The first journey of any length undertaken by the _Gustave Zédé_ was from Salins d’Hyères to Toulon. The sea was choppy, and a fresh breeze was blowing, and yet no mishap of any kind occurred. She navigated for the greater distance at the surface, with her cupola above the water, but when the water became too rough she plunged under the waves, occasionally emerging to take bearings. The distance between Toulon and Salins is short, and so the next journey was from Toulon to Marseilles, a distance of forty-one miles, and this the _Gustave Zédé_ covered also in a rough sea without accident of any kind at the rate of six knots. Although accompanied by a tug, the _Utile_, it had no occasion for its services. She navigated on the surface all the way, but by reason of the swell everything was hermetically closed, and for more than seven hours the crew were kept in conditions exactly the same as if the vessel had been really under water. On reaching Marseilles the accumulators had sufficient power left to perform the return journey. The trials of the _Gustave Zédé_ resulted in stimulating the interest of the French in submarine warfare. Writers vied with one another in extolling the qualities of under-water craft and the popular imagination saw already the powerful fleets of Great Britain and Germany destroyed by the attacks of the French submarine flotilla. “Jamais nous n’aurions trop de sous-marins,” wrote M. V. Guilloux in _Le Yacht_. “The twelve years of consecutive efforts and studies continued in order to obtain a solution of the question of submarine navigation have at length been crowned with success,” said a writer in the _Moniteur de la Flotte_. Lieutenant Maurice Loir writing in the _Moniteur_ of a later date remarked that Frenchmen went too fast in proclaiming that these isolated trials sounded the knell of the battleships. He nevertheless believed the submarine boat to be a real element in naval war because the very fear of its invisible attack would keep at a distance adversaries who might have an object in approaching the coasts. So great was the interest taken in France in submarine boats that the _Matin_ opened a “Patriotic Subscription Fund” in 1898, to raise money for building submarine boats of the _Gustave Zédé_ type. The journal itself headed the list with a subscription of 5,000 francs. In a long article the _Matin_ dwelt on the utility of these engines of warfare, and asked the French public to furnish the funds necessary for the construction of at least one more _Gustave Zédé_. It urged the Government to build a fleet of these boats as an effectual protection for the French ports and the harbours of the French Colonies, against the most powerful navies of the world. The result of the opening of the fund was that two submarines were presented to the nation—the _Français_ and the _Algerien_—and the sum of 300,000 francs, mostly in small sums, was contributed by the French nation for these vessels.