La Galissonnière was lead ship of a class of wooden-hulled, armored corvettes built for the French Navy during the 1870s.

The La Galissonnière-class ironclads[Note 1] were designed as faster, more heavily armed versions of the Alma-class armored corvettes by Henri Dupuy de Lôme.

[3] La Galissonnière had two Wolf vertical compound steam engines,[3] each driving a single 3.8-meter (12 ft 6 in) propeller.

[3] On sea trials the engines produced a total of 2,370 indicated horsepower (1,770 kW) and the ship reached 13.08 knots (24.22 km/h; 15.05 mph).

[6] La Galissonnière had a complete 150-millimeter (5.9 in) wrought iron waterline belt, approximately 2.4 meters (7.9 ft)[9] high laid over 650 millimeters (26 in) of wood.

The ship was placed in reserve upon her return until she recommissioned on 15 August 1878 in preparation for a commission as flagship of the Caribbean Squadron which began on 6 October under Rear Admiral Peyron.

Shortly afterward she bombarded the Tunisian port of Sfax in July 1881 as part of the French occupation of Tunisia.

[12] In early 1882 La Galissonnière was present in Alexandria shortly before the British bombarded it before the beginning of the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War.

[10] La Galissonnière relieved her half-sister Victorieuse in April 1884 as the flagship of the Far East Squadron, under the command of Vice Admiral Amédée Courbet, just in time to participate in the Sino-French War of 1884–85.

The ship supplied landing parties during the Battle of Tamsui in October 1884, but they were forced to retreat by Chinese troops, although only nine men were killed.

[4] In June 1895, La Galissonnière was used as a target ship during experiments to determine the ability of modern ironclads to resist fire from coastal artillery batteries.