She was ordered in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, and was intended for use against commerce raiders, which necessitated a high top speed, heavy armament, and long cruising radius.

The two ships of the Duquesne class of unprotected cruisers were ordered during the administration of Louis Pothuau in response to the success of Confederate commerce raiders during the American Civil War.

The intent was for the new vessels to be fast enough to catch enemy raiders and powerful enough to defeat them, and to have the endurance to operate abroad for extended periods of time.

In service, the ships proved to be disappointments, owing to the great cost to operate them and the unreliability of their engines, which required significant maintenance to keep running.

[1][2] Duquesne and Tourville are sometimes considered to be different classes,[3] but they were built to the same design by Alfred Lebelin de Dionne and different only in the arrangement of their propulsion system.

Her trials were completed on 10 December, when she was placed in the 2nd category of reserve She was recommissioned on 20 June 1879 to operate with the main French fleet experimentally, and she was soon decommissioned again on 20 September.

Work was completed by 1894,[5] and in June, Duquesne was assigned to the Atlantic Division, along with the unprotected cruisers Villars and Beautemps-Beaupré and the aviso Hussard.

[8] During the Fashoda Crisis in 1898, some consideration was given to disarming Duquesne and Tourville and using the guns to arm the new pre-dreadnought battleships Gaulois and Charlemagne, which were complete except for their armament.