After having reminded what distinguishes a database from a corpus, the author of the present article gives a rapid overview of the most important documentary sources that exist today in the domain of French diachrony, after which she demonstrates first, what use can be made of them thanks to a series of tools available today, and second, and more important, how the access to large corpora allow us to review our analysis of linguistic facts, and invites us to a qualitative change in our linguistic reasoning.

The ACADEMIE project aims at building an electronic database on the eight editions of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (DAF). As these eight editions cover the period from 1694 to 1932-35, this corpus presents interesting problems of diachrony and synchrony, and touches also on issues related to literature and culture. This way the DAF database is enriched by a whole range of hypertext links, allowing a dynamic dialogue between specialists and readers/consultants.

This article aims to demonstrate how a corpus of spoken French, that was started in Aix-en-Provence around 1975, has developed over time in connexion with the development of what has been called since 'corpus linguistics'. The story of that corpus is related here, whilst at the same time the possibilities for exploitation that it offers today are traced briefly.