The Huguenots in France

by Samuel Smiles

In the meantime Paul de Rapin, son of Jean, Baron de Manvers, had married the eldest daughter of Jacques, Seigneur de Thoyras. Paul, like many of his ancestors, entered the army. He served with distinction under the Duke of Luxembourg in Holland, Flanders, and Italy, yet he never rose above the rank of captain. On his death in 1685, his widow and two daughters (being Protestants) were apprehended in their château at Manvers, and incarcerated in convents at Montpellier and Toulouse. Her sons were also taken away, and placed in other convents. They were only liberated after five years' confinement.

Madame de Rapin then resolved to quit France entirely. She contrived to reach Holland, and established her family at Utrecht. Her brother-in-law, Daniel de Rapin, had already escaped from France, and achieved the position of colonel in the Dutch service.

Raoul de Cazenove, the author of "Rapin-Thoyras, sa Famille, sa Vie, et ses Œuvres," says, "The women of the house of Rapin distinguished themselves more than once by like courage. Strengthened and fortified by persecutions, the Reformed were willing to die in exile, far from their beloved children who had been violently snatched from them, but leaving with them a holy heritage of example and of firmness in their faith. The pious lessons of their mothers, profoundly engraved on the hearts of their daughters, sufficed more than once to save them from apostasy, which was rendered all the more easy by the feebleness of their youth and the perfidious suggestions by which they were surrounded."

We return to Paul de Rapin-Thoyras, second son of Madame de Rapin. He was born at Castres in 1661. He received his first lessons at home. He learnt the Latin rudiments, but his progress was not such as to please his father. He was then sent to the academy at Puylaurens, where the Protestant noblesse of the south of France were still permitted to send their sons. The celebrated Bayle was educated there. But in 1685 the academy of Puylaurens was suppressed, as that of Montauban had been a few years before; and then young Rapin was sent to Saumur, one of the few remaining schools in France where Protestants were allowed to be educated.

Rapin finished his studies and returned home. He wished to enter the army, but his father was so much opposed to it, that he at length acceded to his desires and commenced the study of the law. He was already prepared for being received to the office of advocate, when the royal edict was passed which prevented Protestants from practising before the courts; and, indeed, prevented them from following any profession whatever. Immediately after the death of his father, Paul de Rapin, accompanied by his younger brother Solomon, emigrated from France and proceeded into England.

It was not without a profound feeling of sadness that Rapin-Thoyras left his native country. He left his widowed mother in profound grief, arising from the recent death of her husband. She was now exposed to persecutions which were bitterer by far than the perils of exile. It was at her express wish that Rapin left his native country and emigrated to England. And yet it was for France that his fathers had shed their blood and laid down their lives. But France now repelled the descendants of her noblest sons from her bosom.

Shortly after his arrival in London, Rapin made the acquaintance of the Abbé of Denbeck, nephew of the Bishop of Tournay. The Abbé was an intimate friend of Rapin's uncle, Pélisson, a man notorious in those times for buying up consciences with money. Louis XIV. consecrated to this traffic one-third of the benefices which fell to the Crown during their vacancy. They were left vacant for the purpose of paying for the abjurations of the heretics. Pélisson had the administration of the fund. He had been born a Protestant, but he abjured his religion, and from a convert he became a converter. Voltaire says of him, in his "Siècle de Louis XIV.," "Much more a courtier than a philosopher, Pélisson changed his religion and made a fortune."

Pélisson wrote to his friend the Abbé of Denbeck, then in London at the court of James II., to look after his nephew Rapin-Thoyras, and endeavour to bring him over to the true faith. It is even said that Pélisson offered Rapin the priory of Saint-Orens d'Auch if he would change his religion. The Abbé did his best. He introduced Rapin to M. de Barillon, then ambassador at the English court. James II. was then the pensioner of France, and accordingly had many intimate transactions with the French ambassador. M. de Barillon received the young refugee with great kindness, and, at the recommendation of the Abbé and Pélisson, offered to present him to the King. Their object was to get Rapin appointed to some public office, and thereby help his conversion.

But Rapin fled from the temptation. Though no great theologian, he felt it to be wrong to be thus entrapped into a faith which was not his own; and without much reasoning about his belief, but merely acting from a sense of duty, he left London at once and embarked for Holland.

At Utrecht he joined his uncle, Daniel de Rapin, who was in command of a company of cadets wholly composed of Huguenot gentlemen and nobles. Daniel had left the service of France on the 25th of October, 1685, three days after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was then captain of a French regiment in Picardy, but he could no longer, without denying his God, serve his country and his King. In fact, he was compelled, like all other Protestant officers, to leave France unless he would at once conform to the King's faith.