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French historian

Paul de Rapin (25 March 1661 – 25 April 1725), sieur of Thoyras (and therefore styled de Rapin de Thoyras), was a Huguenot historian writing under English patronage. His History of England, written and first published in French in 1724–27, was an influential exposition of the Whig view of history on both sides of the English Channel.

The son of Jacques de Rapin, an avocat at Castres (Tarn); his mother Jeanne was the sister of Paul Pellisson, official historian to Louis XIV. He was educated at the Academy of Saumur, a Protestant academic institution.

In 1679, he became an advocate, but he never practised law. Soon after, he joined the army. They accompanied William III to England in 1688 (Glorious Revolution); Collas became a page of the queen Mary II of England. De Rapin and de Both joined in Ulster under the command of the 1st Earl of Athlone. During the Williamite war in Ireland de Rapin took part in the Siege of Carrickfergus, the Battle of the Boyne, and was wounded at the Siege of Limerick (1690). Rapin accompanied his father William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, a diplomat, at the Peace of Ryswick (1697), perhaps also to Paris in the year after; in a very costly entourage. Bentinck was sent as ambassador to Paris for six months. While there, he opened negotiations with Louis XIV for a partition of the Spanish monarchy, and as William's representative, signed the two partition treaties, known as the Treaty of The Hague (1698). In 1701, Bentinck resigned all his offices in the royal household. A parliamentary enquiry found him guilty of high treason for his role in the secret negotiations over the Treaty of The Hague (1698). The House of Commons' dubious conviction was overturned by the House of Lords. However, he lost all his Irish estates after a critical report by a parliamentary committee. Travelling with his 19 year old pupil between 1701 and 1703 to Hanover, Vienna and Toscane, both parties sent letters to Bentinck. Numerous letters shed light on the preparation of the voyage, the problematic relationship between the teenager and his teacher. Sophia of Hanover admired the guy. After 1704 – when Henry married – de Rapin started secretly a new project, writing a new, impartial history of England. In 1705, he visited or lived in the Prussian town Wesel, as one of his children was baptized there. Wesel had a considerable Huguenot community, almost a thousand in 1697. The French architect and engineer Jean de Bodt was reshaping Wesel citadel in the style of Vauban. With the financial participation of the Dutch, the largest fortress in Brandenburg Prussia at the time was built over the next 40 years – as a barricade against the expansionist ambitions of Louis XIV. Rapin settled there perhaps with the protection of Frederick I of Prussia and Sophia of Hanover, the English heir presumptive. He may have disagreed with the Second Stadtholderless period too. In 1706 his wife received a considerable amount of money and jewelry; Rapin was involved as executor of the will of his sister in law, the wealthy Henriette Testart. Rapin de Thoyras and his wife probably had eleven children, four were baptized in the Hague and six in Wesel; five died young. He was the author of a Dissertation sur les Whigs et les Torys (1717), which was immediately translated into German, Dutch, Danish, and English.