The Suffren was the first ship of the line built with straight sides, after the specifications of the Commission de Paris, instead of the traditional tumblehome common on ships of the line.

She took part in the Battle of Tagus on 11 July 1831, under Captain Trotel, as Albin Roussin's flagship, and stayed off Lisbon for one month thereafter, leaving Portugal on 14 August.

The next year, she took part in the Battle of Ancona, on 22 February, ferrying 1500 infantrymen.

In July, an epidemic of cholera in the fleet in the Black Sea killed 20 and sickened 100 aboard.

From 1857 to 1860, she was used as a gunnery school by the École Navale, before being stricken on 4 April 1861 and converted to a hulk.