As early as the fourteenth century it was the custom to address persons high in rank or power with the title Monseigneur or Monsignore.
In international intercourse two titles gradually won general recognition, Monsieur as the title of the eldest brother of the King of France (if not heir presumptive) and Monseigneur for the Dauphin, or eldest son of the French king, who was also the crown prince, or for whatever male member of the family was recognized as heir presumptive to the throne.
King Louis XIV promoted the use of Monseigneur without the title as a style for the dauphin de France but this use lapsed in the 18th century.
In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens uses this honorific as a collective noun denoting the great nobility as a class.
[6] In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo uses this term to describe members of the clergy present in the introductory sequence of the novel.