[1] Dupuy de Lôme's completion was delayed by almost two years by problems with her boilers, but she was finally commissioned in 1895 and assigned to the Northern Squadron (Escadre du Nord), based at Brest, for most of her career.

Renamed Péruvier, the ship's engines broke down during her maiden voyage as a merchant vessel in 1920 and she had to be towed to her destination, whereupon part of her cargo of coal was discovered to be on fire.

Dupuy de Lôme had a mean draught of 7.07 metres (23 ft 2 in) and displaced 6,301 tonnes (6,201 long tons) at normal load.

A watertight[9] internal cofferdam, filled with cellulose,[10] ran the length of Dupuy de Lôme from the protective deck to a height of 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) above the waterline.

The ship was commissioned for preliminary sea trials on 1 April 1892 and one boiler tube burst on 20 June, burning 16 men.

Further testing in October 1893, showed that Dupuy de Lôme's engines could only attain 10,180 metric horsepower (7,490 kW) during a 24-hour trial and that the boilers were structurally unsound.

In June 1899, Dupuy de Lôme visited ports in Spain and Portugal and she represented France at Spithead during Queen Victoria's funeral in January–February 1901.

The boilers had an operating pressure of 11.25 kg/cm2 (1,103 kPa; 160 psi) and they required that a third funnel be added which necessitated extensive structural modifications.

Dupuy de Lôme was placed in reserve after completing her refit in October 1906 and was not recommissioned until September 1908 for service on the Moroccan station.

Dupuy de Lôme was decommissioned on 20 March 1910, but the final decision to strike her from the Navy List was not made until 20 February 1911.

These repairs were completed by 6 March 1912 and the ship was formally transferred to the Peruvian Navy and renamed Commandante Aguirre after the first instalment was paid.

After Umbria was bought by Haiti instead of Ecuador, the Peruvians lost interest in completing the purchase and the ship was left in the care of the French in October 1914.

On 17 January 1917 the ship was officially returned to France and the money already paid was put against the cost to repair Commandante Aguirre.

[15] In October 1918, she was sold to the Belgian firm of Lloyd Royal Belge (LRB) and converted to a freighter under the name Péruvier by Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde.

Péruvier was delivered in December 1919 and she began her first voyage carrying 5,000 tonnes (4,900 long tons) of coal from Cardiff to Rio de Janeiro on 20 January 1920.