Châteaurenault was a large protected cruiser built for the French Navy in the late 1890s and early 1900s. She was intended to serve as a long-range commerce raider, designed according to the theories of the Jeune École, which favored a strategy of attacking Britain's extensive merchant shipping network instead of engaging in an expensive naval arms race with the Royal Navy. As such, Châteaurenault was built with a relatively light armament of just eight medium-caliber guns, but was given a long cruising range and the appearance of a large passenger liner, which would help her to evade detection while raiding merchant shipping.

The D'Estrées class comprised two protected cruisers of the French Navy built in the late 1890s. The two ships were D'Estrées and Infernet, though a third was projected but was canceled before work began. They were ordered during a period of intense debate in the French fleet between officers who favored large armored cruisers and those who preferred smaller vessels more suited to long-distance cruising abroad. The D'Estrées-class cruisers were intended to operate in the French colonial empire. The ships were armed with a main battery of two 138 mm (5.4 in) guns supported by four 100 mm (3.9 in) guns and they had a top speed of 20 to 20.5 knots.