Abstract EN:

This thesis shows the reality of urban characteristics in very little towns and their originality with regard to big villages and market towns. The period chosen for it is the eighteenth century because, at that time, towns began to be defined by the number of their inhabitants (quantitative criterium) and not only by tradition (qualitative criterium). The study concerns little towns of the part of burgundy which conserves states and have a ferm political unit. After a general study of urban hierarchy in france, the research concerns economic functions which appears through fiscal lists, then, the group of "notables" inhabitants characteristic of towns and their personal demand upon health and culture. It concerns also political and financial organisation of little towns and, at last, the proudness of the cities showed by architectural realizations and urbanism. In everyone of these themes urban characters appears clearly even when the population is weak (1800 or 2500 inhabitants). This prove the importance of little towns which is a typical and durable character of the French urban system.