Since the 1970s, the private wealth of French households has doubled. More importantly, this trend has been accompanied by significant changes in the nature of wealth. In France, as in many other countries, the share of inherited wealth is now larger than the accumulated component of wealth. Inheritance has made a comeback, and this raises many questions about the scale of inequality and its determinants. This trend is far from simply being a return to the nineteenth century, as inheritance has undergone profound transformations, which must be taken into account in order to better understand transmissions of wealth.