given the hull number i'm personally not convinced that is the 1878 Thornycroft design though..
The 33m type that No 63 belongs to were built at Normand between 1882 and 1885 with 15 units built (No 60 to 74), based on a prototype submitted by Normand as an alternative to the Thornycroft prototype series. The first six - including No 63 - were built with a single 15-inch torpedo tube, the last nine with a ram bow and 14-inch torpedo tube.
That they were built by Normand is important insofar as the French Navy subsequently "redesigned" them inhouse and handed serial production of the next derivative type with 51 units built to about every shipyard
except Normand. Normand reacted by submitting their own derivative design again, and managed to land the contracts for the next three series with a total of 165 units built during the 1890s.
while nothing i've found on it says specifically, i'd guess it probably started out as a 1st or 2nd class ship (for use in fleet actions or coastal defense)
The "1st"/"2nd" effectively only denotes the generation for French torpedo boats of that time.
Generation 1 = introduced before 1880
Generation 2 = introduced before 1890
Generation 3 = introduced after 1890
Initially Generation 1 was introduced as
"Torpilleurs de Garde-Cotes" (coast guard torpedo boats). When Generation 2 (like the 33m type) rolled in they decided to split that into the new ships as the
"Torpilleurs de 1ere Class" and the old ships as the
"Torpilleurs de 2eme Class". In 1890, with the introduction of Generation 3, these again became
1ere Class and the older two classes were pushed back one number, thus creating
2eme/3eme Class (some smaller high sea torpedo boats were also pressed into the scheme by displacement in 1890, with the
Doudard de Lagrée class becoming part of
2eme Class).
The exception to this 1st/2nd/3rd class scheme were the
"Torpilleurs-Vedettes", which existed as a separate class of small torpedo boats - defined as below 20t displacement in 1890. The 17
"Torpilleurs-Vedettes" - of three types - were intended to be carried as deployed by carrier ships, for which only one existed: the torpedo boat carrier
Foudre. The name may be familiar, since after the concept was abandoned this ship was rebuilt into the first seaplane carrier.