The Pallas class constituted the standard design of 40-gun frigates of the French Navy during the Napoleonic Empire period. Jacques-Noël Sané designed then in 1805, as a development of his seven-ship Hortense class of 1802, and the French government ordered at least 59 frigates to this new design. Of these some 54 were completed, although ten of these were begun for the French Navy in shipyards within the Netherlands or Italy, which were then under French occupation; they were completed for the Netherlands or Austrian navies after 1813.