''Cassard'' was a steam corvette of the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

. Built as an

aviso An ''aviso'' was originally a kind of dispatch boat or "advice boat", carrying orders before the development of effective remote communication. The term, derived from the Portuguese and Spanish word for "advice", "notice" or "warning", an '' ...

, she served as the imperial yacht ''Reine Hortense'' from 1853.

Career

Laid down as ''Comte d'Eu'', the ship was renamed to ''Patriote'' on 20 February 1848 after the

French Revolution of 1848 The French Revolution of 1848 (french: Révolution française de 1848), also known as the February Revolution (), was a brief period of civil unrest in France, in February 1848, that led to the collapse of the July Monarchy and the foundation ...

. In June 1853, she became the

imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texa ...

yacht ''Reine Hortense''. In 1855, she served as a troopship to ferry forces bound for the theatre of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

. ''Reine Hortense'' ferried

Prince Napoléon Bonaparte A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

from Marseille to Genoa in early 1859 for his marriage to

Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy french: Louise Thérèse Marie Clotilde , spouse = , issue = Victor, Prince Napoléon Prince Louis Princess Maria Letizia, Duchess of Aosta , house = Savoy , father = Victor Emmanuel II of Italy , mother = Adelaide ...

, and

Napoléon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

from Marseille to Genoa on 11 and 12 May 1859. Returned to the French Navy in 1854. In 1862 she was in the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

when she gave aid to a British vessel who she towed her 80 miles from Bomarsund to

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, on board had been

Lord Dufferin Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (21 June 182612 February 1902) was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian society. In his youth he was a popular figure in the court of Queen Vict ...

, who she was to meet again 3 years later. The Reine Hortense was recommissioned as the imperial yacht on 20 April 1865 for an official visit in Algeria. In June 1856 she took Prince Napoléon on an expedition to

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

, with the ''Artémise (1847)'', a 28-gun corvette, ''La Perdrix'' and, the "cocyte", and two British coal tender screw steamers, the "Tasmania" and the "Saxon" of 700 tons each. On 30 June at

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...

in Iceland, she met again Lord Dufferin who was on his own travels that would feature in his book '' Letters From High Latitudes'', published the next year. Dufferin's journey was taking in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

Jan Mayen Jan Mayen () is a Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: larger nort ...

and

Spitzbergen Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

. He had chartered the

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

''Foam'' for the task. Dufferin was invited to join Prince Napoleon aboard his royal steamer, and the Prince on hearing that the "Foam" had broken down offered them a tow north to

as they were going to the same region. On their last night in Reykjavík the prince held a ball to which all ''the rank, fashion, and beauty'' of the tiny town (population 700 or 800) were invited. The "Foam" was attached with two cables and the flotilla set off on 7 July, the collier "Saxon" traveling all too slowly behind. The fragile ''La Reine Hortense'' was soon to be in increasing danger from the ice and the French were required to abandon their journey 100 miles short of Jam Mayen, and return to Reykjavík. So on 11 July they let loose the "Foam" to carry on north by sail. This was fortunate in a sense since on their return they were to discover that the Saxon had been damaged by ice, and would have meant that the convoy would have been short of fuel. This effectively cancelled the expedition. ''Reine Hortense'' was again decommissioned in October. On 14 February 1867, she was renamed to ''Cassard'', and commissioned for the Algiers station. In her military role, her performances inspired a whole generation of

commerce raiding Commerce raiding (french: guerre de course, "war of the chase"; german: Handelskrieg, "trade war") is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than enga ...

cruisers; these ships, inexpensive, unarmoured sail and steam corvettes or frigates with a relatively heavy armament, proved useful to enact gunship diplomacy around the world, but became obsolete after the Franco-Prussian War. ''Navires et Histoire'', n°29, April 2005, page 83 ''Cassard'' served there until 1881, when she was decommissioned in Toulon before becoming a littoral defence ship. Renamed to ''Faune'' in 1893, she was used as a hulk in Port-Vendre. She was eventually broken up in 1920.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cassard (1846) 1846 ships Ships built in France