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This article proposes a temporal approach to the correspondence of Charles VIII based on a lexicometric analysis. Using the notion of “political epistolary”, it highlights three levels of temporality in this discourse: the tempo of writing, the timescale specific to epistolary governance and the evolution of the semantic structures of royal correspondence. Factorial correspondence analysis (FCA) reveals a resistance to a “classic” chronology of lexical evolution. Far from indicating an absence of temporality, it reflects a complex relationship with the political context, but also with the management of the kingdom, and a timescale characteristic of the period under study. Analysis of semantic changes over the long term highlights some of the structuring themes that accompany the construction of the monarch as a figure of war and peace, as the “ père du peuple”.