The Board of Construction (Conseil des travaux) intended to order 20 submarines for the 1906 naval program, including two large long-range experimental boats.

The board was preempted by Navy Minister (Ministre de la Marine) Gaston Thomson who opened a competition for submarines that were faster on the surface and with longer range than the preceding Pluviôse class on 6 February 1906.

Four designs were submitted, including one by naval constructor Julien Eugène Hutter using an Pluviôse-type hull enlarged and optimized to meet the speed and range requirements, all of which were authorized by the board, along with 16 Brumaire-class submarines.

[2] The boat had a depth of 8.9 meters (29 ft 2 in) from the bottom of her keel to the top of the conning tower and a metacentric height of 0.211 m (8 in) when surfaced.

Like most French submarines of this period, Archimède was fitted with a prominent "walking deck" above her single hull to facilitate operations on the surface.

Early the following year, the boat was transferred to the 1st Submarine Flotilla (1ère escadrille de sous-marins) of the Light Squadron (Escadre légère) when those units were formed.

[9] Archimède and the submarine Mariotte were ordered to Calais on 24 September and placed under British command in preparation for operations in the North Sea.

After the British discovered that the German High Seas Fleet had sortied into the North Sea late on 14 December, Keyes ordered eight of his submarines, including Archimède, to set up a patrol line north of the neutral Dutch island of Terschelling no later than the morning of 16 December to defend against any German attempt to enter the English Channel.