The Impérial was a first-rate

First-rate

First rate was the designation used by the Royal Navy for its largest ships of the line. While the size and establishment of guns and men changed over the 250 years that the rating system held sway, from the early years of the eighteenth century the first rates comprised those ships mounting 100...

 118-gun ship of the line

Ship of the line

A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...

 of the French Navy

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

, of the Océan type, designed by Jacques-Noël Sané

Jacques-Noël Sané

Jacques-Noël Sané was a French naval engineer, one of the most successful shipbuilders of the Age of Sail.Sané studied under Duhamel du Monceau...

 and built by François Poncet.

She was begun at Toulon in 1810 and completed in 1812. She was renamed Royal Louis in April 1814 following the downfall of the First Empire

First French Empire

The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...

, but resumed the name Impérial in March 1815 when Napoléon returned to France. After the Hundred Days

Hundred Days

The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...

 and the restitution of Louis XVIII, she was again renamed Royal Louis in July 1815, being disarmed in June 1816. She was condemned in March 1825 and broken up later that year.