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.
