In 1673 in Paris, Papin worked with
Christiaan Huygens and learnt to know
Gottfried Leibniz, who was about the same age as him. Papin became interested in using a
vacuum to generate motive power. Due to increasing repression on the Huguenots in France, he first visited London in 1675, where he worked with
Robert Boyle from 1676 to 1679, publishing an account of his work in
Continuation of New Experiments (1680). During this period, Papin invented the
steam digester, a type of
pressure cooker with a
safety valve. He first addressed the Royal Society in 1679 on the subject of his digester, and remained mostly in London. In 1681, Papin rose to become head of the experimental department at the accademia publica di scienze in Venice and 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 territories in germany at the time, joining fellow Huguenot exiles from France. In 1689, Papin suggested that a
force pump or bellows could maintain the pressure and fresh air inside a
diving bell. (Engineer
John Smeaton utilised this design in 1789.) In 1690, having observed the mechanical power of atmospheric pressure on his 'digester', Papin built a model of a piston
steam engine, the first of its kind. In 1705 while teaching mathematics at the
University of Marburg, he developed a second steam engine with the help of
Gottfried Leibniz, based on an invention by
Thomas Savery, but this used
steam pressure rather than atmospheric pressure. Details of the engine were published in 1707. In 1705, Papin constructed a ship powered by hand-cranked paddles to return to London with his wife and children. An
apocryphal story originating in 1851 by
Louis Figuire held that this ship was steam-powered (
paddlesteamer) rather than hand-powered and that it was therefore the first steam-powered vehicle of any kind. The myth was refuted as early as 1880 by , though still it finds credulous expression in some contemporary scholarly work.the
paddlesteamer (1707). Papin's ship was said to have been destroyed in 1707 by the boatmen of
Munden who feared it would threaten their livelihood. The scene of boatmen destroying Papin's ship is depicted in several pieces of art in the eighteenth century and serves as an example of the resistance and fear inspired by the
creative destruction that accompanies new technology. Later, at the iron foundry in Veckerhagen (now
Reinhardshagen), he cast the world's first steam cylinder. In 1707, Papin returned to London leaving his wife in Germany. Several of his papers were put before the Royal Society between 1707 and 1712 without acknowledging or paying him, about which he complained bitterly. Papin's ideas included a description of his 1690 atmospheric steam engine, similar to that built and put into use by
Thomas Newcomen in 1712, thought to be the year of Papin's death. ==Personal life and death==