French ship Merveilleux (1691)

The Merveilleux was a First Rank ship of the line of the French Royal Navy, the second vessel in the two-ship Foudroyant Class.

History
Kingdom of France
Name	Merveilleux
Ordered	February 1691
Builder	Blaise Pangalo, Brest Dockyard
Laid down	7 May 1691
Launched	19 November 1691
Completed	April 1692
Fate	Destroyed by fire 2 June 1692
General characteristics
Tonnage	1,600
Length	153 French feet[lower-alpha 1]
Beam	43 French feet
Draught	23 French feet
Depth of hold	19¼ French feet
Decks	3 gun decks
Complement	650, + 9 officers
Armament	90, later 80 guns

This ship was ordered in February 1691 to be built - like her sister - at Brest Dockyard, and on 13 May 1691 she was allotted the name Merveilleux. The designer and builder of both ships was Blaise Pangalo. They were three-decker ships without forecastles. The Merveilleux was launched on 11 November 1691 and completed in April 1692.

She was initially armed with 90 guns, comprising twenty-eight 36-pounders on the lower deck, twenty-eight 18-pounders on the middle deck, twenty-four 12-pounders on the upper deck, and ten 6-pounders on the quarterdeck. However she was reduced to 80 guns before the end of 1691.

The new ship took part in the Battle of Barfleur on 29 May 1692, where she was the flagship of Lieutenant-Général Charles-François Davy, Marquis d'Amfreville. Following the battle she and her sister Foudroyant put into La Hogue on the east coast of the Cotentin Peninsula where they were among a dozen French ships of the line attacked and burnt by Anglo-Dutch naval forces on 2 June 1692.

A new ship was immediately ordered to be built at Brest and given the same name; this was launched in November 1692.

Notes

1. The French foot (pre-metric) was 6.575% longer than the equivalent English foot.

References

• Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours 1 1671 - 1870. p. 223. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.
• Nomenclature des Vaisseaux du Roi-Soleil de 1661 a 1715. Alain Demerliac (Editions Omega, Nice – various dates).
• The Sun King's Vessels (2015) – Jean-Claude Lemineur; English translation by François Fougerat. Editions ANCRE. ISBN 978-2903179885
• Winfield, Rif and Roberts, Stephen (2017) French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626-1786: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4738-9351-1.