During the bombardment of Shimonoseki on September 5, 1864, the Dupleix was the second ship in the corvette line, between the British HMS Tartar and the Dutch Metallkruz . She fired 411 rounds and received 22 hits herself (seven in the hull, four below the waterline and eleven in the sails). Two crew members were killed and eight others were wounded. On December 28, 1864, the Dupleix sailed back to France, where it was decommissioned on June 25, 1865. In 1867 she was put back into service in Cherbourg and assigned to the Far East Squadron under Rear Admiral Ohier. She arrived in Yokohama in February 1868 and was immediately drawn into the events of the Japanese Revolution.
Sakai incident
Sakai Incident, Japan (堺 事件). Le Monde Illustré, 1868
On March 8, 1868, a skiff that had been sent to Sakai was attacked by samurai of the daimyo of Tosa, killing eleven sailors and the midshipman Guillou. Captain Dupetit-Thouars protested so vigorously that the samurai were arrested and 20 of them were ordered to commit ritual suicide ( seppuku ). However, the French were so shocked by the cruelty of the ritual that after eleven sepukku took place, the French captain asked for mercy for the rest of the convicts. This reconciled both parties and is known as the Sakai Incident or Sakai Jiken (堺 事件). On April 16, 1868, the Dupleix was the first western ship to salute the Tenno in front of Fort Tempozan . In October of the same year the corvette was sent to Edo . She was with the British sloop HMS Rattler , which was shipwrecked in Romanzoff Bay on La Pérouse Street . Released in Edo by the cruiser Coëtlogon, the Dupleix was stationed in the north port of Hakodate to protect French interests during the naval battle of Hakodate . After the fall of the Republic of Ezo, she evacuated Captain Jules Brunet and his companions to Yokohama. During the Franco-Prussian War , from July 1870 to February 1871 , the Dupleix blocked the German corvette SMS Hertha lying in the port of Nagasaki . In March the ship sailed back to Cherbourg for decommissioning. From 1876 to 1886, again in service, the Dupleix monitored the fisheries in the waters off Iceland from March to October each year . It was finally scrapped in 1887.
