Abstract
In the foreword to his Histoire de la Révolution française , Michelet evokes this " singular trait of France ", whose people would only have understood politics " as devotion and love ". As lateasthe end of the 20th century, the political history of the late Middle Ages was still espousing this doctrine. But what kind of love is it to love one's kings ? An investigation into the doctrinal literature, but also into practical acts, will enable us to better define this rhetoric of theordo politicus , where natural love and national sentiment are interwoven. A comparison between France and Castile highlights the pre-eminence of a parental model in this injunction to love the fatherland as one loves the king, because he is the father of the people.