Definition
In French and civil law, meubles are movable property — the equivalent of what English common law calls "movables" or "personal property." The term encompasses all things capable of being moved, as distinguished from immovables (immeubles), which correspond roughly to real property.
Things qualify as meubles by either of two means:
1. By their own nature (meubles par nature): Objects physically capable of locomotion or displacement, such as furniture, tools, livestock, and goods.
2. By legal determination (meubles par la détermination de la loi): Things that the law treats as movable even if not physically mobile in the ordinary sense, such as obligations, debts, shares, and certain contractual rights.
A recognized subform, meubles meublants, refers specifically to the household furnishings and decorative articles customary in a dwelling — items of furniture and ornament that equip a home for ordinary habitation.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): In modern French, meubles means "furniture" — the objects that furnish a room or home.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; the term was treated as a foreign-law borrowing rather than an English word.
The ordinary French meaning — furniture — is narrower than the legal meaning. In legal usage, meubles covers the entire category of movable property, of which furniture is merely one species. A researcher encountering the term in a legal source should not assume it refers only to household goods.
Common Confusion
MEUBLES and MEUBLES MEUBLANTS are easily conflated. Meubles is the broad category; meubles meublants is a specific subset referring to household furnishings customary to a dwelling. The distinction matters in succession and matrimonial property contexts, where a bequest or marital share described as meubles meublants may be far narrower than one described simply as meubles. Additionally, researchers accustomed to common law may conflate meubles with "chattels" — a reasonable shorthand, but imprecise, because the civil law category of meubles by legal determination extends to intangible obligations and rights in ways that the traditional chattel concept does not always accommodate cleanly.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Meubles par nature: Movables by physical character — objects that move themselves (animals) or can be moved by external force (goods, furniture).
Meubles par la détermination de la loi: Movables by legal classification — intangible rights such as obligations, shares, and rents that the law designates as movable regardless of physical character.
Meubles meublants: The subset of household furnishings and ornaments customary to a dwelling; relevant in succession and matrimonial property law when a legacy or share is defined by reference to this category.
Why It Matters in Research
The term appears almost exclusively in civil law contexts — Louisiana law, Quebec law, and sources dealing with French private law, mixed jurisdictions, or the law of nations (particularly choice of law rules for movable property). Researchers working in these areas should be alert to several navigational issues.
First, the civil law movable/immovable distinction does not map precisely onto the common law personal/real property distinction. Certain items treated as fixtures — and therefore real property — under common law may be classified as meubles under civil law analysis. This gap matters most in conflict of laws discussions about which jurisdiction's law governs property located in Louisiana or another civil law jurisdiction.
Second, in Louisiana succession and matrimonial regimes law, the category of meubles carries technical weight. A legacy of "all my meubles" or a matrimonial community rule tied to meubles will be construed according to civil law principles, not common law chattel analysis.
Third, the subform meubles meublants appears in French and Louisiana sources dealing with the contents of a marital home — it is a narrower term of art with practical consequences for what passes under a will or community property agreement.
Fourth, historical American sources discussing the law of Louisiana prior to and following statehood frequently use meubles without translation, assuming reader familiarity with French legal vocabulary. Researchers in that period must recognize the term on sight.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries are in substantial agreement: meubles means movables in the French law, and the two-part classification — by nature and by legal determination — appears identically in Black's (both editions), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Bouvier. The consistency across sources reflects that this was a settled civil law concept being reported by common law lexicographers rather than a contested or evolving term.
Black's Second Edition adds the meubles meublants subentry, which the other sources omit or address only obliquely. That addition is practically significant for researchers dealing with succession or household property questions.
None of the historical sources engages in depth with the tension between the civil law movable/immovable framework and the common law real/personal property framework. They report the definition without exploring the conflicts of law implications — a gap that modern researchers in mixed jurisdictions will need to bridge through substantive civil law treatises rather than these dictionary entries alone.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is operative primarily in Louisiana, Quebec, and sources applying French private law. Louisiana's Civil Code retains the meubles/immeubles framework as the foundational property classification. In common law jurisdictions, the term appears only in comparative, historical, or conflict of laws contexts and carries no independent operative force.