Enrique Dupuy de Lôme

Enrique Dupuy de Lôme y Paulín (August 23, 1851 – July 1, 1904) was a Spanish ambassador to the United States. In the De Lôme Letter, he mocked U.S. President William McKinley, attacked McKinley's policies, and regarded McKinley as a weak president. Cuban rebels intercepted the letter, and on February 9, 1898, the letter was published in U.S. newspapers. That contributed to the Spanish–American War, which started on April 25, 1898.

Early life

Dupuy de Lôme was born in Valencia, the eldest son of Santiago Luis Dupuy de Lôme Guillemain and Isidra Paulín de la Pana de Belmonte. His father's family had moved to Spain from France after the French Revolution to work in the silk industry. His father settled in Valencia, where he was a politician, and silk and wine magnate.

His brother Carlos (1853–1921) was a silk industrialist and politician who was the Spanish consul in Paraguay and Bolivia. His brother Federico (1855–1924) was a military officer and politician. French naval engineer Henri Dupuy de Lôme was a cousin.

He studied at a boarding school in Mataro, as well as studied French in Paris. At 17, he began law school in Madrid.

Personal life He married Adela Vidiella y Andreu of Cádiz when she was seventeen years of age, and most of her life from that point on was spent in foreign legations. Besides her native tongue, she spoke three other languages and was a good English scholar. Their two sons at the ages of nine and eleven, spoke four languages.

He died in Paris, aged 52.