ABSTRACT
Historians have described nobility as a definable category, delimited by a series of juridical status. However, as regards Old Regime France, there are some other ways to describe nobility, mainly as a system of relations built upon a double process: the construction of the state through delegation of the public authority from the prince to private individuals; and the impact of family practices on holding and transferring such authority, that means on its own terms. As large as it was, the number of bourgeoisie entering the nobility was built less upon the overstepping of social boundaries than patrimonial continuities, as well as on areas of purely bourgeois distinction. The demographic renewal of the nobility over the period partly came through the continued strength of bourgeois institutions. Nobility and bourgeoisie also communicated organically by chains of mutual obligation that made coherent and continuous the social framework within the city. The case of the great Parisian merchant families is an instructive one.
