French legitimism, a major politic culture of French 19th century, had a quite ambiguous destiny in the historiography since a century and a half. For a long time, it remained the prerogative of counter-revolutionary historians who pretended to use their works as a defence of their ideology. Nowadays, this part of historiography still exists, although less in France than in other countries like Spain or Italy.The history of legitimism experienced a double revival, in the 1950s with the first political studies on this trend, leaded by René Rémond or Jacques Godechot, and in the 1970s with the great local studies on social history. Most of the areas where the legitimism had been strong were studied by historians, but also ethnologists or anthropologists. Anglo-Saxons researchers had an important part in this work and were the first to show that French legitimism’s program was not a mere back to the past.In the 1980s, the interest in legitimism arouse as a consequence of the sharp debates about French Revolution which coincided with the commemoration of the bicentenary and the Revolution in 1989. New studies emerged, taking a fresh look at the links between legitimism and catholicism or between legitimism, nationalism and even fascism by focusing on the end of the movement.Nowadays, the historiography remains incomplete on whole sectors of the evolution of this movement, especially during French Second Republic and Second Empire. Even about the 1870s, a quite well-known period thanks to the works of counter-revolutionary researchers, we lack of a social and political history which would take into account the « legitimist people ».However, at the same time, the historiography of French legitimism is a leader in methodological renewals and provides excellent studies about the cultural and religious history of this movement. The renewal of studies about Bourbon Restoration in France, even if it does not exactly deal with legitimism – which appears in 1830 – gave new keys to understand the supporters of the union of Altar and Throne. Finally, their links with the other european legitimist parties and the existence of a counter-revolutionary internationalism constitute one of the most promising ways of actual research about this quite forgotten movement.