Part 2 of 2 +----------------+---------+-----------+----------------+ | | Draught | Maximum | Heaviest Guns | | NAME OF SHIP. | of | Thickness | carried. | | | Water. | of Armor. | | +----------------+---------+-----------+----------------+ | | Feet. | Inches. | | | Amiral Baudin | 25.8 | 22 | 3 of 75 tons. | | Amiral Duperré | 25.8 | 22 | 4 ” 48 ” | | Dévastation | 25.5 | 15 | {4 ” 48 ” | | | | | {4 ” 28 ” | | Formidable | 25.8 | 22 | 3 ” 75 ” | | Foudroyant }| 25.5 | 15 | {4 ” 48 ” | | (now Courbet)}| | | {4 ” 28 ” | | Hoche | 26.5 | 17.7 | 4 ” 52 ” | | Magenta | 26.5 | 17.7 | 4 ” 52 ” | | Marceau | 26.5 | 17.7 | 4 ” 52 ” | | Neptune | 26.5 | 17.7 | 4 ” 52 ” | | Redoutable | 24.4 | 14 | {4 ” 28 ” | | | | | {4 ” 24 ” | | Caïman | 23 | 17.5 | 2 ” 48 ” | | Furieux | 21.4 | 17.5 | 2 ” 48 ” | | Indomptable | 22.8 | 19.5 | 2 ” 75 ” | | Requin | 22.8 | 19.5 | 2 ” 75 ” | | Terrible | 22.8 | 19.5 | 2 ” 75 ” | | Tonnant | 17.3 | 17.5 | 2 ” 48 ” | +----------------+---------+-----------+----------------+ The ship which alphabetically falls last in this table among the ships of 9000 tons and upwards, the _Redoutable_, came first in point of time, _viz._, in 1872, and her design marked the commencement of the new era in French iron-clad construction. One of the features of the change was, as already intimated, the abandonment of wooden hulls, which we had succeeded in accomplishing in England eight years before. The first design proposed by myself to the British Admiralty provided for an iron hull, and although the force of circumstances compelled us to construct my earliest war-vessels in timber, yet so strongly averse were we to the employment of so perishable a material as wood within an iron casing that Admiral Sir R. Spencer Robinson succeeded in preventing the construction of three out of five wooden line-of-battle armored ships that had previously been proposed by the government of the day, and sanctioned by Parliament. This was in 1863 or 1864, the _Lord Clyde_ and _Lord Warden_ being the last large armored wooden ships laid down in her Majesty’s dockyards. [Illustration: THE “RICHELIEU.”]