Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 12 - Section XVI
Rapin de Thoyras.
The cradle of the ancient family of Rapin[1] was the diocese of La Maurienne in Valloires in Savoy. The city of St Jean de la Maurienne was so called on account of a relic of the bones of St. John the Baptist deposited there by a female pilgrim, Sainte-Thècle, who according to tradition was by birth a Rapin. The Rapins were for some centuries Seigneurs de la Chaudane. In 1250 Humbert Rapin de Valloires, styled noble homme, inhabited the Chateau de la Chaudane, and was a vassal of the Bishop of Maurienne. In the fifteenth century Antoine Rapin de Valloires is met with, and two of his sons are mentioned, Messiere Guillaume Rapin, as Canon of the Cathedral, and Noble Pierre Rapin dc la Chaudane, ecuyer, as doing homage to the kings of France in 1536 and 1552. Whether the family early espoused Protestantism, or whether a mere worldly quarrel with the Bishop took place, does not appear; but there must have been some reason for an inscription cut in the stone wall of one of the halls of the Episcopal Palace — an inscription which almost survived the seventeenth century:
Caveant Successores Nostri a Familiâ Rapinorum.
On 16th December 1577 we meet with Pierre Rapin, Seigneur de la Chaudane, as Civil Judge (juge corrier) of the city of Maurienne, and his titles were proclaimed in a Latin epitaph, translated thus:
Here Reposes Noble Seigneur Pierre Rapin de la Chaudane de Valloires, Corrier and Judge of that town and of the territory of the Commune,
Gone the way of all flesh, 8 November 1579.
This Pierre Rapin was the head of the family, and his heirs continued the line in Savoy. Guillaume, the syndic, his eldest son, was represented till 1776, when his great-great-grandson Claude Francois Rapin died; Jacques, Pierre’s second son, was succeeded by his son Claude Ferdinand Rapin, whose death dispersed his estate among heiresses in the year 1672. The last-named Rapin wrote a letter to a kinsman in France dated 3rd November 1666, and signed Claude Ferdinand de Rapin, Juge de la cité de Saint Jean de la Maurienne, in which he said, “We have records to prove our nobility during more than four hundred and fifty years.”
The French Rapins were the younger brothers of Pierre Rapin whose death in 1579 and whose epitaph have just been given. Their names were Jacques, Antoine, and Philibert. Jacques, a Romish ecclesiastic, was induced to go to the French Court as Almoner to Queen Catherine de Medicis in 1561. His two brothers came forward as Protestants among those who enrolled under the standard of Conde after the massacre of Vassy. They first appear at Toulouse in 1562, sharing the woes of the Protestant inhabitants. The Huguenots, becoming masters of the town, had given quarter and protection to the Catholics by a formal treaty. The Catholics in breach of the treaty obtained reinforcements from the royal army, imprisoned the Capitouls, and during three days kept up a murderous civil war. The Protestants who held the Hotel-de-Ville under Antoine de Rapin, then capitulated, laid down their arms, and on the next day quitted Toulouse, relying upon the articles of truce. Unarmed, the larger number were foully attacked and slain. Throughout the country much sanguinary fighting followed, the Huguenots seeking to avenge the slaughter of their Toulouse comrades. Rapin reached Montauban in safety, and that town was put into so good a posture of defence that the enemy under Montluc retired. Antoine continued to do good service in Castres, in Montpellier, and in the field till the peace, known as the Edict of Amboise, concluded in March 1563. On the return of war in 1567 he again hastened to the standard of Condé; on the 6th January 1568 he was with the advance guard when the battle of Gannat was brought on, and the brilliant charge with which he opened the battle was the prelude of victory. He continued to serve with distinction, chiefly as Governor of Montauban, till 1570. Many of the written orders which he received from Henry of Navarre and Henry Prince of Condé are preserved, all praising the confidence placed in him. The date of his death is not known, but in 1571 he is called the late noble Antoine; by his wife Cecile de Doux d’Ondas he left one son, who died young.
Jacques, the clerical brother, had died in 1567. The French Rapins thus descend from the youngest brother Philibert (born about 1530). He was a page to the Duke of Savoy; when he removed to France, he became the steward of the Duchesse of Enghien, the Prince of Condé’s sister; thence his courage, his conscience, and his consciousness of capacity naturally led him to serve under Condé himself. He was the mediator of the capitulation at Toulouse in 1562. In 1568 when a Peace, dated 20th March, between the Romanists and the Huguenots, had been signed at Longjumeau, Philbert de Rapin was sent with the safe-conduct of a royal envoy to deliver the treaty to the Parliament of Toulouse. With the perfidy of a Guise, the Cardinal de Lorraine had written to the parliament, interpreting a secret mark which might occasionally be found upon royal letters, and which was intended virtually to cancel their contents. When Rapin’s communication was examined, the fatal mark was found. He was reposing in his country house at Grenade, when parliamentary officers arrested him and loaded him with chains; some accusation of old date was revived, he was tried and sentenced, and on the 13th April (1568) was beheaded. Rapin’s death was avenged by the repudiation of the treaty and the continuance of war. And in January 1570 Coligny’s soldiers burnt the senators’ houses at Toulouse, and upon the ruins they wrote with hot charcoal, Vengeance de Rapin. He had married in 1556 Jeanne du Verger, an heiress, through whom he obtained the house of Grenade near Toulouse, and a landed estate which conveyed to him the title of Baron de Mauvers. He left two sons, of whom one died young; the other was Pierre de Rapin, Seigneur et Baron de Mauvers, who served in the Netherland in 1583 under the Duke of Anjou, and returned to serve on the staff of Henri of Navarre. He served with the Huguenots all his life. He contracted on paper on 8th October 1589 his marriage (which was solemnized 26th March 1591) with his first wife Olympe de Cavagnes, daughter of Arnaud de Cavagnes, formerly a Capitoul of Toulouse; the only child of this marriage died young. His second wife, whom he married on the 26th November 1602, was Perside, daughter of Jean de Lupe, Seigneur de Maravat. On his death in 1647, aged eighty-nine, he was succeeded in the Barony of Mauvers by his son, Jean, who was the eldest son of a family of twenty-two children, and who continued the senior branch of the Rapins. Jacques de Rapin, Seigneur of Thoyras near Grenade, a younger son of the octogenarian Baron, founded a junior branch, to which our literary refugee Rapin de Thoyras belonged. This celebrated refugee must not be confounded with his less known refugee kinsmen, who were the sons of Jean, Baron de Mauvers; that baron’s sons, by his wife Maria de Pichard, were Paul (Baron de Mauvers), Daniel, Francois, and Jean — the last three being refugees. Colonel Daniel Rapin (born 1649, died 1729) was the first French officer of the refugees who offered his sword to Holland, he served King William in Ireland as a captain, and became a colonel in the British army in 1700; in 1709, owing to some misunderstanding, he finally emigrated to Utrecht. Captain Francis Rapin was killed before the Castle of Charlemont in 1690, in which year his brother Major John Rapin of Belcastel’s regiment was also slain in fight.
The Seigneur de Thoyras (father of the literary refugee) was born in Mas-Garnier, of which his father was Governor, in December 1613. His warrior father desired all his sons to join the army, but the mother, perceiving Jacques’ talents, obtained an exception to the rule on his behalf. He was educated at Montauban, and was called to the bar. He became the leading Protestant Advocate in the Chamber of the Edict for Languedoc attached to the parliament of Toulouse. The proper seat of this Chamber was the town of Castres, though the caprice of Romanist rule often compelled the court to shift its quarters. In 1654 he married Jeanne de Pelisson, a great-grand-daughter of the celebrated President Raymond Pelisson; her grandfather was that son of this Romanist family who became a convert to Protestantism, and adhered to it to the last; her grandmother was Jeanne Du Bourg, daughter of the Chancellor; her father was Jean Jacques Pelisson, and her mother the eminently beautiful and pious Jeanne de Fontanier. The latter Pclissons lived at Castres, and were members of the literary Academy of that town, of which Rapin, Seigneur de Thoyras, was one of the founders; the brothers of Rapin’s wife had been his fellow-students at Montauban. The Seigneur died amidst the thickening troubles of the Church two months before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, [8th August 1685. His devoted and intrepid widow {nee Jeanne de Pelisson) urged her two sons rather to fly than to apostatize, and when she had the satisfaction of seeing them on their way to England, she hid herself in a farm-house. She was at last tracked out by her persecutors and imprisoned in the Convent of Lavaur, and when after long years she was set at liberty, and had found her way to Geneva, she rapidly sank under her bodily and mental sufferings, and died 13th February 1706.
The two sons who found a refuge in England were Paul and Salomon. The learned Paul was born at Castres, 25th March 1661; his birth is thus formally recorded:— “En 1661 et le 25 mars, Paul de Rapin, ecuyer, seigneur de Thoyras, naquit à Castres en Albigeois.” He received his education at the colleges of Puylaurens and Saumur. Eager to become a soldier, he yielded to his father’s wish and studied for the bar. But in 1679 the Chamber of the Edict at Castres was suppressed, and the whole family removed to Toulouse. The old seigneur began a private practice, and his son assisted him; but these six years young Rapin chiefly spent in study. His studies were various, law (from a sense of duty), mathematics, music, and military fortification (from inclination), also the Latin, Greek, and French classics.
When Rapin de Thoyras found himself a refugee in England in March 16S6, he was twenty-five years of age. He was not only the first cousin of the Baron de Mauvcrs, but also his brother-in-law, that Baron having married Cecile de Rapin Thoyras (this lady in her widowhood was a refugee in Utrecht, her husband who had outwardly confirmed to Romanism having died in 1704). Our refugee was also, through his mother, nephew to the notorious renegade and perverter, the Abbé de Pelisson. Owing to the latter relationship, he was exposed to controversial attacks from his uncle, which, being seconded by other French Papists in London, drove him to Holland, where he enlisted in a company of the French volunteers of Utrecht, under the command of Captain de Rapin, his cousin-germain. Here the Abbé sent him his new book, entitled “Reflections on Religious Differences;” and Rapin returned for answer a number of criticisms, sufficiently full and sharp to convince the Abbé that he might let the young Huguenot alone.
A letter from Rapin to Monsieur Le Duchat, dated May 1722, gives fuller particulars. From it, it appears that his uncle Pelisson abjured Protestantism after a four years” imprisonment in the Bastile as a friend and follower of Fouquet. At the same time he declared himself to be quite convinced how odious is a professed conversion, where mercenary ends are studied; but concerning himself he always was forward to assert that his conversion to Romanism was genuine. Among the other rewards of his change of religion were two ecclesiastical benefices; one of these was the Priory of Saint-Orens d’Auch, which he would have handed over to young Rapin, if he would have gone over to Romanism. Between the dates of his perversion and the Edict of Revocation, he did not disturb any of his Protestant relatives in their creed and worship. But thereafter he made a tremendous onset upon them. And (as already said) he attacked young Rapin, enforcing his arguments and entreaties by compelling him to receive visits from the Ambassador, the Marquis de Saissac, Monsieur de Bonrepaus, and the Abbé de Denbeck (nephew of the Bishop of Tournay). Pelisson urged his own example, but Rapin replied, “You went over when you were convinced, how does that apply to my case who am unconvinced?” He sent him a book of which he himself was the author, entitled, “Reflexions sur les différends de religion,” in which there was much about the tolerance which characterized the true church and the uselessness of violence. Rapin replied that such mild sentiments though excellent in themselves, came with a very bad grace from Frenchmen in authority who practised so different a system, and reminded him of Sganarelle crying out to his wife, “My dear heart! I’ll thrash you. Gentle light of my eyes! I’ll annihilate you.” After that, the uncle gradually ceased his proselytizing efforts.
Thoyras Rapin (this was his signature) returned to England with the Prince of Orange, and served in Ireland in 1689 as an Ensign in the Earl of Kingston’s regiment. For his gallantry before Carrickfergus he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. He served under a new colonel, Lieutenant-General Douglas, at the battle of the Boyne, and then accompanied Douglas’s expedition to Athlone, in the capacity of Quarter-Master General. In the same year (1690) he was severely wounded before Limerick, and was left behind; but was promoted to be captain. He was to have been Douglas’s aide-de-camp in Flanders; but his wound being not sufficiently recovered he remained in Ireland, and took part at the capture of Ballymore and Athlone in 1691; in the latter town he was left with the garrison, and garrison duty fell to his lot during almost two years. In 1693 he joined his regiment at Kilkenny, where he received a summary order to leave his regiment, and start for England. No reason was formally assigned; but a private letter from Colonel Belcastel informed him that he was to be tutor to the Earl of Portland’s son, Viscount Woodstock. He had been recommended by his countryman, Lord Galway. He had to leave the army, and by special favour he was allowed to hand over his company to his brother Solomon, afterwards known as a lieutenant-colonel of dragoons, who had also been wounded at Limerick in 1690, and who died in 1719. He accompanied his pupil to all countries and courts both before and after his own marriage.
Along with his pupil he was in the suite of the Earl of Portland in 1698 on his Embassy to Paris. He took the opportunity of investigating the truth of the report that his Uncle Pelisson had died a Huguenot. He ascertained the fact that he had refused the last Sacraments of the Romish Church. Some persons said that he had merely postponed the rite, alleging that he never communicated without deliberate preparation; and it was added, that though he died without communicating, yet he had arranged a day for the ceremony with the Bishop of Meaux. This may have been a fabrication, invented to explain away his actual refusal. So Rapin suspected, and his suspicion was revived when one of Pelisson’s valets, on being questioned, answered with a reserve that seemed to shew he had something to conceal. And, to crown all, the king confiscated Pelisson’s property.
At the Hague in 1699 Thoyras Rapin married Marie Anne Testart, a refugee from Saint Quentin, and a small heiress. Jean Rou describes her, “a help-meet for him, young, beautiful, rich, and withal virtuous, and of the most pleasing and gentle temper in the world.” Her property, however, was not so ample, but that some additional income was desirable, and King William granted him from the revenues of Holland an annual pension of 1100 florins, for life, or until better provided. This pension was paid during the king’s life, but afterwards was cancelled, but with a promise, not fulfilled, of providing for him otherwise.
On being relieved of his tutorship, he settled in Holland. He became a resident at the Hague, and founded a successful literary club there. In 1707 he removed to Wezel, in the Duchy of Cleves. There a good number of French refugees, most of them military officers of noble birth, along with many other government officials and other native gentlemen, were agreeable society. There also he wrote his History of England; it was the first comprehensive and scrupulously accurate history of the country, written after laborious and conscientious research, in which his knowledge of English, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek was fully enlisted. He did not live to add the annals of his own era, or to publish an English version of his history, which he composed in French. His learned friends aided him in his researches. Among these is named Monsieur d’Allonne, Secretary of the late Queen Mary, and thereafter Secretary of War in Holland, a gentleman full of merit and learning, who managed to despatch to him, from the Hague, a number of rare and curious books on English history.
With regard to the close of Rapin’s life, all we can say is, that he ruined his health by hard study, and three years before his death he felt altogether spent. In spite of remonstrances, he struggled on with book or pen in hand, till a violent fever, attended with some oppression on the lungs, carried him off on the 25th of May 1725. Thus he died at Wezel, at the age of sixty-four, leaving a widow, six daughters, and one son. A good officer, a good scholar, and a good man, he was generally respected, though his manners, being those of a very studious and rather absent man, made him unpopular with casual acquaintances. He was no stranger to wit and humour, and often amused his friends with his effusions in prose and verse on light and ludicrous subjects.
*⁎* The History of England, by Rapin de Thoyras, was founded on Rymer’s Foedera. The first two volumes appeared in November 1723, six more were published in 1724, and brought the narrative down to the death of Charles I. Vols. ix. and x. in manuscript, ending with the coronation of William and Mary at Westminster, were left by the author ready for press. The work was received with great applause by the learned world, and Rapin was pronounced to be a master in historical style. His success artistically cannot be judged by the mere English reader. The English translation by the Rev. Mr. Tindal brought the work within the ken of the general public, who read it with interest. The translation, however, did not satisfy the leading critics, among whom were William Duncombe, Esq., and Archbishop Herring. The former published a Pamphlet of “Remarks,” concluding that a better translation was wanted — his last words being, “Mr. Dryden’s elegant version of Maimbourg’s History of the League is, with regard to style and language, a much better model, for anyone who will oblige the public with an accurate translation of M. Rapin de Thoyras’s History than Sir Roger L’Estrange’s translation of Josephus or of Quevedo’s Visions.” Dr. Herring concurs; writing to Duncombe on 16th September 1728, he pronounces his criticisms upon Tindal to be “exceedingly just and necessary;” “the inaccuracies of style and lowness of expression, and the many omissions of this translation are prodigiously offensive. The history of Rapin Thoyras is so much debased and mangled by them, that one would think the translator had a design upon his character, and intended him to appear ridiculous, by putting him into an awkward English dress; for really, if Mr. Tindal does not take a little more pains, Rapin Thoyras will become of the same class with the rest of our English historians.”
Besides his history, Rapin wrote, and published in 1717, Une Dissertation sur les Whigs et les Torys. This work, the title of which shows that it relates to English politics, was immediately translated into the English language, and was well received. Dr. Samuel Parr thought it worthy of republication; his illustrative notes for a contemplated new edition, which were written in the year 1783, occupy nearly 200 pages of the third volume of Dr. Parr’s Works.
The following sentences, translated from Rapin’s History, well express his just abhorrence of persecution. (He treats of the reign of Elizabeth):—
“This is not the only time, nor England the only State, where disobedience in point of religion has been confounded with rebellion against the sovereign. There is scarcely a Christian State, where the prevailing sect will suffer the least division, or the least swerving from the established opinions — no, not even in private. Shall I venture to say that it is the clergy chiefly who support this strange principle of non-toleration, so little agreeable to Christian charity? The severity, which from this time began to be exercised upon the non-conformists in England, produced terrible effects in the following reigns, and occasioned troubles and factions which remain to this day.
- ↑ See a splendid volume entitled, Rapin Thoyras, Sa famille, sa vie et ses oeuvres. Par Raoul de Cazenove. Paris, 1866.