The four ships of the Lapérouse class were ordered under the auspices of the naval plan of 1872, which was laid out to modernize the French Navy in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871.

The navy sought new unprotected cruisers that carried a heavier armament than earlier vessels, while maintaining a similar size to keep costs from increasing during a period of limited naval budgets.

The design for the ships was drawn up by Arthur Bienaymé as part of a competition that also resulted in the subsequent and very similar Villars-class cruisers.

[3] By the time the ship had arrived in the western Pacific Ocean in January 1885,[5] France was engaged in the Sino-French War that had begun over Chinese objections to French interference in Tonkin (now Vietnam).

In March, the French commander, Admiral Amédée Courbet, sent Lapérouse, Nielly, Champlain, Rigault de Genouilly, and the gunboat Vipère to blockade the mouth of the Yangtze river on mainland China.

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

[6] After the end of the war in June, many of the French vessels were either recalled home or dispersed to other stations, but Lapérouse remained in the Far East Squadron, along with the ironclads La Galissonnière (the flagship), Turenne, and Triomphante, the cruisers Primauguet, Roland, and Champlain, and two gunboats.

[7] In 1886, she was transferred to a squadron that operated in the Indian Ocean, which also included the cruisers Forfait, Naïade, and Limier, the gunboats Pique, Chacal, and Capricorne, and the aviso Labourdonnais.

[13] On 31 July 1898, Lapérouse was waiting to take on coal at Fort Dauphin in French Madagascar when a storm drove her ashore and wrecked her.

At the time, she was serving as the flagship of the cruiser division there, and in addition to the commanding officer, she also had General Joseph Gallieni, the governor of Madagascar, aboard.

The ship was formally struck from the naval register on 14 December, and she was eventually sold for scrap on 15 January 1901, to be broken up.