in 1684 became a member of the staff of the Royal Society, whose chairman was Robert Boyle. During this time he also worked on steam cannons in Venice. Papin was denied return to France after Louis XIV invoked the Edict of Fontainebleau ending religious freedom for Protestants in 1685.

In about 1687, he left France to take up an academic post in Marburg Germany, one of the few calvinist