Duquesne-class cruiser (1876)

The Duquesne class was a group of two unprotected cruisers built for the French Navy in the 1870s. The class comprised two ships: Duquesne and Tourville. They were ordered in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, and were intended for use against commerce raiders, which necessitated a high top speed, heavy armament, and long cruising radius. Both ships' engines proved to be very unreliable, required significant maintenance to keep in operation, and burned coal voraciously. Their large crews also increased the cost of operating the vessels, and all of these problems led to short service lives. Over the course of the twenty-five years following their launch, Duquesne saw active service for just seven years, while Tourville was in commission for only four. The former made a single deployment overseas in the mid-1880s, when she cruised on the Pacific station for three years, while Tourville spent just a year in the Far East before being recalled. Both ships were struck from the naval register in 1901 and sold for scrap thereafter.