d Etruscan ceramic art.

In 1699, the Earl of Portland was sent by William III. as ambassador
to the court of Louis XIV., in connection with the negotiations as to
the Spanish succession. Lord Woodstock attended the embassy, and Rapin
accompanied him. They were entertained at Versailles. Persecution was
still going on in France, although about eight hundred thousand
persons had already left the country. Rapin at one time thought of
leaving Lord Woodstock for a few days, and making a rapid journey
south to visit his friends near Toulouse. But the thought of being
made a prisoner and sent to the galleys for life stayed him, and he
remained at Versailles until the return of the embassy.

Rapin remained with Lord Woodstock for thirteen years. In the meantime
he had married, at the Hague, Marie Anne Testart, a refugee from
Saint-Quentin. Jean Rou describes her as a true helpmeet for him,
young, beautiful, rich, and withal virtuous, and of the most pleasing
and gentle temper in the world. Her riches, however, were not great.
She had merely, like Rapin, rescued some portion of her heritage from
the devouring claws of her persecutors. Rapin accumulated very little
capital during his tutorship of Lord Woodstock; but to compensate him,
the King granted him a pension of L100 a year, payable by the States
of Holland, until he could secure some better income.

Rapin lived for some time at the Hague. While there he joined a
society of learned French refugees. Among them were Rotolf de la
Denese, Basnage de Beauval, and Jean Rou, secretary to the
States-General. One of the objects of the little academy was to
translate the Psalms anew into French verse; but before the version
was completed, Rapin was under the necessity of leaving the Hague.
William III., his patron, died in 1701, when his pension was stopped.
He was promised some remunerative employment, but he was forgotten
amidst the press of applicants.

At length he removed to the little town of Wesel, on the Lower Rhine,
in the beginning of May, 1707. He had a wife and four children to
maintain, and living was much more reasonable at Wesel than at the
Hague. His wife's modest fortune enabled him to live there to the end
of his days. Wesel was also a resort of the French refugees--persons
of learning and taste, though of small means. It was at his modest
retreat at Wesel that Rapin began to arrange the immense mass of
documents which he had been accumulating during so many ye