This article focuses on analyzing the shaping of commercial exchange built by public authorities in public timber auctions over the past seven centuries, in order to govern the economic conduct of agents. It describes the succession of the three auction procedures used by the forestry to sell its timber lots. It highlights that the use of these procedures corresponds to three different timescales, whose emergence and disappearance are linked to the action of endogenous and exogenous variables. Finally, it demonstrates that the current choice of the National Forests Office (ONF) to exclusively use the tendering process results from a complex arbitration between its interests and those of the forest-wood sector, to which it must ensure a competitive timber supply.