The French ship Lion was a 74-gun Téméraire-class ship of the line, constructed for the French Navy during the 1790s. She was laid down on July 8, 1802, at the Arsenal de Rochefort and launched on February 11, 1804. Commissioned shortly thereafter on May 10 and completed by June of the same year, Lion was built to the design of Jacques-Noël Sané, a prominent naval architect. The vessel measured approximately 55.87 meters (183 feet 4 inches) in length, with a beam of 14.46 meters (47 feet 5 inches), and a depth of hold of about 7.15 meters (23 feet 5 inches). She displaced approximately 3,069 tonneaux and had a tonnage of 1,537 port tonneaux, with a mean draught of 7.15 meters. The ship was rigged with three masts, typical of the ship-rigged design of her class, and carried a crew of around 705 officers and ratings during wartime. Lion's armament consisted of smoothbore, muzzle-loading guns, including twenty-eight 36-pounder long guns on the lower gun deck, thirty 18-pounder long guns on the upper deck, and a total of sixteen 8-pounder long guns on the quarterdeck and forecastle. Post-1787 ships of her class saw modifications in armament, with some including four 36-pounder obusiers on the poop deck or twenty 8-pounders. During her service, Lion participated in Allemand's expedition of 1805 under Captain Eleonore-Jean-Nicolas Soleil. After being paid off in March 1807, she was reactivated in June 1808. In 1809, she was tasked with escorting a convoy from Toulon to Barcelona. However, six days into this voyage, she encountered a British squadron under Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood. During the Battle of Maguelone, near Sète, Lion ran aground and was subsequently set on fire by her crew to prevent her capture by the enemy. Her brief but notable service highlights her role in the naval conflicts of the Napoleonic Wars and her significance as a representative vessel of the French Navy’s line-of-battle ships of her era.

This description has been generated using GPT-4.1-NANO based on the Vessel's wikidata information and then modified by ShipIndex.org staff.