French ship Apollon (1788)

For other ships with the same name, see French ship Apollon.

Apollon was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.

Scale model of Achille, sister ship of French ship Apollon (1788), on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.
History
France
Name	Apollon
Namesake	Apollo, Gasparinus de Bergamo, François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers
Builder	Rochefort
Laid down	April 1787
Launched	21 May 1788
Commissioned	1788
Decommissioned	1797
Renamed	Gasparin in February 1794 Apollon on 16 May 1795 Marceau on 6 June 1798
Fate	Broken up 1798
General characteristics
Class and type	Téméraire-class ship of the line
Displacement	1,966 tonnes 3,260 tonnes fully loaded
Length	55.87 metres (183.3 ft) (172 pied)
Beam	14.90 metres (48 ft 11 in)
Draught	7.26 metres (23.8 ft) (22 pied)
Propulsion	Up to 2,485 m2 (26,750 sq ft) of sails
Armament	74 guns: Lower gundeck: 28 × 36-pounder long guns Upper gundeck: 30 × 18-pounder long guns Forecastle and Quarter deck: 16 × 8-pounder long guns 4 × 36-pounder obusiers
Armour	Timber

Career

In 1790, Apollon was the flagship of Charles Louis du Chilleau de La Roche, in Brest.

Between 1791 and 1793, she was based in Saint-Domingue.

During the Siege of Toulon, her commanding officer, Captain Imbert, negotiated the surrender of the town with Admiral Hood aboard HMS Victory. After the siege, she ferried 1,500 anti-revolutionary prisoners to Rochefort, where most of them were executed.

She took part in the battle of the Glorious First of June, and the Croisière du Grand Hiver ("Campaign of the Great Winter") in 1794–1795.

She was eventually broken up in 1798.

References

• Du Chilleau, Alex (1815). Au Roi. Exposé des services du contre-amiral Mis Du Chilleau. Paris: Leblanc.
• Winfield, Rif; Roberts, Stephen S (2015). French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786—1862: Design Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84832-204-2.