Fundamental laws of the Kingdom of France

The fundamental laws of the Kingdom of France were a set of unwritten principles that governed the question of royal succession and placed limits on the otherwise absolute power of the French king, from the Middle Ages until the French Revolution of 1789. They rested on customary usage and religious beliefs about the respective roles of God, the monarch, and his subjects, rather than on any single written charter. Among their central provisions was the rule that the crown passed by male-line succession and could not be alienated, willed away, or divided, a principle invoked repeatedly to settle disputes over succession. The fundamental laws lost their governing force with the overthrow of the French monarchy during the Revolution, and the monarchy they had underpinned was formally abolished in 1792.