Abstract Ranks, precedence, hierarchy and the constitution of the realm from Louis XIII to the Régence

Conflicts of rank in France in the 17th and 18th centuries were an abundant source of litigation. If their social and symbolic dimensions have already been studied, their legal dimension has attracted less attention. A phenomenological approach to ranks, precedencies, and hierarchies, as well as their ensuing conflicts and subsequent outcomes reveal their contentious, legal and judicial character. Upon examination, the ceremonies and acts during which public authority (the sovereigns' public audiences, parliamentary sessions presided over by the king, royal entrances, and the main ceremonies of information) expressed itself reveal a constitutional character before the very existence of such a document, as well as the permeability maintained between the sign of authority - as assumed by rank - and the authority itself. On the other hand, the elements of contemporary doctrine, as precious as they may be, remain perplexing. Poor or lacking, doctrine seems to be exceedingly cautious. The authority of the precedent is tacitly recognized whereas the demiurge sovereign's discretionary power indiscreetly exalted. However, the era was hardly lacking in any adequate thought as to ranks. The contemporary literature shows that the hierarchy constituted a fundamental scheme or an implicit structure of discourse for the educated public at the time. What doctrine seeks to silence and what contemporary sources reveal is the competition of two matrices at work in the royal State of the Classical Age, the growing contradiction between sovereignty and hierarchy.