Started in 1827 as the Hercule-class Hannibal, she was abandoned for nearly thirty years before being completed under the Second French Empire as a steam-powered ship of the line, under the name Prince Jérôme.

[3] But his transport career will rebound again since the Bagne of Toulon has become congested, and the French Government wanted to increase the deportations of convicts and prisoners to overcome the problem of exiguity, which required resorting to means of great exile capacities towards the islands of the Pacific.

A project is then submitted for the transformation of the ship for use in sailing transport in order to be able to embark 800 condemned men, 200 free passengers and 400 crew.

There is also an installation of side cylinders outside the hull, in the high battery, and a setting up of a station at the front for the rest of the crew, with the construction of prisons for around 350 inmates with an infirmary.

In April La Loire was rearmed and placed under the orders of the captain of the vessel Adolphe Lucien Mottez [fr] (1822-1892), and on 18 May, he was at the port of Brest where he embarked 280 convicts and 50 Algerian deportees at Fort Quélern from the Mokrani Revolt, at their head the marabout Cheikh Boumerdassi, then set off.