Writing an Impartial History in the Republic of Letters: Paul Rapin Thoyras and his Histoire d’Angleterre

This research project focuses on the Huguenot French historian Paul Rapin-Thoyras (1661-1725). The objectives are understanding the importance of his Histoire d’Angleterre (1724-1727) and assessing the impact it had. The assumption is that his work was broadly received both in England and France and throughout read all over the 18th century, becoming a pillar of the domestic political debate on the one hand, and shaping the Philosophes’ understanding of English politics on the other. This influence should be analysed in the light of continual exchanges and debates on the two sides of the Channel, taking into account a comparative approach.

So far Rapin-Thoyras has not been much studied, but contemporary historiography considers his Histoire as a pioneer work, the first to study the dynamics within the English Parliament. Traditionally, Rapin-Thoyras is acknowledged as a “standard Whig historian”, and his works as a pillar of the Whig interpretation of history.

Rapin-Thoyras’ significance still need to be accurately assessed: the marginal role he has been assigned reflects the disputation that so called “Whig history” gained. Although Rapin-Thoyras had an undoubtedly Whig inclination, this research project aims at proving that his Weltanschauung is not reducible to the Whig canon. As an expatriate living in The Hague, Rapin-Thoyras absorbed various influences which can be traced in his works and which have been mostly overlooked by contemporary historiography.

With a close analysis of the Histoire, this work intends to acknowledge Rapin-Thoyras as a pioneer performer of the Histoire raisonnée: he was the first writer to have access to the Foedera of T. Rymer, a comprehensive collection of English documents. Thus he welcomed the new approach to the writing of history: he tried to pinpoint all his assertions with a source and compared various authors taking into account their political stances, a method unknown to the contemporary Whig writers.

Rapin-Thoyras might be considered as a pre-enlightenment scholar: he attempted the research of the “historical process”, a concept which was not envisaged by the traditional Whigs. Between the lines of the Histoire a movement projected towards the future is to be traced, though this historical process is not structurally explained: it is rather to be retrieved when the author introduces the innovative concept of “casuality”. Historical events outlined that the English government system of “checks and balances” had its internal flaws, and therefore Rapin-Thoyras did not describe it as the touchstone for future political establishments, as the traditional Whigs did.

It is indeed for this many-sided overview of the complex English situation that the Histoire could be read from different perspectives and serve conflicting political interests. This project intends to examine the impact Rapin-Thoyras made in England on the one hand, and in France (including the expatriates in the United Provinces) on the other. I. Kramnick’s briefly examined how the Tory Bolingbroke made use of Rapin-Thoyras’ works to oppose the Whig Walpole: What contemporary historians label as “Whig”, therefore, came across as a useful source for Tories, the standard work to draw from in terms of accuracy and trustworthiness to endorse their theories.

With regards to Rapin-Thoyras’ impact in the French community of scholars, I assume he did not only plug the gap in knowledge of English history and politics, but also raised further interest in the country and its affairs. Recent historiographical works investigated the increasingly growing cross-cultural transfers between France and England in terms of political culture, in a century which could be described as an intellectual laboratory. The Histoire might have served both the interests of intellectuals who wished for the English political system to be exported to the rest of Europe, as well as of those who advocated Republicanism and pointed at the English system as a vicious circle of corruption and clientelism.

The assessment of the relevance of the Histoire requires an exact reconstruction of the author’s life, which presents indeed some interesting aspects: he was appointed tutor of Lord Bentick’s son (William of Orange’s ambassador) and visited the main European courts. A study of the social milieu Rapin-Thoyras was familiar with once in The Hague will shed light on the various influences he was exposed to in a city known as the “Arc of Refugees” at the time of the “crises of the European conscience”.