French Nobility - Titles, Peerage, and Orders

Titles, Peerage, and Orders

There were two kinds of titles used by French nobles: some were personal ranks and others were linked to the fiefs owned, called fiefs de dignité.

During the ancien régime, there was no distinction of rank by title (except for the title of duke, which was often associated with the strictly regulated privileges of the peerage, including precedence above other titled nobles). The hierarchy within the French nobility below peers was initially based on seniority; a count whose family had been noble since the 14th century was higher-ranked than a marquis whose title only dated to the 15th century. Precedence at the royal court was based on the family's ancienneté, its alliances (marriages), its hommages (dignities and offices held) and, lastly, its illustrations (record of deeds and achievements).

• Titles:
  • Duc: possessor of a duchy (duché -- a feudal property, not an independent principality) and recognition as duke by the king.
  • Prince: possessor of a lordship styled a principality (principauté); most such titles were held by family tradition and were treated by the court as titres de courtoisie -- often borne by the eldest sons of the more important duke-peers. This title of prince is not to be confused with the rank of prince, borne by the princes du sang, the princes légitimés or the princes étrangers whose high precedence derived from their kinship to actual rulers.
  • Marquis: possessor of a marquessate (marquisat), but often assumed by a noble family as a titre de courtoisie
  • Comte: possessor of a county (comté) or self-assumed.
  • Vicomte: possessor of a viscounty (vicomté) or self-assumed.
  • Baron: possessor of a barony (baronnie) or self-assumed.
  • Chevalier: an otherwise untitled nobleman who belonged to an order of chivalry; earlier, a rank for untitled members of the oldest noble families.
  • Sire ('lord'): By the 17th century, a Sire was a possessor of a lordship long associated with a distinguished family.
• Ranks:
  • Fils de France: son of a king or dauphin.
  • Petit-fils de France: grandson of a king in the male line.
  • Prince du Sang ("prince of the blood"): a remote, legitimate male-line descendant of a king of France.
  • Peer of France was technically a dignity of the Crown (as, e.g., marshal of France), but became in fact the highest hereditary rank borne by the French nobility -- always in conjunction with a title (e.g. "Duc et Pair", "Comte-Pair"). The peerage was originally awarded only to princes of the blood, some legitimised and foreign princes, often the heads of the kingdom's most ancient and powerful families, and a few bishops. Eventually it was almost always granted in conjunction with the title of duke. Gradually the peerage came to be conferred more broadly as a reward for distinguished military or diplomatic service, but also on favourites of the king (e.g. les mignons). The peers were entitled to seats in the Parliament of Paris, the most important Court of Justice in the kingdom.
  • Prince légitimé legitimised son or male-line descendant of a king. Precise rank depended upon the king's favour.
  • Prince étranger ("foreign prince"): members of foreign royal or princely families naturalized at the French court, such as the Clèves, Rohan, La Tour d'Auvergne, and Lorraine-Guise.
  • Écuyer: rank of the vast majority of untitled nobles. Also called valet or noble homme in certain regions.
  • Gentilhomme ("gentleman") was used for any noble, from the king to the last untitled écuyer.
  • Seigneur possessor of a lordship; strictly, it was neither a title nor a rank, merely indicating that the person lacked a noble title yet owned a piece of feudal land. It did not indicate that the "landlord" was noble, although prior to the 18th century most were.

In his full style, a noble shall use his rank, his title, and his dignity, as in Marie Jean de Caritat, écuyer, marquis de Condorcet or Louis de Rouvroy, chevalier, duc de Saint-Simon, pair de France.

In principle, the expression seigneur (lord of the manor) applied to anyone possessing a fief, but the term was often used to imply a grand seigneur, or a noble of high rank or status.

The use of the nobiliary particle de in noble names (Fr: la particule) was not officially controlled in France (unlike von in the German states), and is not reliable evidence of the bearer's nobility. A simple tailor could be named Marc de Lyon, as a sign of his birthplace. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the de was adopted by some non-nobles (like Honoré de Balzac) in an attempt to appear noble.

Each rank of nobility — royal prince, prince belonging to collateral lines of the royal family (prince du sang), duc, marquis, comte, vicomte, baron, etc. — conferred its own privileges; dukes for example could enter royal residences in a carriage, duchesses could sit on a stool with the queen. Dukes in France — the most important group after the princes — were further divided into those who were also "peers" (Duc et Pair) and those who were not. Dukes without a peerage fell into one of two groups: those without peerage fiefs, or those for whom the Parlement refused to register the lettres patentes conferring a peerage on them.

Noble hierarchies were further complicated by the creation of chivalric orders — the Chevaliers du Saint-Esprit (Knights of the Holy Spirit) created by Henry III in 1578; the Ordre de Saint-Michel created by Louis XI in 1469; the Order of Saint Louis created by Louis XIV in 1696 — by official posts, and by positions in the Royal House (the Great Officers of the Crown of France), such as grand maître de la garde-robe (the grand master of the royal wardrobe, being the royal dresser) or grand panetier (royal bread server), which had long ceased to be actual functions and had become nominal and formal positions with their own privileges. The 17th and 18th centuries saw nobles and the noblesse de robe battle each other for these positions and any other sign of royal favor.

Attending the ceremony of the king's waking at Versailles (the smaller and intimate petit lever du roi and the more formal grand lever du roi), being asked to cross the barriers that separated the royal bed from the rest of the room, being invited to talk to the king, or being mentioned by the king... all were signs of favor and actively sought after.