Name Fougueux Builder Lorient shipyard Construction started 1784 Length 56 m Beam 15 m | Namesake "Impetuous" Laid down 1784 Launched 1785 Weight 1,966 tons | |
 | ||
Fate Sunk after the Battle of Trafalgar, October 1805 Class and type Téméraire-class ship of the line | ||
Fougueux was a Téméraire class 74-gun French ship of the line built at Lorient from 1784 to 1785 by engineer Segondat.
Ship history
In 1796, she took part in the Expédition d'Irlande under Esprit-Tranquille Maistral.
She took part in the Battle of Trafalgar, firing the first shot of the battle upon HMS Royal Sovereign. She later attempted to come to the aid of the Redoutable by engaging HMS Temeraire. After badly damaging the Fougueux with broadsides, Temeraire's first-lieutenant, Thomas Fortescue Kennedy, led a boarding party onto Fougueux, entering the French ship via her main deck ports and chains. The French tried to defend the decks port by port, but were steadily overwhelmed. Fougueux's captain, Louis Alexis Baudoin, had suffered a fatal wound earlier in the fighting, leaving Commander François Bazin in charge. On learning that nearly all of the officers were dead or wounded and that most of the guns were out of action, Bazin surrendered the ship to Kennedy.
According to the report of Captain Lucas of the Redoutable,
On the day after the battle a severe storm battered the surviving ships. Fougueux was driven ashore near Torre Bermeja on the coast of Spain and was wrecked. Only 25 men aboard, British prize crew and French prisoners, survived.