Hi everyone
And on it goes: The big three: Ernest Renan, Edgar Quinet and Waldeck-Rousseau.
In 1904, a fifth Gambetta-class ship with the same armament as Jules Michelet was authorized and laid down, but France's designer-in-chief Emile Bertin promised a speed of 25 knots if the hull was considerably lengthened and experimental narrow-tube boilers were fitted. The plans were altered in a lengthy process; the longer hull was implemented (at nearly 160 meters, the cruiser was now as long as HMS Dreadnought) at a rather moderate weight increase, only 500 tons more than Jules Michelet which was thirteen meters shorter. The new boilers were however considered too experimental and traditional Niclausse-boilers were installed for a design speed of only 23 kts, making the redesign seem hardly worth the effort. When the new cruiser was commissioned in 1909 after more than five years building, the longer hull paid off handsomely; the Ernest Renan (named for a 19th century French writer who wrote a lot of racist stuff; I personally fail to see what qualified him to be chosen namesake for a French cruiser by a left-wing radical Naval Minister like Camille Pelltan) exceeded her design speed by 1,4 knots without exceeding her designed hp and always remained one of the fastest armoured cruisers of her era.
Her wartime modifications were rather minor; four of her 47mm guns were placed on AA pedestals (some sources claim the AA calibre was 65mm; available photographs are inconclusive) and w/t equipment was augmented.
She served in the Mediterranean in the first world war but saw little action. She was retained after the war as a TS and sunk as a target after 1931.
The new hull form of the Ernest Renan was considered a success even before she was launched, but the French also saw that Renan was hilariously underarmed for her size. The next two armoured cruisers received a hull of similar dimensions and the same machinery, and their protection scheme also was the same. They did however receive a single-caliber main armament of 14 195mm guns in two twin turrets, six single turrets and four casemates. Both easily made their design speed of 23 knots, but there are no reports on how far they could be pushed. When completed, they differed only in rather small details (arrangement of portholes in the bridge structure, shaping of ventilators and amidships superstructure, design of the main engine room ventilator amidships, arrangement of gaffs and rigging, shape of funnel bases and tops). Their names were Edgar Quinet (after an 18th century French writer who ticked all the right boxes - republican, anti-clerical, and hating Germany's guts)...
... and Waldeck-Rousseau (after a leftist and laicist politician who headed France's government from 1899 through 1902).
Both served in the Mediterranean, and were fitted with two 65mm or 75mm (sources vary) AA guns during the war, mounted on the aft flank turrets in Waldeck-Rousseau and the central ones in Edgar Quinet. The characteristic deck-mounted searchlights (placed next to the flank tunnels on rails that allowed them to be retracted under cover) were re-arranged on newly erected platforms around the masts. They also received a new fire-control system with a triple main rangefinder and improved w/t arrangements.
Edgar Quinet lost her mainmast to enable her to deploy a kite balloon late in the war (written sources do not mention this, but there is a photograph definitely showing her without the mast; on the other hand, many sources claim the older Ernest Renan landed her mainmast, which in turn is not supported by any photographic evidence. Probably the ships simply got confused).
Both were retained for a long time after the war, unlike many other older cruisers on active duty rather than as TS. Waldeck-Rousseau participated in the Allied intervention in the Russian civil war on behalf of the Whites and suffered a mutiny of pro-communist sailors in 1919, which however was quickly put down. Edgar Quinet was converted to TS in 1925 and wrecked in 1930 off the Algerian coast; Waldeck-Rousseau was hulked in 1936 and broken up by the Germans during the second world war.
Greetings
GD