THE WORLD'S WARSHIPS. 
149 
These two ships were not launched till 1866, and though they 
remedied the fault of the Gloire type, it was at the expense of a large 
amount of wooden hull left exposed, accordingly in 1862 no less than 
10 frigates of the Gloire type were commenced, named respectively, 
the Flandre, Gauloise, Guyenne, Savoie, Surveillante, Provence, 
Magnanime, Valeureuse, Heroine, and Revanche. 
Their length was 262 feet, breadth 56 feet, displacement nearly 
6000 tons. Their armour was six inches in thickness at the belt, 
diminishing to 4’5 inches at the top of the battery. The last of this 
type was finished in 1867, and, owing to the slight attention paid to the 
modifications that were taking place in naval guns, were obsolete—as 
Lord Brassey informs us—before they were even completed. 
Of this first group of six ships none now remain in the French 
service; of the second of ten vessels, four have disappeared, three are 
marked as unfit for service or repair, three, the Savoie, Heroine, and 
Revanche, are still in their service. They are now armed with eight 
24 cm 16-ton B.L.R. guns, three 19 cm , and four 14 cm ditto. The first 
is provisionally condemned, the second it is proposed to convert into a 
gunnery ship, the third is, 1 believe, employed at Algiers as a floating 
depot. I think we may, therefore, set them all three as beneath 
further attention. 
A type of a second-class line-of-battleship was also determined for 
foreign service. These were again very similar in form to the Magenta 
and Solferino, but with only one tier of guns. They were only 230 
feet long and not quite 4000 tons displacement. They were also ten 
in number, but of these only six, the Alma, Belliqueuse, Atalante, 
Montcalm, Reine Blanche, and Thetis, remain in the service, while all 
but the Montcalm and Reine Blanche are stated in their estimates as 
unfit for further service or repair. 
It may be asked why such a large number of these frigates and 
“ corvettes cuirassees ” are kept on in the service if in such a bad and 
useless state, but the French have been singularly unfortunate in their 
early iron-clad fleet, and while they have no vessels of the date of ours 
yet fit for further service like our Achilles, Agincourt, Hercules, 
Minotaur, etc., etc., they have failed, as they had hoped some four 
years back, to dispose of these vessels by sale. 
The second group of first-class line-of-battleships was followed by a 
third of four vessels, the Ocean, Marengo, Suffren, and Friedland. 
The Ocean was 20 feet longer than those of the second, and 1500 tons 
more displacement. The armour was eight inches at the water-line, 
and protected by 35 inches of backing. The armament was mounted 
in a central battery, on the four corners of which were barbette 
towers projecting beyond the sides of the ship. The armour of the 
battery and turrets is 6’5 inches. However, long before the ship 
could be launched her iron defence had ceased to give protection 
against the 23-ton guns then in use. 
This ship is noticeable as the first sign that the French had shown, 
that unlike the old wooden vessels, the iron-clad fleet would have to 
consist of craft of various types and designs for different services. It 
was the early realisation of this that has given us such a start of our 
