Abstract: The subject of the research is the textual functions of the pluperfect tense in the French language that appear from the meaning of precedence. These functions include reconstruction of the cronological order of events as well as participation in the anaphoric reference to events that have been described earlier. In her research Matveeva analyzes pluperfect semantics in comparison with other forms of the past tense. She also analyzes changes in the way the pluperfect tense had been used in the period since the XVIth till the XIXth centuries. Matveeva offers her own classification of contexts where this tense has the aforesaid functions. To analyze cases of using the pluperfect tense, the author has used the functional interpretation of the psychosystemic theory of the verbal tense. The tense is studied by the author taking into account particularities of the personal psychological time. The main conclusions of the research relate to the classification of contexts of using the pluperfect tense. While the XVIth-century texts make the anaphoric reference using the purperfect tense only if there was an additional indicatory component, the XIXth-century texts make such a reference without the indicatory component. As for the function of keeping the chronological order of events, it had stayed the same throughout the research period.