Rapin finished his studies and returned home. He wished to enter the army, but his father was so much opposed to it, that he at length acceded to his desires and commenced the study of the law. He was already prepared for being received to the office of advocate, when the royal edict was passed which prevented Protestants from practising before the courts; and, indeed, prevented them from following any profession whatever. Immediately after the death of his father, Paul de Rapin, accompanied by his younger brother Solomon, emigrated from France and proceeded into England. It was not without a profound feeling of sadness that Rapin-Thoyras left his native country. He left his widowed mother in profound grief, arising from the recent death of her husband. She was now exposed to persecutions which were bitterer by far than the perils of exile. It was at her express wish that Rapin left his native country and emigrated to England. And yet it was for France that his fathers had shed their blood and laid down their lives. But France now repelled the descendants of her noblest sons from her bosom. Shortly after his arrival in London, Rapin made the acquaintance of the Abbé of Denbeck, nephew of the Bishop of Tournay. The Abbé was an intimate friend of Rapin's uncle, Pélisson, a man notorious in those times for buying up consciences with money. Louis XIV. consecrated to this traffic one-third of the benefices which fell to the Crown during their vacancy. They were left vacant for the purpose of paying for the abjurations of the heretics. Pélisson had the administration of the fund. He had been born a Protestant, but he abjured his religion, and from a convert he became a converter. Voltaire says of him, in his "Siècle de Louis XIV.," "Much more a courtier than a philosopher, Pélisson changed his religion and made a fortune." Pélisson wrote to his friend the Abbé of Denbeck, then in London at the court of James II., to look after his nephew Rapin-Thoyras, and endeavour to bring him over to the true faith. It is even said that Pélisson offered Rapin the priory of Saint-Orens d'Auch if he would change his religion. The Abbé did his best. He introduced Rapin to M. de Barillon, then ambassador at the English court. James II. was then the pensioner of France, and accordingly had many intimate transactions with the French ambassador. M. de Barillon received the young refugee with great kindness, and, at the recommendation of the Abbé and Pélisson, offered to present him to the King. Their object was to get Rapin appointed to some public office, and thereby help his conversion. But Rapin fled from the temptation. Though no great theologian, he felt it to be wrong to be thus entrapped into a faith which was not his own; and without much reasoning about his belief, but merely acting from a sense of duty, he left London at once and embarked for Holland.