fashion, and she was broken up on the ways.

The man who introduced the armour-clad ship into the world's navies was the
Emperor Napoleon III, the same who introduced rifled field artillery into
the armies of the world. Like other great revolutions, this epoch-making
change in naval war began in a small way. What forced the question upon the
Emperor's attention was the failure of the combined French and English
fleets in the attack on the sea-forts of Sebastopol on 17 October, 1854.
The most powerful ships in both navies had engaged the sea-forts, and
suffered such loss and injury that it was obvious that if the attack had
been continued the results would have been disastrous. Some means must be
found of keeping explosive shells out of a ship's gun-decks, if they were
ever to engage land batteries on anything like equal terms. Under the
Emperor's directions the French naval architects designed four ships of a
new type, which were rapidly constructed in the Imperial dockyards. They
were "floating batteries," not intended to take part in fleet actions, but
only to be used against fortifications. Their broad beam, heavy lines,
rounded bows, and engines of only 225 horsepower, condemned them to slow
speed, just sufficient to place them in firing position. They were armoured
with 4-inch iron and armed with eighteen 50-pounder guns. The port-holes
had heavy iron ports, which were closed while the guns were reloading.

Three of these floating batteries, the "Devastation," "Lave," and
"Tonnant," came into action against the shore batteries at Kinburn on 17
October, 1855 (the anniversary of the attack on the Sebastopol sea-forts).
There was some difficulty in getting into position, as they could just
crawl along, and steered abominably. But when they opened fire at 800 yards
at 9 a.m. they silenced and wrecked the Russian batteries in eighty-five
minutes, themselves suffering only trifling damage, and not losing a dozen
men.

It was the first and last fight of the floating batteries. But while in
England men were still discussing the problem of the sea-going ironclad,
the French constructors were solving it. They had to look not to
parliamentary and departmental committees, but to the initiative and
support of an intelligent autocrat. So events went quicker in France. In
1858 the keels of the first three French sea-going armour-clads were laid
down at Toulon, and next year the armoured frigate "Gloire," the first of
European ir