The Minerve class was a type of 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, carrying 18-pounder long guns as their main armament. Six ships of this type were built at Toulon Dockyard, and launched between 1782 and 1794. The frigates served the French Navy briefly during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Royal Navy captured all six between 1793 and 1799 and took them into service, with all but one serving in the Napoleonic Wars, and some thereafter.

The first four frigates were built to a design by Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb. Jacques Brune Sainte Catherine modified Coulomb's design for the fifth, lengthening it to permit the addition of a 14th pair of gunports on the upper deck, although a 14th pair of guns was never carried in this pair of ports. Sainte Catherine further redesigned the class for the sixth, final frigate. The French Navy preferred the designs by Jacques-Noël Sané. However, the more rounded hull form of the Minerve-class vessels' found favour with the Royal Navy, leading it to copy the design.^[1]

• Minerve

Ordered: 30 October 1781

Begun: January 1782

Launched: 31 July 1782

Completed: October 1782

Fate: Captured by the British 18 February 1794, taken into service as HMS San Fiorenzo, broken up 1837

• Junon

Ordered: 30 October 1781

Begun: February 1782

Launched: 31 July 1782

Completed: October 1782

Fate: Captured by the British 16 June 1799, taken in as HMS Princess Charlotte, renamed HMS Andromache January 1812, broken up 1828

• Impérieuse

Ordered: November 1785

Begun: February 1786

Launched: 11 July 1787

Completed: May 1788

Fate: Captured by the British 12 October 1793, taken in as HMS Captain, renamed HMS Unite 3 September 1803, hospital hulk 1836, broken up 1858

• Melpomène

Ordered: 1787

Begun: February 1788

Launched: 6 August 1789

Completed: April 1792

Fate: Captured by the British 10 August 1794, taken in as HMS Melpomene, sold on 14 December 1815

• Perle

Ordered: 1789

Begun: June 1789

Launched: 27 August 1790

Completed: September 1792

Fate: Handed over to the British 29 August 1793, taken in as HMS Amethyst, wrecked 27 December 1795

• Minerve (ii)

Ordered:

Begun: late 1791

Launched: 4 September 1794

Completed: October 1794

Fate: Captured by the British 23 June 1795, taken in as HMS Minerve, recaptured by the French 3 July 1803, renamed Canonnière, sold June 1809 and renamed Confiance, recaptured by the British 3 February 1810 and sold

• Demerliac, Alain (1996). La Marine de Louis XVI : nomenclature des navires français de 1774 à 1792 (in French). Nice: Omega. ISBN 2-906381-23-3.
• Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours. Vol. 1. Group Retozel-Maury Millau. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.
• Winfield, Rif (2007). British Warships of the Age of Sail 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-86176-295-5.
• Winfield, Rif; Roberts, Stephen S (2017). French Warships in the Age of Sail, 1626-1786. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4738-9351-1.
• Winfield, Rif; Roberts, Stephen S (2015). French Warships in the Age of Sail, 1786-1861. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-040-6.