PAPILLON, DAVID (1581–1655?), architect and military engineer, younger son of Thomas Papillon, captain of the guard and valet-de-chambre to Henri IV of France, by his wife Jeanne Vieue de la Pierre, was born in France on 14 April 1581. The family was Huguenot, and contributed a victim to the massacre of St. Bartholomew. To it belonged Clement Marot's friend, Almanque Papillon (1487–1559), author of ‘Le Nouvel Amour,’ and valet-de-chambre to François I; probably also Antoine Papillon, the friend of Erasmus. In 1588 David Papillon's mother sailed with him and his two sisters for England. Their ship was wrecked off Hythe; the mother perished, the children were saved, and, though their father continued to reside in France until his death, were brought up in England, probably by relatives domiciled in London. David adopted the profession of architect and military engineer, throve, and purchased an estate at Lubbenham, Leicestershire, and built thereon Papillon Hall. He was treasurer of Leicestershire from 1642 to 1646. He published in 1645 an ‘Essay on Fortification,’ and gave effect to his principles in the following year by fortifying Gloucester for the parliament. He was author of a moral and religious essay entitled ‘The Vanity of the Lives and Passions of Men,’ London, 1651, 4to; and left in manuscript a philosophical essay on forms of government, entitled ‘Several Political and Military Observations,’ and a French version of the ‘Comfort to the Afflicted,’ and two other works of the puritan divine, Robert Bolton [q. v.] He probably did not live to see the Restoration. A portrait, engraved by Cross, is prefixed to his ‘Essay on Fortification.’
Papillon married twice. His first wife (m. 1611, d. 1614) was Marie, daughter of Jean Castel, probably pastor, as Papillon was deacon, of the French church in London. His second wife (m. 4 July 1615) was Anne Marie, granddaughter of Giuliano Calandrini, a convert to the reformed faith, who migrated from Lucca to Lyons between 1557 and 1567, and died at Sedan some time after the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Papillon had issue by both wives, his seventh and youngest child being Thomas Papillon [q. v.]
[A. F. W. Papillon's Memoirs of Thomas Papillon, 1887.]
PAPILLON, THOMAS (1623–1702), merchant and politician, third son of David Papillon [q. v.] by his second wife, Anne Marie Calandrini, was born at Roehampton House, Putney, on 6 Sept. 1623. He went to school at Drayton, Northamptonshire, was articled in 1637 to Thomas Chambrelan, a London merchant, and in the following year was apprenticed to the Mercers' Company, of which he received the freedom in 1646.
Papillon was implicated in the riotous proceedings of 26 July 1647, when the mob broke into St. Stephen's and forced parliament to rescind the recent ordinance by which the city of London was deprived of the control of its militia. When the independent party regained the ascendency (August), he slipped off to France to avoid arrest, but returned in November, and was committed to Newgate in the following February, but, after some demur, was released on bail. About the same time he began business on his own account as a general merchant, and thereafter, except to petition the council of state against an illegal impost on lead in 1653, and to defend the autonomy of the French church, of which he was a deacon, against the privy council in 1657, took little or no part in public affairs until the Restoration. He was then placed on the council of trade and foreign plantations, and in 1663 on the directorate of the East India Company, which he had entered on its reconstruction in 1657. He continued to serve on the directorate until 1670, and in 1667 watched the interests of the company at Breda during the negotiations with Holland. He was also on the directorate from 1675 to 1682, with the exception of 1676, when, having given offence to the king, he was excluded at his instance. The reason of his ill-odour at court was probably the stout, and eventually successful,
