3-017-227 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Naval Festival at Portsmouth: the French fleet leaving Spithead, 1865. 'The ships composing the French squadron...[included] the Solferino and Magenta, two-deckers, ironclads, of 7000 tons burden, carrying fifty-two guns...the Normandie, La Gloire, La Couronne, Invincible, Provence, Heroine, and Flandre, frigates; the Caton, Ariel, and Faon, smaller vessels; the Reine Hortense, Imperial yacht. The squadron took its departure very quietly about nine o'clock in the morning'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.