Bretagne was a large 110-gun three-decker French ship of the line, built at Brest, which became famous as the flagship of the Brest Fleet during the American War of Independence. She was funded by a don des vaisseaux grant by the Estates of Brittany. She was active in the European theatres of the Anglo-French War and of the French Revolutionary Wars, notably taking an important role in the Glorious First of June. Later, she took part in the Croisière du Grand Hiver and was broken up. Context The Seven Years' War had left the French Navy severely depleted, and the Crown did not have funds to replace the ships lost during the conflict. In late 1761 Étienne François, duc de Choiseul took the direction of the Navy and proposed that the great institutions of France make voluntary donations, a scheme named don des vaisseaux. On 1 September 1762, the Estates of Brittany gathered at the Couvent des Cordeliers in Rennes and decided to raise one million Livres tournois in order to offer a 100-gun Three-decker. Lieutenant Jean-Claude Louis de Quelen rode to Choisy-le-Roi to inform Louis XV, arriving on 5 and returning on 9 with acceptance letters from the King and from the Duke de Choiseul. Administrative dispositions for the loan started on 2 November, and were completed by 17. Budget would eventually reach 1,010,000 Livres tournois. The donation had political connotations, both in terms of rivalry between the various donating institutions, and for the status of Bretagne within France. Therefore, the Estates of Brittany attached their gift to a number of requests: that the ship be named Bretagne rather than États de Bretagne, that the crew be composed of Bretons exclusively, and that the ship be a three-decker. Furthermore, rather than donate funds that the Crown would invest in construction, the Estates demanded to supervise construction themselves at the shipyards of the French East India Company in Lorient. Construction On 2 November 1761, the Commission of the Estates of Brittany in charge of construction mandated Antoine Groignard as chief engineer, with Gaubry as deputy and Damel as an advisor. Groignard worked both for the French Royal Navy and for the French East India Company; he had recently directed the construction of the 80-gun Orient, the 74-gun Robuste, the 64-gun Vengeur and Solitaire, and was supervising ongoing construction of the 74-gun Diligent and Six Corps, the 56-gun Bordelois in Lorient,