Charles Pénaud (24 December 1800 – 25 March 1864) was a French naval officer who rose to the rank of vice-admiral.

[2] The Lys was sent to retake possession of the island of Martinique after the Bourbon Restoration, along with the frigate Érigone and the corvette Vésuve.

[5] He made a voyage to the Antilles on the frigate Revanche, then to India on the fluyt Galo under captain Ange René Armand, baron de Mackau.

He obtained permission to join this expedition on the corvette Espérance, and at the end of the circumnavigation returned to France in 1826 after eight years' absence.

[8] From 1833 to 1837 he commanded in turn the xebec Chamois at Toulon and the corvette Béarnaise on the French Guiana station.

[6] For two years he commanded the corvette Triomphante, in which he participated in the French blockade of the Río de la Plata.

Contre-amiral Armand Joseph Bruat, governor of French possessions in the Pacific, wrote to the government of the strong assistance he had given, particularly at Mahina in the struggle against the insurgent Tahitians.

Charte returned to France in 1845, and during that year Pénaud was in turn captain of the Neptune and the Ièna in the training squadron.

[10] At that time slavery was illegal, but traders were openly taking Africans as "passengers" to work as "domestic servants" in Brazil, where they were sold as slaves.

[15] The next year the Baltic fleet was reduced to three ships and several gunboats, and Pénaud was made commander in chief.

[16] Pénaud arrived in the Gulf of Finland in June 1855 with his ships and ten screw gunboats, where he joined the British Rear Admiral Richard Saunders Dundas.

Dundas was hesitant but Penaud persuaded him to attack the Russian fleet in the harbour of Sweaborg on 9–10 August 1855.

[19] After returning to France Pénaud was sent to the Mediterranean to serve under Vice-Admiral François Thomas Tréhouart in repatriating the French Army from the Crimea.

[16] There was much controversy over these ships due to their great weight and their long and low profiles, which it was thought would make them unmanageable.

[3] Pénaud died in Toulon on 25 March 1864 on board his flagship, the Ville de Paris, after a short illness.