Turenne was laid up upon completion in 1882, while Bayard was sent to East Asian waters, where she served much of her career as a flagship. She saw action during the Tonkin campaign that established France's colonial empire in what became French Indochina, as well as the Sino-French War that immediately followed. After Vice Admiral Amédée Courbet died in 1885, Bayard carried his remains back to France. Turenne replaced her as the flagship in East Asia, but she had a much less eventful stint in the region, remaining there until 1889, when she returned to France to be placed in reserve once more in 1890. Bayard returned to Indochina in 1893, and she remained there until being decommissioned in 1899 and reduced to a storage hulk, a role she filled until 1904. By that time, Turenne had been sold for scrapping in 1901, and Bayard followed her to the breakers' yard in 1904.
The Bayard class, also referred to as the Turenne class, of barbette ships was designed in the late 1870s as part of a naval construction program that began under the post-Franco-Prussian War fleet plan of 1872. At the time, the French Navy categorized its capital ships as high-seas ships for the main fleet, station ironclads for use in the French colonial empire, and smaller coastal defense ships. The Bayard class was intended to serve in the second role. The naval architect Victorin Sabattier submitted a proposal to build a scaled-down version of his high-seas ironclad to meet requirements issued by the French Naval Minister Charles de Dompierre d'Hornoy, who wanted new designs for station ironclads. Sabattier's initial design included four main battery guns arranged as in Amiral Duperré: all in open barbettes, two side-by-side forward and the other two on the centerline aft. These were supplemented with a single heavy bow chaser, but during construction, a stern chaser was added, since the aft main battery guns were masked by the ships' rigging.
The ships of the Bayard class were long at the waterline and long between perpendiculars. They had a beam of and an average draft of . They displaced 6363t. The ships had a sharply raked forecastle and relatively minimal superstructure, consisting of a small bridge directly astern of the forward main battery barbettes. Unlike several of their French predecessors, the Bayard-class ships disposed with iron hulls and reverted to wooden hulls, which were sheathed in copper to reduce fouling on extended voyages overseas, where shipyard facilities were less available. This may have been the result of British reports of hull corrosion with their iron-hulled vessels. Their crews numbered 24 officers and 425 enlisted men.
Their propulsion machinery consisted of two compound steam engines, each driving a single screw propeller, with steam provided by eight coal-burning fire-tube boilers. The boilers were vented through a pair of uptakes that passed through a single funnel casing; Turennes casing covered the uptakes entirely, while Bayards terminated well below the top, giving her the appearance of having a pair of small funnels placed closely together.
Their engines were rated to produce 4000ihp for a top speed of 14kn, and on initial speed trials, Turenne reached for a top speed of . At a more economical speed of, the ships had a cruising radius of 3000nmi. To supplement the steam engines on long voyages overseas, they were fitted with a full-ship rig.
Their main battery consisted of four, 19-caliber M1870M guns mounted in individual barbette mounts, two forward placed abreast and two aft, both on the centerline. They carried a pair of 19.8-cal. M1870 guns, one in the bow and one in the stern as chase guns. These guns were supported by a secondary battery of six 21.3-cal. M1870 guns carried in a central battery located amidships in the hull, three guns per broadside. They also carried a single 17-cal. 12-pounder bronze rifled gun. Their armament was rounded out with two torpedo tubes in above-water launchers.
Between 1883 and 1885, both ships had a light battery for defense against torpedo boats installed. This consisted of twelve 1-pounder Hotchkiss revolvers, all in individual mounts. At that time, the bronze gun was removed, and a pair of field guns that could be taken ashore by landing parties were added. By 1890, four 3-pounder Hotchkiss revolver cannon were added to supplement the 37 mm guns.
The ships were protected with wrought iron armor; their belt was thick amidships, where it protected the ships' propulsion machinery spaces and ammunition magazines. The belt extended for the entire length of the hull, but toward the bow it reduced in thickness to, and at the stern, it was reduced to . The belt extended from above the waterline to below. Both ships were protected with a thick deck that covered the full length of the hulls. The barbettes for the main battery were thick.
| Name | Builder | Laid down | Launched | Commissioned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| French: [[Arsenal de Brest]] | 19 September 1876 | 27 March 1880 | 22 November 1882 | |
| Lorient | 1 March 1877 | 16 October 1879 | 4 February 1882 | |
Upon completion, Turenne was placed in reserve, while Bayard was deployed to the Far East, where she became the flagship of the French: Division navale du Tonkin (Naval Division of Tonkin), under the command of Vice Admiral Amédée Courbet. There, she saw extensive service during the Tonkin campaign, which established the French protectorate over northern Vietnam and led to the creation of French Indochina. During the war, she took part in the Battle of Thuận An in August 1883. The French intervention in Tonkin resulted in the Sino-French War between France and Qing China, which had previously maintained Tonkin in its sphere of influence. Bayard supported operations during the Keelung campaign, took part in the Battle of Shipu against the Nanyang Fleet in February 1885, and then the Pescadores campaign in March. Courbet died of cholera aboard Bayard in June.
Turenne was recommissioned in 1884 to relieve Bayard as the flagship of the division, remaining there through 1889. During this period, she cruised extensively through East Asia, visiting numerous foreign ports to show the flag. Bayard, for her part, returned home with Courbet's remains in 1885. She later served in the French: Escadre de la Méditerranée occidentale et du Levant (Eastern Mediterranean and Levant Squadron) from 1889 to 1892. Turenne returned to France in 1889 and was placed in reserve in April 1890. Bayard returned to the Far East in 1893, resuming her role as the divisional flagship there. She remained in East Asia through 1899. Bayard was struck from the naval register in April 1899 and was thereafter used as a storage hulk in Hạ Long Bay in northern French Indochina from 1899 to 1904, when she was sold to ship breakers. In the meantime, Turenne was struck in September 1900, placed for sale in 1901 and subsequently discarded.
. Theodore Ropp . The Development of a Modern Navy: French Naval Policy, 1871–1904 . Roberts . Stephen S. . 1987 . Annapolis . Naval Institute Press . 978-0-87021-141-6 . .