Châteaurenault was a steam corvette of the French Navy. Originally designed as a commerce raider, she notably served in the Mediterranean during the tense era before the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–1878, and took part in the Tonkin campaign and the Sino-French War.

The Salonika Incident was a major diplomatic incident that broke out on 6 May 1876 after a mob murdered the consuls of France and German Empire in the Ottoman city of Salonica, Jules Moulin and Henry Abbott. After a young Orthodox Christian woman of Bulgarian origin attempted to convert to Islam to marry a Turk against the will of her family, she was detained by the US Consul at Thessaloniki. An enraged mob attempted to retrieve the woman, and murdered Moulin and Abbott when it failed to find her. A diplomatic backlash ensued, leading to displays of force and to reforms in the Ottoman Empire.