 Vérité was laid down at the Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde shipyard in Bordeaux in April 1903 , launched on 28 May 1907 , and completed in June 1908 , over a year after the radically innovative British battleship HMS Dreadnought , which rendered the pre @-@ dreadnoughts like Vérité outdated before they were completed . The ship was 133 @.@ 81 meters ( 439 ft 0 in ) long between perpendiculars and had a beam of 24 @.@ 26 m ( 79 ft 7 in ) and a full @-@ load draft of 8 @.@ 41 m ( 27 ft 7 in ) . She displaced up to 14 @,@ 489 metric tons ( 14 @,@ 260 long tons ; 15 @,@ 971 short tons ) at full load . The ship had a crew of between 739 and 769 officers and enlisted men . Vérité was powered by three vertical triple expansion engines with twenty @-@ two Belleville boilers . They were rated at 18 @,@ 500 indicated horsepower ( 13 @,@ 800 kW ) and provided a top speed of 19 knots ( 35 km / h ; 22 mph ) . Coal storage amounted to 1 @,@ 800 t ( 1 @,@ 800 long tons ; 2 @,@ 000 short tons ) . 
