Quête et enquête autour de la filiation naturelle devant le parlement de Tournai à la fin du xvii^e siècle

To what extent could one overcome the stigma of illegitimacy and shape one’s life under the Ancien Régime ? This article focuses on the case brought by an illegitimate daughter before the Parliament of Tournai, at the end of the seventeenth century, to obtain proofs of her lineage. An analysis of the witnesses’ statements brings to light a twofold trajectory – the mother’s and the daughter’s – and the various forms of social exchange that were woven around these two women, who were relegated to the margins of society but were not deprived of all possibilities of agency.