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In The Spirit of Laws (1748), Montesquieu states that honor is the "governing principle of monarchy." By its actions, "each individual advances the public good while in pursuit of his own personal interest." This paper aims to examine the relevance of Montesquieu’s theory by studying the ways of feeling, thinking, and practicing honor in French society from the Renaissance to the Revolution. Honor was an essential part of noble culture. It was also shared by any member of any community in the realm, as long as each individual felt concerned by the interests, the reputation, and the privileges of the groups he belonged to. Honor was the main manner of measuring social and individual status in the Ancien Regime (old regime). It was a mixture of inner–almost sentimental–social and political feelings. It was an imperative injunction, which could lead someone, not necessarily a gentleman, to risk his own life in a duel and, by doing so, to claim the right to be the sovereign judge of his own honor. In that sense, thinking honor might be the right way to think the rise of the individual in a society of orders and privileges.