Lighter guns allowed a fourth weapon to be added to the main battery, which were rearranged into a lozenge layout that would be used in most French capital ships built over the following ten years.

The class was to have comprised four vessels, but the first unit, Hoche had to be redesigned with a reduced armament after construction began after it became apparent that the initial design was not feasible on the specified dimensions.

[1][2] The design of the Marceau-class ships was revised repeatedly during construction, and by the time they were completed, they were seriously overweight, which submerged much of their belt armor and degraded their stability.

As was common for French warships of the period, her hull featured a pronounced tumblehome shape and had a ram bow.

[5][b] The ship was protected with a combination of mild steel and compound armor; her belt was 229 to 457 mm (9 to 18 in) thick and extended for the entire length of the hull.

[6] Marceau was ordered in October 1880 and her contract was awarded on 27 December 1880, but work did not begin assembling material until 27 January 1882.

[5] After her commissioning, she joined a French fleet that visited Kronstadt and was inspected by Czar Alexander III of Russia.

This turned out to be the only time Marceau operated in the Atlantic; after returning to France, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron, where she remained for the duration of her career.

[12] She participated in the fleet maneuvers that year as part of the 3rd Division, in company with her sister Neptune and Dévastation, the latter serving as the divisional flagship.

[15] The following year, the Mediterranean Squadron consisted of Marceau, her two sisters, the two Amiral Baudin-class ships, Courbet, Dévastation, the ironclad Redoutable and the new pre-dreadnought battleship Brennus.

[17] From September to November, she served as the French station ship at Ottoman Crete, which was then in a period of significant unrest.

[5] In the 1890s, the French began rebuilding older ironclads to prolong their useful lives, and reconstructions for the three Marceaus were authorized in early 1900.

[21][4] Marceau remained nominally assigned to the Reserve Division in early 1900, but she lay at Toulon and did not see activity with the rest of the unit.

[5] After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Marceau was converted into a floating workshop to support torpedo boats and submarines.

She was initially based in Malta, but was later moved to Corfu and then to Brindisi in January 1918; at the last of the three locations, she served as the command ship for the 1st Submarine Squadron.

She was stricken from the naval register on 1 October 1920, and sold to the ship breaking firm M. Saglia based in Toulon on 30 September 1921.