Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/295

 adoption of corresponding idioms, Motteux had been eminently fortunate, and had in general pre-occupied the appropriate phrases, so that a succeeding translator, who proceeded on the rule of invariably rejecting his phraseology must have, in general, altered for the worse;” this rule through the whole of their undertaking, was followed by Jarvis, and by his copyist and improver, Smollet. Lockhart published an English edition of Don Quixote, and prefixed to it an Essay on Cervantes; it was Motteux’s translation that our great critic then selected for republication. Lockhart’s opinion was, in our day, held and expressed by Prescott.

 

The cradle of the ancient family of Rapin 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:

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:

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,