French frigate Minerve (1831)

For other ships with the same name, see French ship Couronne and French ship Minerve.

Minerve was a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line, later razeed and commissioned as a frigate. Started during the Empire, she was launched during the Bourbon Restoration, rebuilt during the reign of Louis-Philippe, and served as a gunnery school through the French Second Republic and the Second French Empire, only to be broken up shortly after the advent of the French Third Republic.

Minerve in 1865
History
France
Name	1831 Minerve 1830 Glorieux 1814 Duc de Berry 1812 Glorieux 1807 Couronne
Namesake	Minerva
Ordered	21 August 1807
Builder	Rochefort
Laid down	13 January 1812
Launched	18 June 1818
Completed	July 1818 as ship of the line 16 October 1836 as frigate
Stricken	12 December 1853
Fate	Condemned for demolition 1874
General characteristics
Class and type	32-gun frigate
Length	55.87 metres
Beam	14.50 metres
Draught	6.73 metres (6.41 after rebuild)
Propulsion	Sails
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Armament	In 1817: LD: 28 × 36-pounder long guns UD: 30 × 18-pounder long guns QD and Fc: 14 × 8-pounder long guns and 10 × 36-pounder carronades In 1836: LD: 26 × 36-pounder long guns and 2 × 22cm Paixhans guns QD and Fc: 28 × 36-pounder carronades As gunnery school: LD: 24 × 30-pounder long guns, 3 × 22cm Paixhans guns QD and Fc: 17 × 30-pounder carronades, 4 × 16cm howitzers

Career

Ordered in 1807, the ship was initially to be named Couronne, but was renamed Glorieux in 1812, and Duc de Berry in 1814 at the Bourbon Restoration. She was eventually launched in 1818. In 1830 after the July Revolution she became Glorieux again. The next year, she was renamed Minerve and razeed to a frigate.

Launched for the second time in 1833, Minerve served a flagship of the naval station off Brazil. In 1841, she cruised off Madagascar before becoming the flagship of the Middle East naval station in 1844. On 10 October 1844, she ran aground off Rhodes, Greece; she was refloated with the aid of the French Navy brig Alcibiade and six Ottoman Navy vessels.^[1]

From 1848, Minerve was used as a gunnery training ship. She was hulked in 1853 and eventually broken up in 1874.

Citations

1. "London". Hamshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle. No. 2355. Portsmouth. 23 November 1844.

References

• Frégates à voiles de 1er rang Archived 26 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine, la Flotte de Napoléon III
• Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours. Vol. 1. Group Retozel-Maury Millau. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.