metacentric height of only . This gave the ship a long, slow roll and made her an uncertain gunnery platform. Her long, cut-away bow resembled a spur-type ram, but was not armoured. It was reduced in profile to reduce blast damage when the forward guns were fired. Dupuy de Lôme was fitted with two large military masts. She had three triple-expansion steam engines, a vertical type for the centre shaft and horizontal types for the outboard shafts. Each engine drove a single propeller shaft, with propellers in diameter on the outboard shaft and a propeller on the centre shaft. Steam for the engines was provided by 11 Amirauté fire-tube boilers and they were rated at a total of . The ship had a designed speed of , but during sea trials on 2 April 1895 the engines only produced that gave a maximum speed of . Dupuy de Lôme carried up to of coal and could steam for at a speed of . Dupuy de Lômes main armament consisted of two 45-calibre Canon de 194 mm Modèle 1887 guns that were mounted in single gun turrets, one on each broadside amidships. Her secondary armament comprised six 45-calibre Canon de 164 mm Modèle 1887 guns, three each in single gun turrets at the bow and stern. The three turrets at the stern were all on the upper deck and could interfere with each other. For anti-torpedo boat defence, she carried ten and four Hotchkiss guns. She was also armed with four pivoting torpedo tubes; two mounted on each broadside above water. The whole side of the ship was protected by of steel armour, from the bottom edge of the protective deck below the waterline to the edge of the weather deck. The curved protective deck had a total thickness of and did not rise above the ship's waterline. Protecting the boiler rooms, engine rooms, and magazines below it was a splinter deck thick. The space between the protective and splinter decks could be filled with coal to increase the effective thickness of the ship's armour. It was very cramped there and the coal was very difficult to access. A watertight internal cofferdam, filled with cellulose, ran the length of Dupuy de Lôme from the protective deck to a height of above the waterline. Below the protective deck the ship was divided by 13 watertight transverse bulkheads with three more above the