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Since the 1970s, a methodology for analysis of chronological text series has gradually developed in very diverse fields of research, supported by applications in various languages. This study presents the applications of this methodology to corpora of historical texts for which changes in discourse over time are a major focus of interest. The first part describes the textometric approach to textual analysis (1). Methods specially designed for the study of chronological series of texts are then presented (2). The last part describes new types of units that provide a better description of the textual modifications occurring over time in a chronological corpus (3).