Bugead was sent to East Asia in 1900 in response to the Boxer Uprising in Qing China, where she remained for the next several years.

The plan called for a total of seventy cruisers for use in home waters and overseas in the French colonial empire.

[3] The ship's propulsion system consisted of a pair of triple-expansion steam engines driving two screw propellers.

They were placed in individual pivot mounts; one was on the forecastle, two were in sponsons abreast the conning tower, and the last was on the stern.

She joined the Mediterranean Squadron on 8 July,[6] in time to participate in that year's fleet maneuvers with the rest of the unit.

[11] Later that year, she was deployed to the coast of Ottoman Syria, where she relieved Amiral Charner as the flagship of the Levant Division.

She carried Prince George of Greece and Denmark to Crete, where he became the High Commissioner of the Cretan State, part of the negotiated settlement to the conflict.

[15] She remained in East Asian waters in 1902,[16] but with fighting over in China, the unit began to be reduced in size.

[17] Later that year, Bugeaud underwent an overhaul in Saigon that lasted some six months; the lengthy period out of service resulted from the insufficient shipyard facilities in French Indochina.

She was struck from the naval register on 9 April 1906, and was eventually sold to the firm Frank Rijsdijk' Scheepssloperij of Dordrecht, Netherlands.