengers of their familiar routines, forcing them to navigate an unfamiliar and restrictive environment populated by strangers within what became an oddly public private sphere. Contemporary testimonies reveal an ordinary mindset grappling with an extraordinary situation. The liner functioned as a public space in which passengers were compelled to expose aspects of their intimacy that were ordinarily concealed. These in-depth changes triggered the concept of dépaysement, a French term denoting the disorientation that arises when one is removed from one’s familiar surroundings. While dépaysement is the source of a positive feeling associated with the discovery of a new environment, it frequently bore undertones of unease or melancholy.

Space played a critical role aboard the ship, especially for first-class passengers accustomed to comfort in large environments. Until the late 1930s, CMM cabins remained narrow, averaging just 15 square metres. Passengers shared toilets and bathrooms, ²⁰ while en-suite staterooms remained a rarity. When the company launched its flagship Georges Philippar in 1932, it outfitted the ship with the most modern amenities, yet only four so-called luxury cabins offered private bathrooms. The remaining 72 first-class cabins, accommodating between one and three passengers each, shared 15 toilets and 18 single-sex bathrooms. ²¹ To reach the showers, women often had to cross public spaces dressed in indoor attire or nightwear; at best, they waited their turn in an adjoining boudoir. ²² When lone passengers shared cabins, they often established an unspoken rule to allocate space, thereby permitting each individual to undress in turn within the cramped quarters. These encounters, which exposed physical vulnerability and clothing normally reserved for private spaces, proved difficult for many passengers to accept. As he travelled to Japan, the missionary Edmond Papinot described this shipboard organization with philosophical restraint; yet such enforced proximity, and the accompanying renegotiation of personal boundaries, represented a notable psychological strain. ²³

From the 1890s onwards, CMM increasingly prioritized ‘passenger comfort’. This term first appeared in the minutes of a general shareholders meeting in 1892 and became a recurring expression in company discourse thereafter. ²⁴ Despite this declared ambition, alongside notable technical progress and considerable attention to interior fittings, ships remained subject to the oceanic environment. These conditions unsettled the five senses and disrupted each passenger's intimate relationship with their own body:

Travellers’ sense of touch was turned upside down by the movement and heat. Passengers found their footing constantly unstable as the deck shifted beneath them. In heavy weather, they had to hold onto the railings, the walls and the furniture. In rough seas, they had to cling to the railings, walls and furniture to maintain their balance. Artists seldom depicted such scenes aboard CMM vessels, although painters such as Julius LeBlanc Stewart and Jean Émile Laboureur captured this discomfort in maritime contexts elsewhere, employing unconventional compositions to evoke the instability. ²⁵ Beyond certain latitudes, passengers contended not only with incessant swaying, but also with constant perspiration and, frequently, the stifling absence of wind.

Passengers’ sense of smell was confronted with a complex and often unpleasant blend of odours. In 1889, Paul Bonnetain, who wrote extensively about liners, noted: ‘When the ship is under way, the overwhelming smell of oil and melted grease, mingled with the warm vapour of the steam, pervades everything’. ²⁶ This industrial smell, normally confined to the working-class spaces of machine rooms, wafted into the bourgeois salons. Before shipbuilders installed refrigerators on board, passengers also endured the smell of the livestock kept at the bow – an unexpected reminder of rural life, typically distant from the urban elites. ²⁷ Furthermore, sanitary drains often malfunctioned, spilling out a stench onto the deck and compounding the olfactory discomfort. Pursers regularly recorded such issues in response to numerous complaints. ²⁸ At times, other scents filtered through the ship, such as the smoke of opium surreptitiously consumed in private cabins. ²⁹

Travellers’ sight was similarly unsettled by conflicting stimuli. The ship's internal architecture consistently obstructed passengers’ view. They navigated long, repetitive passageways, narrow cabins lacking depth and crowded communal spaces. Many travellers lamented the monotony of encountering the same surroundings repeatedly, while others grew disheartened by the endless, featureless expanse of the sea. For some, this watery nothingness evoked unease; for others, the apocalyptic spectacle of a storm – or worse, a typhoon – left a profound and lasting impression, stirring both awe and dread. ³⁰

Passengers’ hearing endured constant strain aboard ships. Heinsen compares the soundscape of seventeenth-century ships to colonies and prisons – environments marked by evolving and discordant noise. The same description aptly fits CMM vessels two centuries later. ³¹ Passengers endured the relentless drone of the engines, the powerful and monotonous hum punctuated by the howling wind, which continually moved or displaced objects on deck, and the crashing of waves against the hull in rough seas. Meanwhile, the ship's thin cabin partitions allowed private sounds to permeate public spaces. Snoring, sexual activity and casual conversations travelled easily through the walls, amplified by the idleness that encouraged eavesdropping among fellow passengers. ³²

Taste held particular significance aboard CMM ships, whose reputation rested partly on their cuisine. The chefs strove to maintain a European diet, yet the varying availability of ingredients inevitably altered the menu. Even after refrigerated storage became common in the early twentieth century, the crew still had to replenish supplies along the route. Gradually, pineapples supplanted pears, bananas replaced strawberries, and Indian-style curries became a staple on the menu of every meal after Colombo. ³³ The voyage disrupted passengers’ eating habits.

Individually, these sensory disturbances may have seemed minor; together, however, they constituted a profoundly disorienting experience. Passengers had to adapt continually to a new and often uncomfortable environment.

An adjusted intimacy

Intimacy aboard the ocean liner during its suspended time did not necessarily reflect the usual habits practised on land. Instead, it offered a lens through which to observe exacerbated social mores. Passengers continuously scrutinized one another: the liner was a place of voyeurism. Many alleviated their boredom by spying on others’ idleness. Sweating in unison allowed certain social conventions to melt away, while infidelity subverted both social norms and monotony. Attitudes towards intimacy shifted, as passengers transformed private matters into new forms of social display.

Passengers consistently remarked on the oppressive heat upon entering the Red Sea. A colonial rite of passage, a ‘terror of all novices’ or ‘the threshold of hell’, ³⁴ the area from the stretches of desert after the Suez Canal to Aden illustrated the anxious transition to a new universe. Contemporary narratives repeatedly described this change, embedding it in the collective imagination and intensifying fears of fatal congestion and heatstroke. ³⁵ The extreme temperatures further contributed to the loss of landmarks. A doctor confessed losing track of the seasons: ‘one Christmas day in Djibouti, I nearly croaked of sunstroke’. ³⁶

To escape the heat at night, first-class passengers often slept on deck beneath the stars – a luxury denied to others. Nearly all accounts describe a similar scene where, long after dark, passengers dressed only hours before in dinner jackets and evening gowns fell asleep next to each other on deckchairs ‘in dreamy outfits’. ³⁷ For some, the oppressive heat diluted modesty to the point of leaving the cabin door open, even while sleeping or performing their ablutions. After passing through Suez, passengers unpacked their trunks, revealing tussor dresses, white helmets and light-coloured outfits. ³⁸ They abandoned their bodices and other restrictive garments to expose their throats and cleavages, ³⁹ to the extent that ‘you feel naked’. ⁴⁰

Observers frequently commented on nudity. Those who could slept naked in their bunks; others refrained from doing so due to the embarrassment caused by the proximity of fellow passengers. The confined spaces encouraged intrusive gazes. Jean d’Estray complained: ‘Every time I change clothes, I have to fight off the indiscretion of the curious “seconds”’. ⁴¹ The violation of privacy intensified when it crossed social-class boundaries. From the late seventeenth century in France, authorities had increasingly banned and punished public displays of male nudity. Although tolerated in working-class circles, it was shocking for the bourgeoisie. ⁴² Philippe Perrot observed that ‘never was the female body as hidden as it was between 1830 and 1914’. ⁴³ Yet, at sea, passengers exposed bodies they usually concealed on land. The authors, almost always men, paid particular attention to the female form. They refrained from expressing outrage, acknowledging the necessity of alleviating the discomfort caused by the heat, and concupiscence took over. Roland Dorgelès caught men ‘lying on the terrace of the bar leering at the female strollers, some of whom look as if they were naked under their sequined dresses’. Quoting Kipling, the novelist concluded that morality faded once the Suez Canal was passed. ⁴⁴ This blend of remoteness, isolation and heat disinhibited passengers, preparing future colonists to adopt behaviours that transgressed the standards of decency in metropolitan France.

From the upper decks, the most curious observers investigated the lower classes, particularly the native populations they would soon live next to and exert authority over. They described steerage passengers with the detached scrutiny of a scientist examining specimens under a microscope – a first, distant yet intimate, intrusion to better consolidate prejudices and the feeling of superiority. ⁴⁵

As the ships entered the Indian Ocean, passengers encountered the monotonous languor of the journey's longest leg between two ports of call: Aden/Djibouti and Colombo/Diego-Suarez or Colombo and Melbourne/Sydney, depending on their destination. In 1931, the reporter Andrée Viollis called it ‘the great week, so often described by specialists in ocean liner literature’. ⁴⁶ Passengers still faced a considerable distance before reaching any port of the French Empire. Many social conventions had already broken down, and boredom had become pervasive. Over a slightly earlier period and with British sources, Jeffrey Auerbach evoked the experience of a similar monotony, exacerbated by the mechanical regularity of steamships. ⁴⁷ With nothing novel to report and nothing new to see beyond the railings, passengers retreated into the narrow spaces of the ship. An inactivity emerged, a contemporary form of otium, ⁴⁸ which either locked the reclusive traveller into solitary reflection or forced the socialite to join company that could not be changed.

At this stage of the journey, the imperial apparatus became increasingly evident. ⁴⁹ Long before and far beyond the colonial shores, shipboard management had already instituted the colonial system for both passengers and crew through the organization of the facilities and services on board. Stéphanie Soubrier recently demonstrated the discreet omnipresence of the boys – a paternalistic and racist term for male servants recruited from the colonies – whose labour structured daily life on board CMM ships. ⁵⁰ Segregation was strict, but the practical reality showed a high degree of porosity in contacts, as long as the racial hierarchy was respected. Colonized personnel entered the intimacy of the passengers: they looked after the bunks, served food or ventilated the common rooms using a punkah. The image of the relaxed passenger at his or her table or lazing on a deckchair was contrasted with the representation of an always upright and impeccable servant. ⁵¹ Although first-class passengers employed domestic servants at home, most had never experienced such a pervasive and institutionalized service as the one established aboard. ⁵²

Jennifer Palmer's study on the earlier period of slaveowners travelling across the Atlantic noted how port arrivals disrupted their interracial intimacy, as the two worlds of departure and arrival differed radically. ⁵³ Similarly, the ship functioned as an interstice – a transitional space. The shipboard population was compelled to adjust to their enforced proximity, particularly with colonized personnel. As a result, for the young departing colonists, these ships were a school for mastering domesticity. ⁵⁴ Soubrier sees the liner as a public place where racial relations of domination were played out in all their brutality, ⁵⁵ which amounts to thinking of the ship as a way of anticipating the organization of the private colonial space. More simply, the liner served as an introduction to the Other, who until then existed only through the exoticized news and fantasized fictions. ⁵⁶ On board, the intimate convictions forged through those narratives were put to the test of reality. It is therefore reasonable to posit that these significant transformations in the modes of social interaction – manifested and reproduced at each crossing, ultimately giving rise to colonial culture, and perpetuating a specific hierarchical order within the colonies – originated on board ships.

Experienced seafaring personnel supervised and, when necessary, channelled these new and frequently recurring developments. The ships’ regulations helped passengers with changes in dress codes, maintaining a rigorous routine with regular meals and, as far as possible, dignity in the face of the vagaries of the climate. ⁵⁷ Ships’ gazettes structured this transient society, trying as much as possible to create a sense of community among their readership. ⁵⁸ The comparison with the family unit – a private entity par excellence – came up regularly in the accounts. Writers frequently referred to the captain as a paternal figure, ⁵⁹ and Georges Le Fèvre explained: ‘We are no longer government officials, military officers, businessmen, lawyers or doctors. We are passengers. We are the family of passengers’. ⁶⁰ Obviously, this fraternal declaration only applied to first-class travellers.

Passengers opted for closer arrangements. As boredom set in within the confined space of the ship, travelogues frequently unfolded with tales of romance, from dazzling passion to adulterous liaisons. Jennifer Boittin described ships as places of transgression and heightened sexual tension. ⁶¹ While CMM maintained a relatively sober tone in its promotional material regarding the sexualization of the colonial world ⁶² – depicting, at most, isolated indigenous women in proximity to its vessels – other companies embraced a far less restrained approach. Lloyd Triestino, for instance, did not hesitate to evoke maritime erotic fantasies more explicitly. One of its posters, entitled ‘Pleasure Trips’, depicted a sailor alone on deck at night, dumbfounded before two provocative, half-naked mermaids. ⁶³

The expression of sexuality on board took various forms, yet a prevailing attitude of self-indulgence persisted throughout the period. One passenger brought his mistress on board and introduced her as such; ⁶⁴ a young man departing for Madagascar for the first time received brazen briefings regarding his future encounters with native women; ⁶⁵ a purser made sophisticated calculations about the number of days at sea he believed were necessary to seduce a married woman; ⁶⁶ a female passenger on a long voyage ‘recruits a large squad. Objective: flirtation’; ⁶⁷ and so forth. It is, of course, essential to approach this literature with caution. These accounts often relied on a well-established recipe, conjuring up an enticing Elsewhere – a liminal, placeless space where anything seemed possible. Ship logs, by contrast, rarely dwelled on such themes, instead alluding to less consensual, yet still uninhibited, expressions of sexuality. The liner also served as a hunting ground for predators, and cases of sexual violence at sea were often reported. ⁶⁸

A staged intimacy

The austerity of the spartan cabins stood in stark contrast to the opulence of the common areas. Jonathan Stafford has examined what he calls ‘the steamer's idiosyncratic domesticity’, exploring how ships reconciled mobility with a sense of home by offering comfort and protection from the hostile world outside. ⁶⁹ His reflections find clear resonance here: by organizing spaces that fostered intimacy within public areas, designers created a buffer against the elements. As with Stafford’s conclusions, the primary aim of these facilities was to help passengers endure the unsettling – and at times distressing – experience of long ocean crossings. Yet the layout served additional purposes: to project national prestige and cultivate favourable social interactions, ensuring that passengers’ fleeting encounters proved fruitful.

The architecture of the liners actively encouraged exchanges among first-class passengers. Among the various spaces, the smoking room was perhaps the most emblematic of this social staging. Intended to bring together men of similar social standing, it fostered confidential conversations in an environment designed to promote discretion. Typically located at the stern of the ship, these salons were modest in size, had low ceilings – often crowned by a glass roof – and were abundantly furnished with small tables arranged for privacy. ⁷⁰ The floors featured marquetry, while the walls, panelled in dark oak or walnut, exuded a sober, classical elegance. The atmosphere invited relaxation and quiet discussion. CMM's management paid particular attention to the decor, frequently incorporating regional themes linked to the ship' sponsor, ⁷¹ lending a pastoral charm to the setting. Most smoking rooms opened onto outside extensions furnished with wicker chairs, separated from the rest of the promenade deck. The arrangement of the seating facilitated hushed, private conversations: the chairs and armchairs were arranged in such proximity that subdued conversations remained inaudible to others, yet the room was sufficiently compact for the voice of any individual who wished to address the assembly to be clearly heard by all present. ⁷² In contrast, first-class dining rooms were bright, spacious and lofty, designed for visibility rather than privacy – places where passengers sought to be seen rather than heard.

Although no formal rules excluded women from the smoking lounges, sources rarely mention their presence, and when they do, it is often with disapproval. ⁷³ Like the boudoir, the smoking room was a gendered space, dedicated to secrecy and discretion. Nevertheless, the discussions that took place there often reverberated throughout the Empire, from Paris to Hanoi and Tananarive. Tamson Pietsch has argued that ‘the moving space of the steamship functioned as a particularly important site in which travellers reworked ideas about themselves and their worlds’. ⁷⁴ The young Scottish student at the centre of her study forged intimate connections with merchants and engineers; in the hushed world of the salons, he greatly expanded his networks. The smoking room was designed for exactly this purpose. As one observer put it: ‘the smoking room is where serious conversations begin’ and ‘where confidences are made’. ⁷⁵ The consumption of alcohol in these spaces was notoriously high. ⁷⁶ In many respects, the smoking room reproduced the settings of power found on land.

Every crossing brought together a mix of complementary personalities – individuals headed for various colonial destinations yet destined to reconnect, whether on site or later in their careers. Andrée Viollis witnessed an edifying episode on the Marseilles–Saigon line: ‘Not a single cabin is available on board. When they heard that the minister would be travelling on this liner, civil servants, colonists, people from the finance and industry rushed over, disrupting their holidays’. ⁷⁷ Passenger lists often reflected this deliberate curation. Captains routinely noted VIPs in a separate section of the ship's log and took pride in the combinations they managed to assemble. For instance, during a 1930 crossing from Marseilles to Beirut aboard the Mariette Pacha, a high commissioner, a colonial governor, an ambassadorial counsellor, a financial director, a colonel and an actor from the Comédie Française all gathered in the smoking room. ⁷⁸ They mingled for sure and, in some cases, may have forged lifelong relationships. While the outcomes of such encounters are often difficult to trace, it is reasonable to assume they played a role in weaving the colonial network. One revealing episode highlights the implications of these confined interactions. In 1927, a dispute over a new colonial decree pitted CMM against the acting Resident Superior of Tonkin. Rather than engage in written correspondence or formal discussions in administrative offices, the captain of the Claude Chappe, which operated between Saigon and Haiphong, waited for the newly appointed Resident Superior to travel on his ship a few weeks later to present his case in person. Upon arrival in Haiphong, the acting official was overruled. ⁷⁹ These exchanges took place not in government buildings, but in the liner's lounges or at the captain's table during first-class dinners.

The repeated mentions in travelogues and ship logs make clear that this comfortable entre-soi operated as part of a well-oiled system. Officers and crew orchestrated an almost mechanical intimacy, which was designed to produce predictable effects: to soothe and to encourage social mingling. Even during stops at ports of call, the ship retained its aura of prestige and confidentiality. Local consuls and benevolent societies often organized social evenings on board, bringing together members of the colonial elite. ⁸⁰ This cosmopolitan, somewhat blasé social life at sea depended entirely on the presence and labour of numerous subaltern staff, whose crucial contributions have recently received sustained attention following the work of Gopalan Balachandran. ⁸¹

Beyond the formal organization of space – whether divided by passenger class or crew duties – the ship's soundscape imposed a different kind of partition. The constant roar of machinery and the din of the dining rooms made intimacy impossible in many areas. In contrast, the lounges, open decks and certain secluded spaces offered quieter environments, better suited to hushed conversations. One area often overlooked in the sources was the luxury cabins. Testimonies following the sinking of the Georges Philippar reveal that, on the night of the tragedy, passengers in the spacious Stateroom 77 held a private gathering that continued late into the night. ⁸² The circulation of gossip further demonstrated the porous nature of this sound environment. Information rarely remained private for long. The purser typically served as the primary conduit for rumours. Estray described the process succinctly:

Chin-wags of the officers’ mess, all secrets, caught by the cabin boys, reach him through the channel of the maîtres d’hôtel (oh! there's never a dull moment at the daily report!) and after having brightened up the official table at lunchtime, they take flight all along the ship. ⁸³

Within this almost theatrical setting, rumours – an inevitable feature of confined spaces – contributed to the drama of the voyage. News and personal information travelled rapidly, blurring the boundaries between private and communal life once again.

A suffering intimacy

The final bastion of intimacy – the body and soul – forms the focus of this last section. The ailments experienced by passengers at sea often foreshadowed the colonial sanitary conditions awaiting them at their destination. ⁸⁴ The ship served simultaneously as a place of health anxiety and an observatory of mental health in a colonial situation. The battle against disease frequently compelled strangers – doctors and nurses – to penetrate one of the last boundaries of privacy.

No account of maritime travel neglects to mention seasickness. Passengers lurched along corridors at an unsteady, drunken pace, powerless against nausea and pain, offering a public spectacle of their vulnerability. ⁸⁵ Alongside this ever-present malady came new illnesses, rapidly spreading infections, fatigue and tropical torpor. The list of afflictions was long and anxiogenic. A bite from an unidentified insect at a port of call could quickly escalate into a serious medical concern, while encounters with spiders or mosquitoes often resulted in uncomfortable, suppurating sores. ⁸⁶ In addition to the classic tropical diseases (beriberi, typhoid fever, malaria) and the blanket diagnosis of anaemia applied to cases that defied clearer identification, gastric disorders proved the most common and distressing. ⁸⁷ Painful constipation, violent diarrhoea, relentless flatulence or sudden bouts of vomiting were a profoundly personal experience that passengers rarely wished to share. Yet the constant motion of the ship, frequent changes in climate and cuisine, confined spaces and poor soundproofing of cabins meant that everyone, each within their own class, inevitably bore witness to the suffering of others. ⁸⁸ On land, passengers might have concealed such distress with a period of quiet convalescence at home. At sea, a prolonged absence from communal spaces or any deviation from the ship's daily routine quickly attracted attention. Such illnesses, although deeply private, became shared experiences, reinforcing a sense of collective identity among passengers – a prelude to the formation of colonial solidarity. In this respect, the voyage itself functioned as a rite of passage.

The psychological health of passengers, although largely unexplored in scholarship, offers a fertile field for further research. ⁸⁹ Despite the significant advances in psychiatry between 1870 and 1930, the application of psychiatric diagnoses by ship's doctors often remained uncertain and inconsistent. The same symptoms were frequently linked to varying conditions. Nevertheless, one recurring term demands attention: ‘anxious melancholy’. ⁹⁰ In France, medical practitioners had identified and named this condition by at least 1880, characterizing it as a metaphysical denial by the patient. Melancholia was associated with a symbolic rejection of cultural abstractions. ⁹¹ The phenomenon, long documented in the Navy, ⁹² remains a topic of debate within medical circles today. ⁹³ Although it is difficult to measure the true extent of the affliction – or to determine whether the term was always applied accurately – one must ask why so many cases emerged aboard ocean liners. For shipboard doctors, ‘anxious melancholy’ may have provided a convenient label for an all-too-common experience. Often, doctors coupled this diagnosis with other symptoms, including mystical delusions or catatonic mutism. The condition could vary significantly, ranging from a fleeting malaise to a fatal illness. ⁹⁴ Whether by anticipation or by cultural diffusion, many passengers expected to encounter this emotional state – its prevalence being reinforced in contemporary literature. As Flaubert succinctly observed: ‘He travelled. He experienced the melancholy of ocean liners’. ⁹⁵ For passengers adrift from their roots, anxious melancholy blended nostalgia for what they had left behind with fear of what lay ahead.

The longer the journey, the greater the number of crises. Mental breakdowns were rare, if not entirely absent, on short routes – such as crossings of the Mediterranean – but increased markedly on longer voyages, particularly along tropical routes beyond Suez. On CMM's Far East line, anxious melancholy most commonly set in as ships left the Red Sea and headed eastward. ⁹⁶ At this point, European landmarks vanished for good, and passengers faced the longest stretch between two ports, often in extreme heat. They sailed towards East Asia, East Africa or Oceania – territories that, for many, remained utterly unknown. The process of colonial estrangement began aboard ship. Melancholia often resurfaced on the return journey. Departing colonial ports after long stays, passengers – especially repatriated colonists debilitated by alcoholism or syphilis – frequently succumbed to depression. The prospect of returning to France proved no less daunting than the outward voyage. One passenger, returning from Buenos Aires after several years abroad, suffered increasingly frequent panic attacks as the ship neared its destination. ⁹⁷ Another, unable to face his return from Singapore, took his own life just two days after departure. ⁹⁸

Passengers suffering from psychiatric disorders posed particularly delicate challenges for the ship's crew. On board, their outbursts and screams were inescapable, disrupting the tightly confined world of the liner. Confinement and isolation became the only viable response. Some liners featured cabins that could be locked from the outside. When this measure proved insufficient, crew members relocated those passengers – now patients – to a shed at the bow of the ship, known as le cabanon, where they remained hidden from sight and earshot as much as possible. ⁹⁹ This was also the only reliable method for preventing suicide – an occurrence that was far from rare at sea.

When a passenger jumped overboard, the entire ship was drawn into the emergency. Reports and eyewitness accounts describe how such events mobilized everyone on board. The vessel turned around or stopped and, for several hours, passengers and crew alike scrutinized the surface of the water together. ¹⁰⁰ Dorgelès seized on this novelistic material, portraying his hero's suicide by drowning. From the railings, like spectators on a theatre balcony, the passengers watched in grim fascination. ¹⁰¹ Their attention, however, was not simply voyeuristic; it reflected a kind of intimate cohesion, born of the unique circumstances of the voyage and the limitations imposed by life at sea.

Although individuals suffering from mental disorders often remained distant or invisible, their crises forced them into the collective consciousness of shipboard life. Their suffering, and the deeper reasons behind it, inevitably prompted reflection among fellow passengers. The ship encouraged introspection. One traveller remarked of his companion: ‘He isn't cut out for intimate life, this life on board, which is an excellent school for getting to know people, because you have all the time in the world to study them’. ¹⁰² No social class was immune, and even veteran seafarers sometimes succumbed to mental strain. In such cases, people typically spoke of ‘character modification’. ¹⁰³ In 1915, for instance, a ship's doctor was compelled to resign after his growing misanthropy, exacerbated by each successive crossing, became pathological. ¹⁰⁴

Conclusion

The ocean liner operated as a complex organism, highly sensitive to the environment in which it travelled, and exerted a profound influence on all those aboard – both passengers and crew. External factors affected everyone, yet each individual also carried their own culture and personal history. These elements merged in close proximity to form an ephemeral microcosm. Climate, isolation, remoteness, anxiety and expectation all combined to transform members of this transient community in ways that touched the depths of their identity. All who undertook voyages to the distant colonies shared this experience. What made the ocean liner a true heterotopia was its transitional nature – a liminal space between metropolitan norms and colonial realities, between the citizen and the colonist, between the native and the colonized. One identity did not negate the other; rather, it was a process of mutual alteration.

Whether the crossing marked a first voyage for new settlers or yet another passage for seasoned seafarers, the sea journey functioned as a preamble to colonial life – an imperial introduction. The crossing did not simply precede colonial life; it constituted a formative episode that conditioned both perceptions and behaviour. This article argues that the voyage aboard CMM's liners has long been overlooked in understanding the shaping of colonial mentalities and experiences. It also challenges the colonial bourgeoisie's efforts to maintain metropolitan standards of living. The varying shades of intimacy experienced at sea reveal how climatic conditions reshaped relationships with the body, and how remoteness rendered certain social norms obsolete. In essence, the colonial society described by Claude Farrère in Les civilisés began to take form just days after departure from Marseilles. ¹⁰⁵ Long before arrival in the colonies, the ocean liner had already introduced profound changes to passengers’ private lives – upheavals that left lasting consequences in the future lives of all those engaged in colonial life. The ship functioned as a pedagogical space where passengers learned, often unconsciously, to assimilate the hierarchies, habits and emotional registers of empire. Within this confined environment, the psychological adjustments demanded by life overseas were first internalized and, consequently, colonial sociability was rehearsed, and racial and gendered distinctions were tested and naturalized. Seen in this light, the maritime journey emerges as an essential prelude to the colonial encounter – an initiation that transformed metropolitan citizens into imperial actors. By recovering this liminal stage in the making of empire, this study invites a reconsideration of how mobility itself operated as a vector of colonial acculturation. In the case of long-distance sea voyages, Nicolas Bouvier's aphorism has never seemed more relevant: ‘You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you – or unmaking you’. ¹⁰⁶