The cruisers carried enough coal to give them a range of 7,500 nautical miles (13,900 km; 8,600 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

[2] The main battery of the Léon Gambetta class consisted of four 194-millimeter Modèle 1893–1896 guns mounted in twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure.

[3] Unlike her sisters, Victor Hugo was fitted with twenty-four 47-millimeter (1.9 in) Canon de 47 mm modèle 1902 guns for defense against torpedo boat.

The order was transferred to the Arsenal de Lorient on 3 June 1902 even though that shipyard was committed to building two of the preceding Gloire-class armored cruisers.

The following day the cruisers were part of the escorting force for a troop convoy from Algiers, French Algeria to Metropolitan France.

On 13 August Vice Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, commander of Allied forces in the Central Mediterranean, was ordered to begin offensive operations against the Austro-Hungarian fleet in the Adriatic.

The 2nd DL escorted the cargo ship Henri Fraissinet as it brought long-range artillery pieces to Antivari on 18–19 September.

During the following mission, begun at the end of October, the 2nd DL raided the island of Lastovo on 2 November and Jules Ferry was narrowly missed by U-5, an Austro-Hungarian U-boat, on the return voyage the following day.

Boué de Lapeyrère, concerned about a possible pre-emptive attack on the southern Italian ports, temporarily moved all of his armored cruisers, including the three sisters, closer to the Strait of Otranto that day.

After the sinking, Boué de Lapeyrère withdrew his armored cruisers even further south to a patrol line running through the Gerogombos lighthouse on the island of Cephalonia.

After the Italian declaration of war on 23 May, the French ships withdrew further into the Mediterranean and Ionian Seas with the 2nd DL ultimately basing itself at Alexandria, Egypt, Bizerte, French Tunisia, and British Malta; the division was responsible for patrolling the area between Capo Colonna in southern Italy and the easternmost point of the Greek island of Crete.

The Royal Serbian Army deemed fit for combat in May and the French armored cruisers provided distant cover for the transfer to the Salonica front until it was completed on 15 June.

As tensions rose between the Allies and the neutral Greek government in early 1917, Victor Hugo and the armored cruiser Jules Michelet were tasked to patrol the Gulf of Corinth and prevent any Greek troops from moving from their positions in the Peloponnese across the bridge over the Corinth Canal on 28 April to interfere with Allied operations in Athens.

The 2nd DL landed a company of Senegalese troops on 11 June and reinforced them with machine-gun armed sailors until King Constantine I abdicated the following day and a pro-Allied government was installed.

On 12 August, the 2nd DL was disbanded with Victor Hugo reduced to reserve at Bizerte and Jules Ferry was assigned to transport duties for the next year.