Ships

The ships are:

• the 26-gun frigate
  Frigate
  A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
  
   Belle Poule
  French ship Belle Poule (1765)
  Belle Poule was a French frigate of the Dédaigneuse class, designed and built by Léon-Michel Guignace, famous for her duel with the English frigate Arethusa on 17 June 1778, which began the French involvement in the American War of Independence....
  
  (1765), famous for her duel against the English frigate HMS Arethusa
  HMS Arethusa (1759)
  The Aréthuse was a French frigate, launched in 1757 during the Seven Years' War. She was subsequently captured by the Royal Navy and became the fifth-rate HMS Arethusa.Aréthuse was built at Le Havre for privateer warfare, as Pélerine...
  
   on 17 June 1778, which started the French intervention in the American War of Independence; the British 64-gun ship of the line HMS Nonsuch
  HMS Nonsuch (1774)
  HMS Nonsuch was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 December 1774 at Plymouth.In July 1780 Nonsuch destroyed the corvette Hussard and on 14 July captured the 26-gun frigate Belle Poule of the Loire....
  
   captured her in 1780 and she was broken up in 1801.
• the 40-gun frigate Belle Poule (1802–1806), which acted as a commerce raider in the Indian Ocean until the British captured her in 1806
• the 60-gun frigate Belle Poule
  French ship Belle Poule (1828)
  The Belle-Poule was a 60-gun frigate of the French Navy, famous for bringing the remains of Napoléon from Saint Helena back to France in what became known as the retour des cendres....
  
  (1828–1888), famous for bringing back the remains of Napoléon from Saint Helena to France in 1840; she was under command of François d'Orléans, prince of Joinville, and was painted black for the mission
• The modern schooner Belle Poule
  FS Belle Poule
  The Belle Poule is a French naval schooner used as a training vessel.She was launched on 8 February 1932 at the Chantiers de Normandie at Fecamp. She is a replica of a type of fishing vessel that was used until 1935 off Iceland for catching cod. She has a sister ship, the Étoile.In 1940 she fled to...
  
  , training ship of the Naval Academy, whose actions with the Free French Forces during the Second World War are commemorated by her bearing a French flag with the Croix de Lorraine.

Name

The name Belle Poule derives from an incident in 1533. Francis I

Francis I of France

Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...

 was presented with the keys of Toulouse

Toulouse

Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

 by Paule de Viguier, the baroness Fronteville. Paule was a young girl known for her beauty, and Francis nicknamed her la belle Paule. The name became altered over time to belle poule through the difference between French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and Occitan pronunciation.
The name was later adopted by a Gironde

Gironde estuary

The Gironde is a navigable estuary , in southwest France and is formed from the meeting of the rivers Dordogne and Garonne just below the centre of Bordeaux...

corsair for his vessel, giving rise to it as a ship name in the French navy.

Another version of the story is that Francis called her belle poule, as a play on words. The word belle is "beautiful", while poule is a reference to her name, Paule, but also means "chick", which in French, as it was later in English, can refer to a young girl.