Coulomb was one of 16 s built for the French Navy during the first decade of the 20th century. Together with and , she was one of the submarines furthest along in construction when the navy decided to revise the outer hull and superstructure shape of the Brumaires and was completed to the original design.
The Brumaire class were built as part of the French Navy's 1906 building program to a double-hull design by Maxime Laubeuf that were diesel-engined versions of the preceding . Coulomb displaced surfaced and submerged. She had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draft of . Her crew numbered 29 officers and crewmen.
For surface running, Coulomb was powered by two diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. The engines were designed to produce a total of , but normally only produced , which was enough to give the boat a speed of . When submerged each shaft was driven by a electric motor. The maximum speed underwater was . Coulomb had a surface endurance of at and a submerged endurance of at .
The boat was armed with one torpedo tube in the bow and 5 external 450 mm torpedo launchers; four of which were positioned on the top of the hull. The two forward ones were fixed outwards at an angle of five degrees. The other launchers were single rotating Drzewiecki drop collars amidships and a twin drop collar to the rear of the superstructure. They could traverse 135 degrees to each side of the boat. One reload was provided for the bow tube. A support for a deck gun was ordered to be installed on 29 March 1911, but the gun itself was never fitted.
Coulomb was ordered on 29 October 1906 and was laid down on 17 October 1908 at the Arsenal de Toulon, launched on 13 June 1912 and commissioned on 28 October 1912. Completion was delayed by late deliveries of her engines, the order to remove her bow tube in 1909 and its subsequent reinstatement in 1910.