The Artémise at Papeete, Tahiti, 1839

The Artémise sailed from Toulon in January 1837 under the command of Laplace on his second voyage to the Pacific. The primary purpose of the voyage was commercial, to give support and protection to French shipowners and traders in foreign ports, and took the Artémise to the Pacific from the west via Cape Town, the Indian Ocean and the Indian ports, with an exploration of the Arabian coast, before heading south to Ceylon, across to the China coast and down to Australia. She left Sydney in March 1839, heading past the northern point of New Zealand and up to the tropics, sighting Tahiti on 22 April. The following day she struck a coral reef, damaging her rudder and keel, and was taken in to Papeete for repairs. The ship was careened and the crew laid up for almost two months at Tahiti, with Laplace using the time to add a new clause to the treaty between Dupetit-Thouars and Pomare, allowing for the free exercise of the Catholic religion and in effect repealing the law introduced by the British which had prohibited the teaching of non-Protestant doctrines in Tahiti.

The Artémise sailed for Honolulu on 22 June and returned to France via San Francisco, Callao, Valparaiso, Concepción, Cape Horn and Rio, arriving in Lorient harbour on 14 April 1840.

Laplace published a lengthy account of the voyage in six volumes (Campagne de circumnavigation de la frégate 'L'Artémise' pendant les années 1837-1840, Paris, 1841-54) and Pâris, a lieutenant on the Artémise (and veteran of Dumont d'Urville's circumnavigation on the Astrolabe and Laplace's first voyage on the Favorite) produced numerous watercolours illustrating the voyage. He rose to Vice-Admiral in 1846 and became a director of the Musée de la Marine on his retirement in 1871.