She was ordered as part of a naval construction program after the Franco-Prussian War, and was intended to counter enemy commerce raiders; as such she had a high top speed of 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph), a heavy armament of five 194 mm (7.6 in) guns, and long cruising radius.

The ship was sent to East Asia in 1884 to join the Far East Squadron under Amédée Courbet; she saw action later that year at the Battle of Fuzhou at the outset of the Sino-French War; there, she helped to sink three Chinese cruisers, and in company with the ironclad Triomphante, neutralized a series of Chinese coastal fortifications that blocked the French escape from Fuzhou.

In 1899, she was struck from the naval register, renamed Vétéran, and converted into a depot ship to support a flotilla of torpedo boats defending French Indochina.

France's construction program was delayed by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, but the navy quickly began preparations for the 1872 fiscal year.

At the same time, the French naval minister Louis Pothuau issued a request on 14 September 1871 for smaller cruisers that could fulfill similar roles.

[2] But like the Duquesnes, Duguay-Trouin was too expensive to build in large numbers, and so the French navy turned to smaller and cheaper vessels like the Lapérouse and Villars classes.

Her hull was sheathed with wood to protect them from marine biofouling on long voyages overseas, and she was divided into nine watertight compartments, along with a double bottom.

But her boilers consumed coal at a much higher rate than anticipated to reach the intended howerpower, and in practice her cruising radius at that speed was significantly shorter, at 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi).

The ship also received eight new boilers that increased the propulsion system's power to 4,800 indicated horsepower (3,600 kW); she reached a top speed of 15.78 knots (29.22 km/h; 18.16 mph) during tests carried out after the refit.

[10] France's campaign to occupy Vietnam, a traditional subject of Qing China, led to clashes between French and Chinese forces, and ultimately, to the start of the Sino-French War in August 1884 with the attack on Keelung on the island of Formosa early that month.Duguay-Trouin had been stationed at Fuzhou since mid-July, and initially had Rear Admiral Sébastien Lespès aboard; Lespès was the deputy commander of the Far East Squadron that had been created to support the Tonkin campaign.

Duguay-Trouni, D'Estaing, and Villars engaged the Chinese cruisers Feiyun and Ji'an and the gunboat Zhenwei, along with a coastal artillery battery.

Duguay-Trouin and Villars quickly sank their targets, but Zhenwei put up unexpectedly stiff resistance and she was only sunk by the combined firepower of all three French vessels.

Another group of French warships also quickly destroyed or captured other elements of the Fujian Fleet further inside the harbor; the entire action lasted a mere eight minutes.

Courbet sought to destroy the arsenal facilities at Fuzhou and used his shallow-draft gunboats to bombard the fortifications around it on 24 August, that night, a pair of Chinese steam launches attempted to attack the French ships.

Courbet then organized his fleet to leave the river, Triomphante in the lead, followed by Duguay-Trouin, Villars, and then D'Estaing, followed by the rest of the vessels.

The French spent the night anchored off Couding and proceeded further downriver on 26 August; the forts at Mingan Pass were the next obstacle to reaching the open ocean.

[14][15] On 27 August, Duguay-Trouin covered a reconnaissance by a steam launch searching for Chinese junks that were being prepared to be scuttled at the mouth of the river, blocking the French escape.

The attacks on coastal fortifications resumed on 28 August, and Duguay-Troin and other vessels sent landing parties ashore to destroy gun batteries blocking their progress downriver.

The French victory at Fuzhou ended the initial diplomatic efforts to reach a compromise solution to the dispute over Tonkin, as the scale of the attack was such that the Chinese government could not ignore it.

[17] The next day, Courbet detached Duguay-Trouin and the cruiser Châteaurenault to support French forces engaged at the Battle of Tamsui, which were commanded by Lespès.

Threatened with encirclement, the French fled to their boats, but the Chinese were unable to exploit their victory owing to gunfire from Lespès' ships.

[19] The French thereafter embarked on a blockade of Formosa on 20 October, while ground forces at Keelung waged a long battle with surrounding Chinese troops.

Courbet's flotilla included Duguay-Trouin, the ironclads Bayard and Triomphante, and the cruisers Nielly and Éclaireur, and the gunboat Aspic.

The French blockade effort, which included other ports, proved to be effective at interrupting the movement of rice crops from southern China north.

[22] After the war ended, the French began to disperse the warships that had gathered in East Asia, and Duguay-Trouin and Châteaurenault were recalled to France.

She was then towed to Rạch Dừa, where she was converted into a depot ship for the 1st Torpedo Boat Flotilla, replacing the old gunboat Cimeterre in that role.