to the same basic design parameters, though the individual architects were allowed to deviate from each other in lesser details. The ships were ordered in response to the British Naval Defence Act of 1889, which had authorized the construction of the eight s; the French law aimed to keep the fleet in a position of relative parity with the Royal Navy. A total of twenty-eight battleships were to be built throughout the program. To keep costs down and minimize objections from the Chamber of Deputies, the displacement of the new ships would be limited to . The basic design for the first ship, Charles Martel, was also prepared by Huin, who based it on Brennus, though the armament was arranged in the lozenge layout that had been used on a number of older ironclad battleships like the . The ship proved to be a disappointment in service, as did her four half-sisters, all of which suffered from poor stability, largely a result of their pronounced tumblehome and overloaded construction. The ship spent her career with the Mediterranean Squadron. In 1897, she joined the International Squadron sent to intervene in the 1897–1898 Greek uprising on Crete against rule by the Ottoman Empire. Charles Martel served as the flagship of the 2nd Division of the Mediterranean Squadron beginning in 1900 before being transferred to the Reserve Squadron in 1902. There, she served as the flagship until she was replaced in 1903. Charles Martel was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron in 1910 and was then moved to the newly created 3rd Battle Squadron the next year. She returned to reserve status in 1912 and saw no further activity, ultimately being scrapped in 1922. Carnot Carnot was ordered under the same program that produced Charles Martel, and like the other vessel, she was largely based on Brennus and Magenta. But rather than simply repeat the same design, the French Naval Staff decided to allow different naval architects to build several different designs to evaluate the competing proposals for future programs. Carnot was designed by Victor Saglio, the Under-director of Naval Construction in Toulon. Compared to Charles Martel, Carnot was broadly similar, with the same main battery, though she had a smaller superstructure in an attempt to minimize topweight and thus instability that plagued many French capital ships during this period. The ship was nevertheless still too top-heavy and proved to suffer from insufficient