Career
The French Navy had lost 29 ships during the Seven Years' War, casualties being particularly high at the Battle of Lagos and the Battle of Quiberon Bay. To replace these losses, in 1761 the Duke of Choiseul launched subscriptions, called don des vaisseaux, whereby French individuals and organisations could donate the funds necessary to build and equip a warship to the Crown. 13 million livres were raised and 18 ships, including two three-deckers, were built and named after their patrons. The Marseillois was funded by the Chamber of commerce of Marseille, for 500,000 livres.
Marseillois was ordered on 16 January 1762, to be built in Toulon on a design by engineer Coulomb, and named the same day by Louis XV, following the request of her patrons. The Chamber of commerce of Marseille further requested that the ship be built in Marseille, but Coulomb determined that the harbour there was too shallow to launch of a 74-gun ship, and the order for Marseillois was eventually confirmed at Toulon. There, lack of timber in the shipyards, that were already busy building Languedoc, Zélé and Bourgogne, delayed the construction of Marseillois until 1764. Her building was directed by engineer Joseph-Véronique-Charles Chapelle.
She was launched on 16 July 1766, and completed quickly, decorated by sculptures carved by Pierre Audibert. After her completion, she was put in reserve, where she would remain for 11 years.
On 1 February 1778, Marseillois was hove down; her careening was completed two days later, and she was commissioned under Captain Louis-Armand de La Poype de Vertrieu.
Read more about this topic: French Ship Vengeur Du Peuple
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)