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Je repense parfois à tous les contrats que m'ont confiés des souverains.

I fail to see why the verb "confier" needs to take the form of "confiés" instead of "confié" here. Does it relate somehow to the use of the relative pronoun "que", by any chance?

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"Que" is the object of "m'ont confié", and it stands in for "les contrats" which is plural. The basic rule of agreement for past participles conjugated with "avoir" is that they agree with the object when the object is placed before the verb, which is the case here.

You would also say: (using emphasis to indicate the object of m'ont confié):

Des souverains m'ont confié ces contrats.

Object after the verb ==> no agreement.

But:

Ces contrats, des souverains me les ont confiés.

Des souverains me les ont confiés, ces contrats.

Object before the verb ==> agreement.

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  • For clarification, in the second sentence, confiés is agreed with les (which is plural and before ont). You also have to add an S to confié when you write Des souverains me les ont confiés, ces contrats.
    – Gwen
    Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 10:57
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    "le chat a mangé les souris", "les souris qu'a mangées le chat" ou quelque chose dans ce goût la serait peut être plus simple à comprendre.
    – Casimir et Hippolyte
    Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 23:47

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