I've been reading a lot about the french revolution and the napoleonic wars lately. It seems as though the navy was not only destroyed leadership-wise during the revolution, but also heavily de-prioritised by the new government. As far as I understand this is the norm during revolutions and civil wars. This in turn was one of the many, though far from only, reasons that Napoleon eventually lost.
So, how could the french navy have been saved, potentially even grown stronger, during the revolution? Could some revolutionary talent have made it's way into the leadership? Could the sailors have been some of the forerunners of the revolution and thus suffered less at revolutionary hands?