new naval minister, Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, instructed the design staff to prepare an all-big-gun proposal. Displacement was limited to , which corresponded to contemporary foreign dreadnoughts. Consideration was given to uniform batteries of 240, 274, and 305 mm guns; the Technical Section prepared three designs, the first of which was essentially a repeat Danton with increased ammunition storage, the second was a Danton variant with the six 240 mm wing turrets replaced by four 305 mm turrets, bringing the total number of guns to twelve. The turrets were arranged in a superfiring pair forward, two wing turrets amidships, and another superfiring pair aft. The third version included a mix of twin and triple turrets, but Boué de Lapeyrère ordered a modified version of the second proposal, and the first two ships were ordered for the 1910 budget. Two more followed in 1911. Three of the four ships were completed shortly before World War I, and and carried President Raymond Poincaré on a visit to Russia during the July Crisis, the proximate cause of the war. The ships operated with the main fleet during the conflict and saw little activity after the Battle of Antivari; they suffered the same fate as the Dantons, with crews being thinned to provide men for more important vessels. France and Jean Bart were involved in the intervention in Russia in 1919 and after returning to France later that year, were assigned to the new Western Mediterranean Squadron. In 1922 France struck an uncharted rock in Quiberon Bay and sank. The three surviving ships were refitted in the late 1920s and early 1930s. They thereafter served in secondary roles, including as training ships and later as barracks ships. remained in service as a training vessel early in World War II and she shelled German forces during the Battle of France in June 1940 before fleeing to Britain and eventually being sunk as a breakwater for the Normandy invasion. Jean Bart, which had been renamed Océan in 1937, was seized by the Germans in 1942 and used for weapons tests before being bombed and sunk in 1944. Paris, the last surviving member of the class, was also evacuated to Britain after the German invasion and was used as a depot ship first in Britain and then in France until 1955. Bretagne class The Bretagne class was modeled on the preceding Courbet class, using the same hull