''Provence'' was a 4th rank,

74-gun The "seventy-four" was a type of two- decked sailing ship of the line, which nominally carried 74 guns. It was developed by the French navy in the 1740s, replacing earlier classes of 60- and 62-gun ships, as a larger complement to the recently de ...

built for the

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

during the 1810s. First commissioned in 1825, she participated in the Invasion of Algiers in 1830.

Description

Jacques-Noël Sané Jacques-Noël Sané (18 February 1740 – 22 August 1831) was a French shipwright. He was the creator of standardised designs for ship of the line, ships of the line and frigates fielded by the French Navy in the 1780s, which served during the Fr ...

, the ''Téméraire''-class ships had an length of , a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Radio beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially lo ...

of and a depth of

hold Hold may refer to: Physical spaces * Hold (compartment), interior cargo space * Baggage hold, cargo space on an airplane * Stronghold, a castle or other fortified place Arts, entertainment, and media * Hold (musical term), a pause, also called ...

of . The ships displaced 3,069

tonneaux The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the shor ...

and had a mean draught of . They had a tonnage of 1,537

port tonneaux Builder's Old Measurement (BOM, bm, OM, and o.m.) is the method used in England from approximately 1650 to 1849 for calculating the cargo capacity of a ship. It is a volumetric measurement of cubic capacity. It estimated the tonnage of a ship b ...

. Their crew numbered 705 officers and ratings during wartime. They were fitted with three

mast Mast, MAST or MASt may refer to: Engineering * Mast (sailing), a vertical spar on a sailing ship * Flagmast, a pole for flying a flag * Guyed mast, a structure supported by guy-wires * Mooring mast, a structure for docking an airship * Radio mas ...

s and

ship rig A full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing ship, sailing vessel with a sail plan of three or more mast (sailing), masts, all of them square rig, square-rigged. Such a vessel is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged, with each mas ...

ged.Winfield & Roberts, p. 87 The

muzzle-loading A muzzleloader is any firearm in which the user loads the projectile and the propellant charge into the muzzle end of the gun (i.e., from the forward, open end of the gun's barrel). This is distinct from the modern designs of breech-loading fire ...

smoothbore A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars. Some examples of smoothbore weapons are muskets, blunderbusses, and flintlock pistols. ...

armament of the ''Téméraire'' class consisted of twenty-eight

36-pounder long gun The 36-pounder long gun was the largest piece of naval artillery in the Age of Sail, artillery mounted on French warships of the Age of Sail. They were also used for Coastal defense and fortification. They largely exceeded the heaviest guns fielded ...

s on the lower

gun deck The term gun deck used to refer to a deck aboard a ship that was primarily used for the mounting of cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical prope ...

and thirty

18-pounder long gun The 18-pounder long gun was an intermediary calibre piece of naval artillery mounted on warships of the Age of Sail. They were used as main guns on the most typical frigates of the early 19th century, on the second deck of third-rate ships of th ...

s on the upper gun deck. After about 1807, the armament on the

quarterdeck The quarterdeck is a raised deck behind the main mast of a sailing ship. Traditionally it was where the captain commanded his vessel and where the ship's colours were kept. This led to its use as the main ceremonial and reception area on bo ...

and

forecastle The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck (ship), deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is t ...

varied widely between ships with differing numbers of

8-pounder long gun The 8-pounder long gun was a light calibre piece of artillery mounted on French warships of the Age of Sail. It fired a projectile of eight ''livres'' in weight, equivalent to 8.633 English pounds, or 8 lb 10 oz (the French ''livre'' was 7.916% he ...

s and 36-pounder

carronade A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast-iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy. It was first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, and was used from the last quarter of the 18th century to the mid-19th cen ...

s. The total number of guns varied between sixteen and twenty-eight. The 36-pounder

obusier The ''obusier de vaisseau'' was a light piece of naval artillery with a large calibre mounted on French warships of the Age of Sail. Designed to fire explosive shells at a low velocity, they were an answer to the carronade in the close combat an ...

s formerly mounted on the

poop deck In naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck that forms the roof of a cabin built in the rear, or " aft", part of the superstructure of a ship. The name originates from the French word for stern, , from Latin . Thus the poop deck is technic ...

() in older ships were removed as obsolete.Winfield & Roberts, pp. 87–88, 97–98

Construction and career

Her keel was laid down in Toulon in 1812 as ''Kremlin''. During her construction, she was renamed ''Provence'' during the

Bourbon Restoration Bourbon Restoration may refer to: France under the House of Bourbon: * Bourbon Restoration in France (1814, after the French revolution and Napoleonic era, until 1830; interrupted by the Hundred Days in 1815) Spain under the Spanish Bourbons: * Ab ...

, ''Hercule'' briefly during the

Hundred Days The Hundred Days ( ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition (), marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII o ...

, when she was launched, and back to ''Provence'' from July 1815.Roche, p. 366 The ship was completed in August 1815, but she was not commissioned until 1 April 1825.Winfield & Roberts, p. 100 She sustained heavy damage when she collided with her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same Ship class, class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They o ...

''Scipion'' which was returning from the

Battle of Navarino The Battle of Navarino was a naval battle fought on 20 October (O.S. 8 October) 1827, during the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829), in Navarino Bay (modern Pylos), on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, in the Ionian Sea. Allied ...

, and had to return to Toulon for repairs. After the "fan incident", she sailed for Algiers to attempt talks, arriving on 3 August 1829. In July 1830, she was the

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...

of Vice-admiral Duperré for the

Invasion of Algiers in 1830 The invasion of Algiers in 1830 was a large-scale military operation by which the Kingdom of France, ruled by Charles X, invaded and conquered the Deylik of Algiers. Algiers was annexed by the Ottoman Empire in 1529 after the capture of Algi ...

. On 17 July 1830, she was renamed ''Alger'' to celebrate the capitulation of the city. In 1831, the ship took part in the

Battle of the Tagus Battle of the Tagus may refer to: * Battle of the Tagus (220 BC) – Battle between the Carpetanians and Carthage lead by Hannibal in preparation for the Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, t ...

, under Captain

Jacques Leblanc Jacques LeBlanc may refer to: * Jacques LeBlanc (boxer) * Jacques LeBlanc (politician) * Jacques Leblanc, Québécois physiologist {{hndis, LeBlanc, Jacques ...

, and later in the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

, bombarding

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

. From 1855, she was used as a hospital ship, and was eventually broken up in 1881.

References

Bibliography

* *Winfield, Rif and Roberts, Stephen S. (2015) ''French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786-1861: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates.'' Seaforth Publishing. {{DEFAULTSORT:Provence (1815) Ships of the line of the French Navy Téméraire-class ships of the line Ships built in France 1815 ships Crimean War naval ships of France