Jean Bart was a protected cruiser of the built for the French Navy in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The lead ship the class of two ships, Jean Bart and her sister ship were ordered during the tenure of Admiral Théophile Aube as Minister of Marine according to the theories of the doctrine. The ships were intended as long-range commerce raiders, and they were armed with a main battery of four guns, were protected by an armor deck that was thick, and were capable of steaming at a top speed of . Jean Bart served with the Mediterranean Squadron for the first two years of her career, thereafter being transferred to the Northern Squadron. During this period, she took part in training exercises with the fleet. In 1897, the ship was modernized with new masts and electric search lights. She was deployed to French Indochina in Southeast Asia in 1898 and she was part of the French squadron that responded to the Boxer Uprising in Qing China. Jean Bart underwent a second refit between 1903 and 1906 that included new water-tube boilers that improved her performance. She saw little use afterward, as she ran aground off the Western Sahara in early 1907 and could not be refloated. Design Design work on the Jean Bart class began in 1885 under the direction of the French naval minister, Charles-Eugène Galiber, who wanted a new commerce raiding protected cruiser similar to the earlier , albeit smaller and with a smaller secondary battery. By the time French shipyards had responded to requests for design proposals, Admiral Théophile Aube had replaced Galiber as naval minister, but Aube was an ardent supporter of the doctrine that emphasized long-range, commerce raiding cruisers. He called for the construction of six large and ten small protected cruisers, though by the end of his tenure in 1887, the program had been reduced to five large, two medium, and six small cruisers. Aube ordered the first two Jean Bart-class cruisers to fulfill the requirements for the first set of large cruisers, and his successor, Édouard Barbey, authorized the third. The two Jean Barts proved to be the last of the initial series of commerce raiders built under the influence of the . Jean Bart was long between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced . Her crew varied over the course of her career, amounting