ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the women of high- and medium-ranking officers in the Ile-de-France between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It briefly describes the legal and economic changes that took place in the so-called 'Nobility of the Robe'. This 'Nobility of Service', fostered by the transmission of offices, was also integrated into the 'Nobility of the Sword' and the business community. The edict issued by Colbert in 1665, which fixed the price of offices, was in any case a financial catastrophe since offices that had been bought at high price during the seventeenth century, and for which individuals often incurred heavy debts, had lost their value. The structure of the exchange of assets through marriage was modified, along with that of transmission: during the seventeenth century, the portion of the wife's property that was devolved to the community of assets tended to decrease to one-third, while the amount held by women increased.
