48t3 
 I6ir6 
 
 
 
 
 v;:;- -/ 
 
 i / / ' 
 
 y- 
 
 :>-n -a.:-^'
 
 FVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 UNDER Louis XIV. 
 
 Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the 
 
 degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of 
 
 Political Science, Columbia University. 
 
 ALLEN JOHNSON, A. M. 
 
 Associate Professor of History.^ Iowa College. 
 Sometime Fellow in European History., Columbia University, 
 
 LOWELf., MASS.: 
 
 COiTKlEK-ClTI/FN COMPAVY, PlM-ilTERS, 
 
 1899.
 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction .... 5 
 
 Chapter I. — Origin and Characteristics of the Office 
 
 of Intendant . . . 7 
 
 Chapter II. — The Intendant as Financial and Judi- 
 cial Officer ... 22 
 
 Chapter III. — The PoHce Duties of the Intendant 37 
 
 Bibliography . . . .52 
 
 453SS'^
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 As one turns the leaves of the voluminous administrative cor- 
 respondence of the old regime and reads here and there, his first 
 impression is that of prodigious activity amid bewildering 
 diversity and complexity. The pages are crowded with obscure 
 allusions to peculiar local customs; dignitaries of more or less 
 importance appear and disappear; titles and offices multiply to dis- 
 traction. The student is tempted to believe the old regime a 
 chaos. It is not long, however, before the figure of one adminis- 
 trative ofificer emerges with tolerable clearness ; the intcndant 
 seems omnipresent. And yet, when one attempts to give definife- 
 ness to his duties, chaos threatens to reign again. There is some- 
 thing vexingly elusive about the intendant. Viewed from one 
 point, he is the submissive creature of the controleiir ; viewed in 
 another light, he seems to rule as absolutely as the great monarch 
 himself. Whether he is overwhelmed with popular applause in 
 Pau or cursed with virulent fury in Poitou, the old regime is 
 inseparably associated with his name. 
 
 The difficulty of putting the intendant's duties into precise 
 form arises largely from the habit of regarding him as an admin- 
 istrative ofificer, pure and simple, when it should be borne in mind 
 that the intendant was peculiarly hors dc hi. He was bound by 
 no established administrative statutes or regulations; not even his 
 connnission was registered in Parlement. To the local authori- 
 ties he owed no obedience, since local laws and coutumcs had 
 crystalized centuries before the intendant became a part of the 
 administrative organism. He received frequent instructions from 
 the king in council and from the ministers, it is true, but in gen- 
 eral he was left singularly free to exercise his discretion. Given 
 the ends in view, he was nearly always permitted to choose the 
 means best suited to reach them. Such freedom might have 
 proved inimical to the interests of the crown, if the intendant had
 
 6 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT. 
 
 not been brought into immediate touch with the royal council and 
 with the chief ministers of state by a minute and regular cor- 
 respondence. This intimate connection made him responsive to 
 the slightest wish of the king, — made him in fact the supple, sub- 
 servient agent of royalty for the gratification of its every whim. 
 When the crown felt itself menaced from any quarter and was 
 forced to act with the full weight of its authority, a trusted officer 
 was at hand to secure obedience to its behests. The last word 
 upon the great historical movements of "le grand siecle" will not 
 be said until full credit is accorded to the intendants for their 
 unceasing labors in behalf of absolutism. 
 
 Pew thoughtful readers have laid aside De Tocqueville's bril- 
 liant review of the intendants without a desire to know more of the 
 men who have exercised so profound an influence upon French 
 institutions. In the following pages an attempt has been made to 
 illustrate the nature of the intendant's office by selecting the more 
 important phases of his activity in a period when the social and 
 political fabric of the old regime was assuming its permanent 
 fonn. The picture must necessarily be defective. De Tocqueville 
 has remarked with pardonable exaggeration that under the old 
 regime the government took the place of Providence. The 
 student who has followed the tortuous course of the government 
 under Louis XIV. will be inclined to acquiesce in this sentiment; 
 assuredly the ways of that government seem often as inscrutable 
 as those of Providence. 
 
 The writer gladly takes this opportunity to acknowledge his 
 indebtedness to Professor James Plarvey Robinson of Columbia 
 University for many helpful suggestions, and to Mr. George H. 
 Baker, Librarian of the Columbia College Library, for repeated 
 favors. Thanks are due also to the authorities of the Harvard 
 College Library for their kind attentions. 
 
 Grinneli., Iowa, Dec. 26th, 1898.
 
 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE OFFICE OF 
 INTENDANT. 
 
 There is no more persistent error among historians than that 
 which ascribes to Cardinal Richelieu the creation of the institution 
 of the intendants. The source of the error is clear enough. In 
 the collection known as anciefiues lots fraiiqaises occurs an edict 
 of the year 1635, which the editor has dubbed ''JSdit de Creation 
 des IntendcDits!' The name iiitejidant appears in connection with 
 several financial offices, either newly created or reorganized, and 
 the editor seems to have jumped at the conclusion that he had 
 before him a document actually creating the institution so familiar 
 to students of the old regime. The blunder was detected many 
 years ago, but historians continue to perpetuate the illusion. It is 
 comparatively easy to show that the word intoidaut in the edict of 
 1635 is to be understood in a totally different sense from that of 
 the same word used in the phrase intendant de justice; and it is 
 still easier to prove that intendants were in existence before the 
 year 1635.* The former line of evidence has been restated too 
 often to need reiteration here, but the latter may be profitably 
 reviewed. 
 
 The first intendant of whom record is preserved is Pierre 
 
 *See Caillot: De I' Administration en France, I. pp. 71 et seq. This work, piibli.shed 
 in 18.57, proved beyond a doubt that the edict of 1635 did not create the office of intendant, 
 but simply created, or altered the nature of, certain officers known as presidents et tn'so- 
 riers ff('n(;rnux des finances. 
 
 M. Hanotaux cit es an instance where certain presidents and tn'soriers at Montpellier 
 styled themselves intendants des gabelles. Hanotanx: Les origines des Intendants, p. 2. 
 
 Kven in the time of Louis XIV. we find numerous Instances of the title used in its 
 most general sense, where no reference to the royal intendant or commissaire departi is 
 intended.
 
 8 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 Panisse, who was commissioned about the year 1555 to go to 
 Corsica as intendant de justice* The island had recently fallen 
 into the possession of the French and the king desired to establish 
 order there by means of a royal agent. To this end Panisse — 
 "nostre ame et f6al conseiller President en nostre court des Gene- 
 raulx de la Justice des Aydes a Montpellier" — was given "plain 
 pouvoir, auctoritc, commission et raandement spc^cial" to confer with 
 the lieutenant-governor and to summon in assembly the notables 
 and officials of the island. He was to learn from them the customs, 
 laws and usages in the administration of justice. Over all courts 
 he was to have "la superintendance generale," and his regulative 
 ordinances were to be final "comme s'ilz avaient este ou estaient 
 donnez par I'une de noz courts de Parlement." He was to go 
 about from town to town to inform himself in regard to the local 
 laws and customs and to exercise such police powers as he deemed 
 necessary. The conduct of civil officers was to be noted 
 "dillegemment, secretement et bien." He might even suspend 
 them from office, if occasion demanded. Officers of finance were 
 to be subjected to the same scrutiny. All abuses were to De 
 reported to the conseil prive; although in urgent cases the intend- 
 ant might undertake their correction upon consultation with the 
 governor. 
 
 The essential character of the institution and the lines of its 
 future development are indicated in this commission. f The intend- 
 ant is to represent the king in matters of justice, police, and 
 finance in parts of the realm where war had almost subverted the 
 social order. He is completely dependent upon the royal will in 
 regard to both appointment and tenure of office; he is essentially 
 the king's man. And yet, from the very nature of the circum- 
 stances that make his office necessary, he possesses, and must 
 possess, no little discretionary power to encounter successfully the 
 opposition which the faithful performance of his duties will 
 inevitably arouse. 
 
 The links in the chain that binds the first intendants to those 
 of the time of Richelieu may be easily supplied. The admirable 
 exposition of M. Hanotauxt has done much to make the connec- 
 
 *Hanotaux: Pieces just. I. p. 179. 
 
 t "Elle est comme un raccourci de toute I'institution dont elle est la premifere 
 ^bauche." Hanotaux, p. 23. 
 
 i Hanotaux: Origines des Intendants.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 9 
 
 tion intelligible, and all students of the institutions of the old 
 regime will gladly acknowledge their indebtedness to his work. 
 
 During the years of civil war in France, when the royal 
 power was reduced to a mere shadowy there are few records of 
 intendants actually bearing the title. Royal commissioners were 
 numerous, but their functions are not to be confounded with those 
 of the intendants of succeeding years, however much tiie practice 
 of commissioning such royal agents may have contributed to the 
 final triumph of the system of permanent intendancies. The ofifice 
 of royal commissioner was ill-defined; his authority was vague 
 and transitory.* 
 
 With the revival of the monarchy under Henry IV. the 
 intendants spring into new prominence, and for obvious reasons. 
 Two gigantic tasks confronted Henry of Navarre: he had first to 
 conquer the land of which he was only grudgingly named king; 
 and then, task scarcely less onerous, he had to pacify and rehabili- 
 tate his kingdom. It was no easy matter to stay the hand of the 
 rough soldier who had helped to win the allegiance of some 
 rebellious province and who now lusted after the spoils of vic- 
 tory; nor, on the other hand, to provide for the legitimate needs 
 of the army of occupation, without kindling once more the hatrea 
 of the newly regained province. Due regard for the support of 
 the soldiers had to be joined with generous respect for the feel- 
 ings of the people. The conditions were unusual and fully justi- 
 fied the plan adopted by the king.t By the side of the governor 
 of a province and the commander of the army of pacification was 
 placed an offtcer bearing a royal mandate which conferred upon 
 him extraordinary powers within the province where the army was 
 to operate. In nearly every instance he bore the title of intendant, 
 but with certain phrases added to indicate the particular duties 
 for which he was commissioned. He might be '^intendant de 
 justice" in an army and act as counselor to the general in matters 
 relating to the preservation of order and discipline among the 
 soldiers. He might be charged with the ^Hntcndance des finances' 
 in an army and have supervision of the moneys raised for the sup- 
 port of the troops, or he might combine all these duties and be 
 styled ^^ Intendant de justice, de police, des vivres et des finances'' 
 
 * Hanotaux, pp. 31-35. 
 + Hanotaux, pp. 41 et seq.
 
 10 THE IXTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 in a specified army. In each and every case the sphere of his 
 influence and power was the province where the army of pacifica- 
 tion was located. 
 
 The transformation of the intendant of an army into the 
 intendant of a province was only natural. It might often happen 
 that an intendant would remain for a time in the province after 
 the immediate occasion for his coming had passed away. He 
 would then almost imperceptibly become intendant de province* 
 Here, then, was a tendency which, had it not been retarded 
 by the activity of the government in other affairs, might have 
 made the intendancy what it became in the reign of Louis XIV., 
 a permanent office. By the year 1598, the first task of Henry had 
 been achieved ; he could then fairly claim to be master of his king- 
 dom and could begin with confidence the economic and financial 
 restoration of France. Sure of the support of magistrates and 
 people, the king could now dispense with the intendants. They 
 had not yet acquired enough stability to exist after the immediate 
 needs to which they owed their existence had been met. If they 
 did not entirely disappear, they became so few as to escape notice. 
 For the re-establishment of order in the finances, which now 
 became the chief concern of Henry and his minister Sully, recourse 
 w^as had once more to royal commissioners, who have erroneously 
 been confounded with the intendants, because the term intendant 
 was sometimes applied to them in contemporar}' documents. The 
 error is of exactly the same sort as that in regard to the edict of 
 1635. Intendant is used in a general sense to designate a class of 
 of^cers with supervisory powers, not the particular agent whom 
 we have met as intendant de justice.^ 
 
 The death of Henry I\''. left France once more a prey to the 
 decentralizing forces which he had overcome with so much dif- 
 ficulty. The regency grasped desperately at the only means which 
 would presers^e its own existence: the revival of the intendants. 
 Many of the old intendants were recommissioned; new ones were 
 appointed until there was hardly a disaffected province where the 
 royal power was not represented in the person of an intendant. 
 Commissions varied between different intendants in different 
 provinces, and between intendants who succeeded one another in 
 the same province, but the tendency was to unite the various 
 
 * Hanotaux, pp. 45-50. 
 
 + M. Hanotaux puts this point beyond dispute by several citations. See page 72.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 11 
 
 appellations in the collective title intendant de justice, police et 
 finances r* 
 
 When Cardinal Richelieu came into power he found little to 
 add to the powers and attributes of the intendants. Not only w^as 
 the institution in existence before his day, but it had approved 
 itself to all who sympathized with the efforts of royalty to make 
 head against the forces of disintegration within the realm. It can- 
 not be said that the great cardinal added anything new to the 
 institution of the intendants ; their powers remained essentially the 
 same; and yet Richelieu undoubtedly exercised over the intend- 
 ants an influence w^iich may have been transitory but which was 
 very real, so long as his master mind directed the state. The 
 intense activity of the great minister manifested itself by a sort of 
 reflex action in the intendants, who were fast developing into 
 vital organs of the government. The intendancies were multi- 
 plied, and to the tenure of office was given a greater relative per- 
 manence; new men were appointed who exercised their powers 
 with an energy and decision that seemed to transform the nature of 
 their office. Conscious of the entire support of the central gov- 
 ernment, these intendants bent all their efforts to abase the ancient 
 local authorities. They lived in constant conflict with the gov- 
 ernors of provinces, with the local magistrates, and with the 
 provincial parlements and courts. It was at bottom only one 
 phase of that deeper struggle between absolutism and the vestiges 
 of local government. The conflict between the parlements and 
 the intendants was long and bitter, continuing well into the reign 
 of Louis XIV. 
 
 Enough has been said, surely, to prove that Richelieu did not 
 "create" the intendants ; all evidence goes to prove that the institu- 
 tion was a growth. It will be a matter of surprise to those who 
 have regarded the intendants as the peculiar product of Richelieu's 
 genius, to find how little value he attached to the office. In his 
 political writings there is nothing to indicate that he regarded the 
 intendants as permanent organs of the administration, or that he 
 rated their temporary usefulness very highly. On the contrary, 
 if the words of the "Tcstaincjit politig7ie" are to be taken as his 
 own, he entertained so poor an opinion of the institution that he 
 
 * Hanotaux, pp. 244 et seq.
 
 12 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 actually favored reducing their powers to those of ordinary 
 commissioners.* 
 
 How firmly the intendants had entrenched themselves in the 
 provinces, and how jealously the local authorities guarded the 
 remains of their ancient power, the demands of the Fronde in 1648 
 attest. One of the first concessions that the court party had to 
 make was the revocation of the intendants; all intendancies, except 
 those in six provincesf, were summarily suppressed. It was 
 a great victory for particularism over absolutism. "La cour," 
 cried the notorious Cardinal de Retz exultantly, "La cour se 
 sentit toucher a la prunelle de I'oeil par la suppression des 
 intendances."! 
 
 The revival of the monarchy under Louis XIV. was accom- 
 panied by a gradual restoration of intendancies, so that by the 
 year 1698 they numbered twenty-six, and at the outbreak of the 
 Revolution thirty-three, besides six in the colonies. The 
 generalities varied both in number and extent during the 
 reign of Louis XIV. H Picardy and Artois, for example, were for a 
 long time under the same intendant. Certain conquered provinces 
 were governed by intendants, but not created into generalities for 
 several years. § Generalities were designated indifferently by the 
 name of the chief town and by the name of the province in which 
 the greater portion of the generality lay; the generality was not 
 necessarily coextensive with the province. 
 
 It seems to have been a common practice to choose intend- 
 ants from among the maitres des requites, who were usually rep- 
 resentatives of the petty nobility. IT They were the people of 
 whom St. Simon said, "Ces avocats renforces et qui du barreau, 
 
 * ".le crois qu'il sera trfes utile d'envoyer souvent dans les provinces des conseillers 
 d'Etat ou des maitres des requetes bien choisis. nou seulenient pour faire la fonction 
 d'intendant de justice dans les villas eapitales, ce qui peut plus servir a leur vanite qu'k 
 utilite du public; mais pour aller en tous lieux des provinces;" etc., etc. Testament 
 politique, pp. 161-162. (Edition of 1689.) 
 
 + Bourgogne, Provence, Lyonnais, Languedoc, Champagne, Picardie. 
 
 % Isambert, XVII. pp. 73, 73. 
 
 " Intendance is the term usually applied to the office; gineralite is used to denote 
 the territorial division administered by the intendant. Later the term intendance was 
 also used in this latter sense. I have taken the liberty of anglicizing these terms. 
 
 § e. g. Bourgogne with Bresse, Gex. and Bugey. 
 
 1 Not a few of the attributes given to the intendants seem to have been borrowed 
 from these maiire des requetes, whose lineal descent from the viissi dominici of Charle- 
 magne and from the enqueteurs of Louis IX. and Philip III. has been insisted upon rather 
 too positively by some historians. These maitres des requHes were assigned to regular 
 circuits for the purpose of securing the enforcement of royal ordinances and of super- 
 vising the administration of justice. The Code Michaud of 1629 [Isambert, XVI. p. 223] 
 gives their duties in detail. Besides supervisory powers, they are to have power to 
 reform the taxes and their assessment, to inspect registers and rolls, and to repress
 
 undp:r LOUIS XIV. 
 
 13 
 
 ou ils gagnaient leur vie il n'y a pas longtemps, sont devenus des 
 magistrats considerables, ont pris le dc!'* 
 
 It was part of the policy of Louis XIV. to choose his min- 
 isters and officers of state from the lower nobility, who could never 
 detract from his glory or rival his influence. The young man who 
 aspired to become intendant smoothed the way to that respon- 
 sible post by the purchase of a commission as viaitie des requites. 
 It would have been contrary to the practice of the times if intrigue 
 and favoritism had not played a prominent part in the appoint- 
 ment of intendants. Certain intendancies were more lucrative 
 than others; they varied greatly, too, in responsibility and dignity. 
 
 The term of service in an intendancy was not fixed. There 
 was no attempt at uniformity, for the essential feature of the office 
 was its elasticity and its complete dependence upon the will of 
 the king. At Rouen there were twenty-one intendants from 1664 
 to 1716, no one of whom held office for more than seven years, 
 while ten of them held office for less than three. In Languedoc, 
 between the years 1672 and 1718, there were only two intendants; 
 of these one held office twelve, the other thirty-three years. Four 
 intendants were installed in Picardy between 1664 and 17 18, 
 holding office nine, ten, fourteen and ten years, respectively. 
 Transfers from one intendancy to another were frequent, and 
 were dictated by various motives. In 1665 Colbert seems to have 
 made a change "gtcasy ge'n&al" of intendants, removing certain 
 incumbents for the benefit of new appointees.t Pinon, Vicomte 
 de Qiiincy, was successively intendant at Pau, Alenc^on, Poitiers, 
 and Dijon. De Bouville passed from Limoges to Alen^on ; he 
 returned then to Limoges and some years later assumed the 
 intendancy of Orleans. Whatever may have been the immediate 
 occasion for sucli frec|uent changes, they promoted zeal and 
 assiduity in office and made the intendant completely subservient 
 to the royal will. The office never became a sinecure. 
 
 Cases of absolute removal seem to have been comparatively 
 few. Larcherl was recalled from the intendancy of Chalons, 
 apparently for neglect of duty through repeated absences, but he 
 
 summarily all abuses and all attempts to evade the royal ordinances. Their ordinances 
 were to be regarded as final, with appeal only to the council of the Kin;,'. With the rise 
 of the intendants, th(!ir powers must have been greatly restrictod. 
 
 *Monin: Hist, admin, du Languedoc pendant I'intendance de /iasrille, p. 1. 
 
 i Journal d'Ollivier d'Ormesson, II. p. 431 et seii. 
 
 JBoislisle: Correspondance des intvndants, II. No. 41.
 
 14 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 afterward became President of the cliambrc des comptes at Paris. 
 When D'Arguesseau showed lack of necessary firmness for the 
 responsible intendancy of Languedoc, he was quietly recalled to 
 the conscil ctlt^tat, of which he was a member, and Basville was 
 made his successor.* And even when Marillac was recalled from 
 Poitou in disgrace he soon regained favor and was given another 
 intendancy. 
 
 The old feudal tendency for offices to become heritable crops 
 out occasionally in the efforts of certain intendants to secure the 
 succession in office to their sons. When a father had proved his 
 efficiency by long years of service, his petition was sometimes 
 granted. After twenty years of service in the intendancy of 
 Provence, Lebret was succeeded by his son, who had been for 
 several years associated with him. De Bouville pressed the project 
 of creating a new generality of Chartres, in the hope that he might 
 be transferred thither and so be near his son, who, he fondly 
 hoped, would be given the intendancy of Alen^on. If his son 
 were thought too young, he offered to assume both intendancies 
 until the young man acquired the necessary experience for so 
 responsible a post.f The project fell through, but the younger 
 Bouville subsequently became intendant at Alengon. Such cases 
 became more frequent in the following century, when, for 
 example, three generations of the Chauvelin family succeeded with 
 a single break to the intendancy of Picardy.-t 
 
 The government of Louis XIV. expressed no objection to 
 plurality of offices, so that many intendants retained their position 
 even after they had been appointed conseillers d' J^tat. Lebret was 
 intendant of Provence and also first president of the Parlement 
 of Aix.§ If the intendant was spurred to assiduity in office by the 
 fear of removal or transference, he was perhaps no less influenced 
 by the hope of reward. His ardent ambition was a place in the 
 conseil a Etat. "Apres vingt anneesd'absence de Paris," wrote one 
 intendant to the controleur, "pendant laquelles j'ay tasche de ne rien 
 omettre pour I'ex^cution des ordres de S. M., avec une fidelite et 
 un desinteressement que j'ose dire avoir este sans reserve, souf- 
 
 * Monin, pp. 2, 3. 
 
 t Boislisle, II. No. 875. 
 
 X Boyer de Ste. Suzanne: Les intendants de la geiicralile d' Amiens, Appendice. 
 
 § Marchand, pp. 20 et .seq.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 
 
 15 
 
 frez-moy la liberte de vous demander I'honneur de vostre protec- 
 tion, en cas de quelque vacance de place au Conseil. Encore que 
 M. de Marillac, qui me succeda k I'intendance de Poitiers, soit 
 aujourd'huy le premier montant des conseillers d'Estat semestres, 
 et qu'il semble que je doive peu esperer, apr^s que tant de per- 
 sonnes moins agees que moy et moins anciennes dans I'employ 
 ont este placees, si j'ay le bonheur de vous voir persuade en ma 
 faveur, je ne despereray point d'un moment heureux qui me donne 
 la consolation qu'ont eue les sieurs des Hameaux et de Miromenil, 
 mes deux oncles, de mourir conseiller d'Estat."* 
 
 The salary of the intendant varied with the importance of the 
 generality to which he was assigned. De Breteuil at Amiens 
 received a yearly income of 12,000 livres,t while de Bouville at 
 Orleans received 18,300 livres.l An allowance of 100 livres per 
 month was also made for the intendant's secretary.§ The intend- 
 ants were the recipients of many perquisites. Upon appointment 
 of his successor in the intendancy of Dauphine, Boucher received 
 as an annual pension the 6,000 livres which he had drawn regularly 
 for fourteen years as a ^^gratificationr\ 
 
 The intendants were not troubled by excessive modesty. 
 When Le Gendre at Montauban wrote to thank the cojitroleuriov 
 a pension accorded his sub-delegate, he unblushingly requested a 
 similar pension to reimburse himself for numerous expenses 
 which he recounted at some length. The colossal effrontery of 
 the man appears in the closing passages of this precious missive: 
 "Vous savez que je suis seul dans cette province, et que, si je 
 ne soutenois pas le caractere dont vous m'avez revetu avec un 
 peu de dignite, cela pourroit diminuer la consideration que vous 
 aimez que vos cr(§atures [sic] s'attirent ; et peut-etre que le Roi 
 n'en seroit pas si bien servi. Ouoique je sois un des plus pauvres 
 intendants du royaume, j'aime mieux manger mon bien, n'etant 
 pas possible que mon revenu, joint aux seuls appointements d'inten- 
 dant, puisse sufhre aux ddpenses que je suis oblige de faire, quoique 
 bien reglees, que de ne pas vivre avec honneur dans la place ou 
 
 ♦Boislisle, I. No. 9.?6. Shortly after this same intendant asked for the position of 
 first president of the I'arlement of Rouen. 
 
 t Boyer de Ste. Suzanne, p. TiSa. 
 
 t'Boislisle, II. No. 875 note. 
 
 § Boyer de Ste. Siizn.nne, p. 588. 
 Boislisle, I. No. 840. 
 
 II Boislisle, I. No. 784. A similar pension was awarded to Basville. The assembly 
 Of Bresse gave a gratillcation of 1600 livres to the intendant. Boislisle, I. No. 169 note.
 
 16 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 vous m'avez mis. Je prencls la liberte de vous presenter sur cela 
 un placet, dans lequel j'expose mon etat au naturel; je vous sup- 
 plie de vouloir bien en parler au Roi, quand vous le trouverez a 
 propos. Je mets toute ma confiance en vos bont^s. La moindre 
 pension, qui seroit pour moi un glorieux titre d'honneur, me met- 
 troit en etat de ne point deranger mes affaires en executant vos 
 ordres, et feroit connoitre au public que vous etes content 
 de mes services. C'est ou je borne toute mon ambition."* 
 The response of the controleiir was, "La conjoncture n'est pas 
 favorable pour obtenir une pension." But it should be added 
 in all fairness that many intendants had to rely on other sources 
 of income besides their salary, to meet the expenses which their 
 social duties imposed upon them.f 
 
 As the absolute monarchy came to meddle more and more 
 with the local concerns of the provinces, the duties of the intend- 
 ants became more numerous and exacting. It was often a physi- 
 cal impossibility for an intendant properly to inform himself of the 
 state of the different parishes of his generality, much less to secure 
 the enforcement of ordinances designed to reach disorders in them. 
 He was obliged to rely on helpers, and in most cases he sought 
 men of influence in their communities, to whom he might safely 
 delegate his authority in exigencies that arose. This practice of 
 sub-delegating, at first resorted to only as special occasion 
 required, t received the tacit approval of the conseil 2ind speedily 
 became universal. It was, of course, open to grave abuses. An 
 intendant who was disposed to make his office a sinecure might 
 em.ploy a small army of sub-delegates to attend to the irksome 
 details of his office. Such cases, indeed, were not wanting. 
 "Je ne puis pas m'empescher," wrote Colbert to an intendant 
 in 1674, "de vous donner avis que ce qui fait le plus de peine au 
 Roy sur tout ce qui regarde la conduite de MM. les commissaires 
 d^partis dans les provinces, § c'est le nombre de subdelegues qu'ils 
 establissent dans tons les lieux de leurs departements, lesquels 
 s'attribuent, de leur chef, I'autorite de prendre connoissance de 
 toutes sortes d'affaires, et qui abusent tr^s-souvent d'un pouvoir 
 
 *Boislisle, II. No. 114.=). A similar request in Boislisle, I. No. 840. 
 t Boislisle, 11. No. 1143. 
 * Leiires de Colbert, IV. p. 108, No. 98. 
 
 § The formula almost invarUiMy used in official documents of the old regime to 
 designate the intendants.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 17 
 
 qu'ils ne connoissent pas, et qu'ils estendent autant que leuis 
 fantaisies, leurs passions, et leurs interests leur suggercnt."* 
 On the other hand, it should be said that there were intendants 
 who displayed indefatigable zeal, employing sub-delegates only 
 as absolute necessity required.! Instances are not wanting where 
 intendants showed a rare amount of self-denial in the performance 
 of burdensome duties which could not be intrusted to other hands. 
 
 Many considerations entered into the choice of sub-delegates, 
 particularly when the office became firmly established. While it 
 was essential to have men who enjoyed consideration and respect 
 in their communities, and men who possessed tact and aptitude for 
 their duties, it was no less important that the sub-delegates should 
 be staunchly loyal to the king's interests. When this latter con- 
 dition was satisfied there was thought to be no incompatibility in 
 holding simultaneously the office of sub-delegate and a local 
 office. Consuls were often sub-delegates ;$ syndics, and occasion- 
 ally mayors, retained both offices. § Lebret declared (in 1704) 
 that all his sub-delegates were "gens dc justice y\ It was no 
 uncommon thing for the clergy to act in this capacity. T Yet this 
 union of royal office and local office was watched with suspicion by 
 the people. The tiers etat of Beam protested vigorousl)' when their 
 syndic became also a sub-delegate. They insisted that he resign 
 one office or the other, and they seem to have carried their point. ""= 
 
 A common practice was that of choosing a sub-delegate- 
 general, who, upon commission from the king, discharged the 
 duties of the intendant during the Litter's enforced absence.'' In 
 Pau, precedent seems to have designated the First President of the 
 Parlement for sub-delegate-general of that generality, but in one 
 case, at least, the choice fell upon a counselor of the Parlement. 
 There was probably no established precedent elsewhere. 
 
 * Lettres de Colbert, IV. p. 108, No. 98. 
 
 t Marfhiind. pp. .=i5. iSfi. Lebret boasted that )io had but ono sub-dolej^ate. but be 
 ci.Tlainly employed others for special purposes. 
 
 t Boislisle, II. No. lii'.io. 
 
 §Boislisle, II. No. 1112. Boislisle, II. No. 2ri. 
 
 II Boislisle, II. No. !S«o. 
 
 % Boislisle. I. No. 17-17. 
 Marchand, p. 5«. 'Une liste de subd(-levrues [ot Provence) serait extrCmement 
 vt'.ric'e: on y trouveralt non seulement des ma^'istrats, mais dcs hommes dt^pde et mSme 
 des hommes d'eglise." 
 
 =- Boislisle, II. No. 1112. 
 
 " Boyer de Ste. Suzanne, p. 29. 
 
 t Boislisle. II. No. 701. Where illuess or other cause prevented the iiitoudanl from
 
 18 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAI- AGENT 
 
 The edict of 1704 which made the sub-delegate a regular 
 officer of the administration probably brought about no radical 
 change in the office aside from greater fixedness. The ostensible 
 motive for this step appears in the preamble : "Le ministere de ces 
 employes est devenu sy important et leurs fonctions sy etendues, 
 que nous avons juge a propos d'investir ceux quy las exerceront 
 k I'advenir, d'un caractere quy d'une part leur donne le relief et 
 I'autorite necessaire pour le bien de leurs devoirs avec plus 
 d'honneur et de desinteressement."* Underneath this official 
 verbiage, however, the real motive is but ill-disguised: the edict 
 was only one of many schemes for raising funds for the army of 
 the king. The office became thus hereditary and permanent, by 
 right of purchase, in each bishopric or bailiwick of the faj's d^tats, 
 and in the chief towns where sub-delegates already existed or 
 where necessity seemed to demand their establishment. The sub- 
 delegates were to receive all petitions addressed to the intendant 
 and to forward them as soon as possible, with added information 
 and advice. They were likewise to receive the orders of the 
 intendant, to coninnmicate them to the inaires, eschevins, conseils, 
 or syndics of their communities, and to see to the execution of 
 them. They were to assist in the assessment and levy of the taille 
 and other impositions, rendering to the intendant for this purpose 
 an exact account of their parish visitations.! These offices were 
 to be filled with "{)ersonnes capables que nous entre ceux de nos 
 sujets quy nous seront presentcs par les dits sieurs intendants 
 et comm''"- departy entre les mains desquels ils presteront le 
 serment." 
 
 At a time when royalty was insisting upon the observance of 
 court etiquette with the utmost rigor, it is no matter of surprise 
 to find the intendants insisting punctiliously upon petty forms 
 which they thought due to their social and political position, as 
 bearers of royal mandate. Their anxious concern for matters of 
 etiquette would have been ludicrous in an age less ardently 
 devoted to formalities, but in the seventeenth century failure in 
 the least punctilio was fatal to official influence and prestige. The 
 
 exercising his functions, other means were resorted to. When Be^on at RocheDe fell ill 
 and asUed for a three months' leave of absence, the controleur assigned Pinon of Poitou 
 to the va''anc\'. Pinon received a '•gratiflcation" of oOOO livres for these additional ser- 
 vices. Roislisle. II. No. 4Hfi. 
 
 * Reprinted amonff Pieces justificaUves in Boyer de Ste. Suzanne, p. 5S3. 
 
 + Roislisle. I. No. VSXi. gives an iuterosting instruction given by an inten lant to 
 his sub-delegates ''iwur faire la visite des bl^s."
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 19 
 
 Correspondance administrative records more than a few petty 
 wrangles over questions of precedence in the provincial estates. 
 The intendant in Bretigny relates a quarrel that arose between 
 himself and the First President over their respective positions in 
 the opening procession of the assembly. The usage had always 
 been for tlie intendant to be accompanied by the lieutenants gen- 
 eral, while the two commissioners of the <:-<?//Jt'z7 preceded him, and 
 the First President with the former president followed. In the 
 absence of the lieutenants general, the First President claimed the 
 right to accompany the intendant. The intendant protested vigor- 
 ously and absolutely refused to suffer this presumption. Matters 
 were smoothed over finally by the tact of M. le Marechal de 
 Chateaurenault, who had the intendant walk at his left.* The 
 incident, trivial enough in itself, assumed great proportions in the 
 eyes of the intendant, for he felt that his social and political pres- 
 tige was at stake. Where there was a fair show of reason on the 
 side of the intendants, the conseil du rot usually sustained their 
 claims, justly feeling that it must secure respect for the personnel 
 of the service. When an intendant of Auvergne felt himself 
 aggrieved by certain imputations from the presidial of Clermont, 
 that body received peremptory orders to go to the house of the 
 intendant and to give him satisfaction ''en ternies honnetesy^ 
 
 There can be no doubt that the intendants were socially ambi- 
 tious, and nearly all show a disposition to rnagnify their office. 
 Larcher, intendant in the town of Chalons, urged that the state 
 purchase a house to serve as a fitting residence for the intendant. 
 He supported his petition in this fashion: "Je ne sais si pareille 
 chose s'est jamais pratiquee, mais Ton voit tons les jours faire de 
 semblables impositions t pour les bureaux des tresoriers de France 
 on }MMir les logemens des elections ou autres compagnies, et Ton 
 pourroit, ce mc semble, a plus forte raison, en ordonner de mesnie 
 pour le logement d'un intendant, qui, en faisant les affaires du 
 Roy, travaille aussy a celles dc la generalite, et qui doit estre log^ 
 convcnablement a son caractere, surtout dans une ville de passage 
 telle que celle-cy, ou il est souvent oblige de recevoir de grands 
 
 * Boislislp, II. No. 915. Another instanco in Boislisle. II. No. 1029. In this ciiso the 
 government did not approve of the pretcnsion.s of the intendant. 
 
 t noislislf, I, No. \m\. 
 
 % He had suKffe.sted a general tax on the irenerality to defray tlie cost of the pro- 
 posed mansion.
 
 20 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 seigneurs et quelquefois des princes."* This last statement was 
 not overdrawn. It sometimes did fall to the lot of the intendants 
 to entertain members of the royal family, but with the worry and 
 expense which such visits seem to have entailed upon the intend- 
 ant and the community, the honor was rather a doubtful one.j 
 
 Nothing is more hazardous than to attempt to estimate the 
 personal character of the intendants during the reign of Louis 
 XIV. Individual estimates are indeed possible, but sweeping 
 generalizations are inadmissible, so long as the official corre- 
 spondence remains the prime source of authority. Contemporary 
 estimates are so palpably partisan that it would be folly to give 
 unreserved credence to either side. When the mayor and 
 consuls of Montauban wrote an ardent eulogy of the intendant, 
 and addressed it to the chancellor, he replied that nothing could 
 be more to the intendant's credit if all that they had said were 
 dictated by no other motive than fear of losing him, but he 
 added significantly, "comme tout ce que vous m'escriv6s en sa 
 faveur n'est qu'une repetition de ce qui m'a est^ escrit le mesme 
 jour de plusieurs endroits, il est a apprehender pour luy que ce 
 concert ne diminue beaucoup de la force de tous ces tesmoignages, 
 et qu'on ne les regarde comme des eloges visiblement mendies/'t 
 Such instances warn against implicit confidence in "unsolicited" 
 testimonials even of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Evidence of corruption among the intendants is scanty. 
 Here and there an intendant was found implicated in fraud and 
 peculation, but such cases, if frequent, were effectually concealed. 
 Suspicions are aroused, it is true, when an intendant writes a 
 letter denying that he made 50,000 6cus by issuing passports to 
 grain-dealers. § He may have been honest, — the tone of the letter 
 indicates that he was, — but the opportunity for amassing private 
 fortunes in this way is apparent, and may have been secretly used 
 by some intendants. What creates a strong supposition in favor 
 of the general honesty of the intendants, is the fact that they kept 
 in such close contact with the conscil. Where a correspondence, 
 at once so minute and so comprehensive, is sustained between 
 
 * noislisle, I. No. Ifi82. 
 Foucault was domiciled in the chateau de Pau, "meubl6 des meubles de la 
 couronno," where his wife bore him a daughter, born, he records with pride, "dans le 
 lit ou est ne le roi Henri IV."— Afe'moires, p. 93 and p. 108. 
 
 t'Boislislc, II. Nos. 2.S(i and 335. 
 
 X Depping, I. p. 954, No. 21.5. 
 
 § Boislisle, I. No. 125.S.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 21 
 
 subordinate and superior, the possibility of undetected dishonesty 
 is small indeed. Tliere is almost no subject upon which the letters 
 of the intendants to the ministers of state do not touch. So long- 
 as the ministry kept a firm hold upon the pulse of the intendants, 
 irregularities of heart action were easily detected, for the service 
 of the king demanded a whole-heairted devotion.* 
 
 *The controleur once wrote to Turgot at Tours, "La situation des affaires demand* 
 un homme tout entiers."— Boislisle, II. No. 499.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE INTENDANT AS FINANCIAI. AND JUDICIAI, OFFFCER. 
 
 Any attempt to find uniform regulations prescribing in detail 
 the duties of the intendants, must prove futile, for the simple 
 reason that none ever existed. Instructions covering special cases 
 or even classes of cases are many, but general regulations there 
 are none. The commission of each intendant was addressed 
 directly to him and was never registered in Parlement. Moreover, 
 these commissions not only varied between one intendant and 
 another, but even altered their character as the intendant gave up 
 one intendancy to assume another. Generalizations seem thus 
 extremely hazardous at the very outset. But when all due allow- 
 ance has been made for local variation, there still remain phases 
 of the institution which are common to all intendants. In 
 matters of finance, and particularly in the assessment and super- 
 vision of the taille, the functions of the intendants present great- 
 est uniformity, but even in these cases the uniformity is more 
 apparent than real. In the/(7/.f cTetatsXht. imposition and collec- 
 tion of the taille was entirely under the control of the estates or 
 of commissioners appointed by them. The intendant might direct 
 and supervise, but he might not control. In the pays d'election 
 the case was diliferent, for, although originally the assessment of 
 the taille was the work of elective officers, — the chis, — they had 
 ceased to have any real independence, yielding to the intendants 
 as royal agents. 
 
 The phraseolog)' of the commission given to de Breteuil, 
 intendant at Amiens, is, perhaps, typical of those addressed to 
 intendants in the pays d' election. "Vous faire representer les 
 d^partemens des rolles de tallies et de I'impost du sel, vous trans- 
 porter dans toutes les paroisses pour examiner et recognoistre sy 
 lesdicts rolles ont est6 bien et dubment faits suivant nos ordon- 
 nances et r^glements, vous enquerir des sommes quy auront est6 
 exig^es par chacune annee dans lesdictes paroisses pour frais 
 d'huissiers et sergens et des concussions faites tant par eux que
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 23 
 
 par les receveurs et commis aux receptes, informer pareillement 
 des abus et malversations quy pourraient avoir est6 faites dans 
 
 lesdits d^partmens des tailles dc'cerner toutes ordon 
 
 nances et viser toutes constraintes n^cessaires pour le recouvre- 
 ment de nos diets deniers, mesme faire compter par devant vous 
 tons les receveurs g<^n6raux et particuliers de nos finance et 
 autres quy ont eu le maniement de nos diets deniers, assister et 
 
 pr6sider au d^partement d'iceux taxer d'office les 
 
 principaux habitans des paroisses quy se seraient fait d^charger 
 trop modiquement par leur credit et violence, et g6n6rallement 
 agir ail regard des tailles selon et ainsy qu'il est port6 par nos 
 ordonnances."* 
 
 The bare outline of such commissions was filled in by minute 
 instructions sent out yearly to all the intendants of the pays 
 d' Election by the controleur general. Special emphasis was laid 
 upon the visitations of the intendants in their departments, as a 
 necessary preliminary for determining the amount of the taille. 
 Certain injunctions repeat themselves year after year. The 
 intendant is urged to observe the resources of each election, the 
 taxes with which it is burdened, the condition of the tax-bearers, 
 the manner in which taxes are collected, the conduct of receivers, 
 abuses and the remedy for them, the condition of the farming 
 lands and of trade, and, in general, everything that will aid in 
 making up the annual list of the taille.^ Upon the reports of 
 these annual visitations the conseil des finances relied in fixing 
 the brevet de la taille, X which was usually sent in July to the 
 treasurer and the intendant of each generality. Accompanying 
 this was an order to prepare the assessment. Treasurer and 
 intendant then submitted their report, and in September commis- 
 sions were sent through the intendant to the treasurer, who, i.i 
 turn, passed them on to the officers of each election. Finally, in 
 October, the intendant and the treasurer went into each election, 
 and in the presence of the Mils formally announced the amount to 
 be raised by the collectors. § 
 
 At first sight, the association of the treasurer with the intend- 
 ants seems to imply almost a parity of power between them, but 
 
 ♦ Boyer de Ste. Suzanne: Pieces just., pp. 577 et se(i. 
 t See among other letters, IJoislisle, I. Nos. 374, .n71; Colbert, II. p. 374. 
 $The expression mifrht be loosely translated by the English term budget. 
 SThis procedure is indicated in Colbert. U. p. 83, No. 38; Colbert, II. p. 13 note: 
 Depping, III. p. 233.
 
 24 THE INTENDAXT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 such a supposition is wide of the mark. The intcndant possessed 
 the determinative influence in the distribution of the burden of 
 taxation between parish and parish, as the letters of Colbert prove 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt.* It is to be noted, too, that 
 wliile the local collectors assessed the individuals of each parish 
 according to their own judgment, they were not so independent 
 as might be inferred. They were constantly under the eye of 
 the intcndant or of his sub-delegates. Besides, the intendant 
 possessed the reserved right to tax any person, or persons, whom 
 the collector had passed over, or to augment the tax of those 
 who had been unduly favored. This arbitrary power — taxer d' office 
 — the intendant was repeatedly urged by the government to exer- 
 cise "pour le soulagement des peuples."t Individuals thus taxed 
 might, it is true, obtain relief through the cour des aides,% but 
 an arret dit conseil would effectively sustain the intendant and 
 quash all decisions of other bodies. § To dull the other edge of 
 what might prove to be a double-edged weapon, the government 
 forbade the intendant to use this power to decrease the taxation 
 of any individual. || 
 
 Although the intendant was not allowed to diminish the 
 amount of the taille on his own responsibility, he was expected 
 to keep the government informed of losses which his province 
 might have sustained through failure of crops or other cause, and 
 to notify the government when a lightening of the tax burden 
 seemed absolutely imperative. He was to take care to distribute 
 the tailie so as to relieve those districts which had suffered from 
 reverses of any sort ; the strong were to bear the burdens of the 
 weak. II Aid to an unfortunate generality was not always bestowed 
 by diminishing the taille. In many cases the king preferred to send 
 money to the sufferers; and the intendant then became the dis- 
 penser of the royal charities, — charities, it should be said, which 
 were numerous and for the most part wisely directed." In one 
 instance the king sent to an intendant 20,000 livres to be distributed 
 in a parish that had been ravaged by a hail storm, but with this 
 sagacious warning: "11 faut bien prendre garde de ne pas mettre 
 
 * Depping, III. p. 34. 
 
 t Colbert, II. p. 148, No. 97; also p. 154, No. 106. 
 
 X One of the numerous administrative courts. 
 
 § A good example of this in Colbert, II. p. 212, No. 177. 
 
 II Colbert, II. p. 266, No. 233. 
 
 IBoislisle, I. No. 461. 
 
 o Boislisle, I. Nos. 227, 378, 692, 937.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 26 
 
 les peuples sur le pied de recevoir ainsy des diminutions et grati- 
 fications toutes les fois qu'il tombera quelque gresle. Ces sortes 
 de secours extraordinaires, que S. M. ne refuse jamais dans 
 les besoins pressans, ne doivent pas s'appliquer a beaucoup 
 d'occasions, dans lesquelles il souffroit bien souvent d'user de 
 management et d'apporter un peu plus d'application qu'a I'ordi- 
 naire, pour exciter le travail et I'industrie des contribuables."* 
 
 Thrown sometimes upon his own resources, the intendant 
 had to provide for the poor of certain parishes by appealing to 
 the well-to-do classes for voluntary charities. And when such 
 appeals met with no response, he did not hesitate to employ more 
 drastic means. Chauvelin at Amiens threatened to quarter poor 
 families upon certain affluent individuals whose purses did not 
 open readily, and he was as good as his word ; he housed several 
 families in this fashion, with results so gratifying that he hastened 
 to recount his praiseworthy deeds to the appreciative contrdleiir.^ 
 
 Collectors of taxes were chosen by the inhabitants of each 
 parish and were made personally responsible for the sums to be 
 raised. If for any reason they were unable to collect the amount 
 assessed, they might be imprisoned at the solicitation of the 
 receivers. This fate befell many an unlucky collector. In Tours 
 so many collectors were imprisoned that Colbert wrote a sharp 
 letter to the intendant, bidding him to inquire into this lamentable 
 state of things. $ Inquiries brought to light an iniquitous practice, 
 which was probably not confined to a single generality. It 
 seems that certain shrewd individuals in a community would 
 sometimes secure the election of a collector who they felt 
 reasonably sure would be willing to go to prison for insolvency, 
 if he and his family were sufficiently remunerated. It was far 
 more economical to support an insolvent collector in prison than 
 it was to pay the faille. Such practices were hard to root out, and 
 the intendant often found himself utterly unable to reach the 
 guilty parties. Moreover, the collectors themselves were often 
 guilty of petty fraud, receiving gratifications, for example, for 
 partially remitting the ta.xes of unscrupulous individuals. 
 
 With imprisonment menacing them in default of payment, 
 it is not strange that collectors resorted to every means in their 
 
 ♦Boislisle. I. No. 468. 
 tBoislisle. I. No. 1174. 
 t Colbert, II. p. 71, No. 19.
 
 26 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 power to extort money, or its equivalent, from the tax-payers. A 
 royal ordinance forbade the seizure of beasts of burden for non- 
 payment of the taillc, but the rule seems to have been honored 
 more in the breach than in the observance. Colbert explained the 
 situation by saying that the king desired to check the arbitrary 
 seizure of live stock by collectors, without depriving them, how- 
 ever, of the power to use this means as a last resort.* This left 
 to the intendants the delicate, and rather dubious, task of deciding 
 when an ordinance of His Majesty should be deliberately 
 transgressed. 
 
 Custom permitted the use of luiissiers and sergens by col- 
 lectors to force payments, but they resorted not infrequently to 
 the still more dreaded porteurs de constraintes and to logeme?its 
 effectifs.\ This latter practice was discouraged by the king, 
 although it was not absolutely forbidden. "Vous devez travailler 
 par tous les moyens possibles a retrancher la constrainte par loge- 
 
 ment effectif dans I'estendue de vostre gen^ralite 
 
 Travaillez a I'oster pour restablir la constrainte par voye d'huissier, 
 s'il est possible." t But the course of the government was far 
 from consistent. Instances abound where, at the urgent request 
 of an intendant, the government sanctioned the use of the soldiery 
 to secure payments of the taille. To the intendant at Bourges, 
 Colbert wrote in 1662: "J'ai ecrit un billet a M. le Marquis de 
 Louvois pour I'exp^dition des ordres que vous avez demand^s, 
 afin de loger des troupes dans les paroisses de vostre gen6ralit6 
 qui refusent de payer la taille suivant le role que vous en avez 
 envoy6, de sorte que je crois que si vous ne les avez pas encore 
 re^us vous les recevrez incessamment."§ On the back of a similar 
 petition from the intendant at Limoges in 1708 the controlejir 
 wrote : " Lui ecrire de manager les constraintes avec prudence. 
 Avertir, avant que d'envoyer les soldats, qu'on ait a payer dans 
 un terme certain; si non, qu'au jour marqu6 ils seront loges dans 
 les maisons de ceux qui refusent de payer."|| It is well to bear 
 
 ♦Colbert, II. p. 168, No. 121. 
 
 t It is difficult to find English equivalents for these terms. Huissiers ^.nA.iergena 
 might possibly be rendered by the terms hailiff and constable; both were officers associ- 
 ated with judicial tribunals. For porteur de constraintes, the term sheriff would be a 
 fair equivalent. The expression loyements effectifs refers to the practice, explained below, 
 of quartering soldiers to intimidate obstinate tax-bearers. 
 
 t Colbert, II. p. 224, No. 189. 
 
 § Colbert, IL.p. 234, No. 201. 
 
 I Boislisle, II. No. 1371 note. Other instances in Boislisle, I. Nos. 176, 706, 1623; 
 also II. Nos. 781, 1252.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 27 
 
 these instances in mind in discussing the "unparalleled" treatment 
 of the Protestants by logements effectifs. 
 
 Quite as instructive is the part which the intendant played in 
 \.\iQ pays d'etats in securing from the estates the grant of the don 
 gratuit. The intendant and the governor, or the lieutenant- 
 governor, were usually the representatives of the crown in these 
 provincial assemblies. As the titular representative of the royal 
 power, the governor formally opened the session, but he rarely 
 appeared in the assembly thereafter. When the deliberations 
 actually began, it was the intendant who presented the demands 
 or wishes of the crown, and stated the amount of the don gratuit 
 that was expected. It was the intendant, too, rather than the 
 governor, upon whom the government relied to persuade the 
 assembly to yield to the royal demands. In the earlier part of 
 the reign of Louis XIV., at least, the provincial estates had not 
 been reduced to that spirit of servile obedience which they showed 
 in the eighteenth century. The don gratnit had long since lost 
 its original meaning, to be sure, but the form of voluntary gift 
 was preserved and the amount desired by the crown was secured 
 only with the greatest difficulty. 
 
 It was customar}' for the commissioners to demand a sum 
 considerably larger than that which they were secretly authorized 
 to take, while the estates would at first vote a much smaller sum, 
 only to agree, in most cases, upon the sum which the commis- 
 sioners were bidden to accept.* The tactics of the intendant 
 would do credit to a modern politician at a political convention. 
 It was thought to be of considerable importance that the arch- 
 bishop chosen to preside over the assembly should be one well- 
 disposed to the king. In this matter the knowledge of the 
 intendant stood the government in good stead, for if his influence 
 was not great enough to secure the choice of his favorite, he 
 could at least put the court in possession of information that 
 would bring about the desired result. Sundry letters to the 
 bishops of the province would leave them in no doubt as to the 
 choice of the king, and woe betide them if they ventured to cross 
 the will of His Majesty ! t 
 
 Since it was of greater importance to secure the subserviency 
 of the deputies, the intendant left no stone unturned "pour 
 
 *See Depping. 1. passim. 
 tDepping, I. p. 8a, No. 23.
 
 28 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 mesnager les esprits et les eschauffer." On occasions he resorted 
 unblushingly to downright bribery. Wrote one intendant: "Si 
 \()us voulez que pour faciliter les affaires du roi Ton y fasse 
 quelque depense, mandez-le-moi, s'il vous plaist, pour prendre ses 
 mesures de bonne heure." On the margin of this note Colbert 
 wrote in assent, "Qaelqjie depcnsey* Even after the session 
 had begun, the intendant continued to make his influence felt. 
 In the general assemblyf of Provence, the deputies were wont 
 to deliberate for several days behind closed doors, to the exclu- 
 sion of the royal commissioners. These secret sessions were 
 extremely objectionable to the intendant Lebret. He and the 
 Archbishop of Aix put their heads together and finally decided 
 to take a bold stand against the practice. Next year the intendant 
 resolutely kept his seat, when the time caine for him to withdraw, 
 and the estates, taken by surprise, voted, without a dissenting 
 voice, the 600,000 livres demanded by the king. I The presence 
 of the intendant, the delegated emissary of the king, in these 
 provincial assemblies, was undoubtedly a potent cause for their 
 becoming facile and harmless instruments of the central govern- 
 ment.§ The reflection that this outwardly unassuming officer 
 was watching with lynx-eyed sharpness his every move, and 
 noting his most casual words, quickened more than one indififereni 
 deputy into at least ostensible zeal for the service of the king.|| 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that in these earlier years of the 
 reign the governor was a mere figure-head, but it is true that the 
 balance of power in the pays d'etats was steadily gravitating 
 to the intendant. IF Although the governor and intendant act 
 together as royal commissioners, and address joint reports to 
 the controleur, it is evident that greater reliance is placed upon 
 
 ♦Depping, I. p. 51, No. 5. 
 Another intendant wrote. .-"Nous avons este obliges de vous servir du secours que 
 vous avez trouv^ bon que I'on prist pour faciliter I'affaire du roy; je vous en envoiroy 
 le detail par le premier ordinaire, et les noms de ceux qui ont receu ces gratifications."— 
 Dapping, I. p. 123, No. 46. 
 
 tThe FJats provinciaux of Provence had given way to a less independent assembly 
 called the assemblee generale. 
 
 tMarchand, p. 98. A similar practice was in vogue in the estates of Languedoc: 
 Monin, p. 131. 
 
 § See the testimony of the Bishop of Marseille: Depping, I. p. 405. 
 
 II Depping, I. p. 217, No. 101, gives a memoire on the conduct of an assembly sub- 
 mitted by one intendant to Colbert: "M. de Viviers a faict tout ce qui dependait de luy, 
 
 avec zfele et affection. M. de Saint-Pons a toujours este oppose a tout M. de 
 
 Polignac, bien. M. de Rabat, M. de Gouges, M. de Saint-Sulpice, idem." 
 
 M. de Saint-Pons was forbiddea by letter from the King to attend the next 
 assembly. 
 
 1 See the admirable discussion of the position of the governor in Marchand, Chap- 
 ter IL
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 29 
 
 the intendant, who by the very nature of his office is better 
 informed on local administrative affairs. Immediately after the 
 intendant and his colleague had submitted their joint report, 
 the intendant would frequently address a private missive to the 
 co)ity6leur, relating, confidentially, this or that aspect of the polit- 
 ical situation. "J'ai fait voir au Roy particulierement," wrote 
 Colbert to the intendant at Toulouse, "le memoire secret que vous 
 m'avez envoy^, concernant la diversity des avis qui ont est^ portes 
 4 la derniere deliberation, et Sa Majesty a fort bien remarqu^ ceux 
 qui se sont distingu^s par leur zele a contribuer a sa satisfaction, 
 et les autres qui s'en sont ^loignes en opinant autrement ; et vous 
 ne devez pas craindre que je vous commettre en rien, ni en cela, 
 ni en toutes les autres choses que vous me manderez en 
 confidence.''* On the reverse side of scores of letters addressed 
 to the controlejir genera/ by the governor and the lieutenant- 
 governor of Provence, were written in the hand of the contrdleiw 
 such significant memoranda as these: "Se concerter avec M. 
 Lebret ;" "Savoir la v^rite de M. Lebret."t 
 
 An important financial mission forced upon the intendants 
 was that of supervising the finances of the towns and smaller 
 communities. The commission to de Breteuil, who was made 
 intendant at Amiens, read : "Verifier les dettes des communautez 
 jugez de la validite d'icelles ensemble les proces pour raison 
 desdicts debtes et de leurs cautions et co-oblig6s dont elles sont 
 garant^s et leur accorder les d61ais et les tolerances que vous 
 estimerez n^cessaires vous faire representer les comptes de ceux 
 quy ont en maniement des denr^es communs et d'octrois 
 desdictes villes ensemble les pieces justificatives d'iceux vous en 
 attribuent a cette fin toute jurisdiction et connaissance sauf I'appel 
 en nostre conseil d'icelle.$ The reports of the intendants reveal 
 an almost unparalleled history of corruption and maladministra- 
 tion in these communities. Bouchu reported three small towns 
 in his generality, which together had an indebtedness of 1,500,000 
 livres. The disasters of war had caused part of this, but the 
 corrupt administration of the last quarter of a century was largely 
 responsible for it. Maires and ^chevins would fix the amount to 
 
 ♦Colbert, IV. p. 44, No. 20. This letter uccompaiiied the report of the royal 
 commissioners. 
 
 tMarchand. p. 75. 
 
 tBoyer de Ste. Suzanne, Pieces just., p. 578.
 
 30 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 be raised far above the immediate municipal needs, and then 
 either coolly pocket the surplus, or expend it in celebrations and 
 festivities.* Towns often squandered large amounts in endless 
 litigations and in useless expenses of one sort and another.! 
 
 It was this chronic state of disorder that the government 
 undertook to remedy. One of the first cares of Colbert was to 
 rid the communities of their indebtedness, "cette vermine qui les 
 rouge continuellement." Again and again, in letters to each and 
 all, he urges the intendants to effect the liquidation of the debts 
 of the towns, t The task was a heavy one, as the controlcur him- 
 self admitted,§ and more than one intendant found himself help- 
 less before the rings and the bosses of these unhappy communities. 
 When the intendant addressed himself to his task and summoned 
 the inhabitants of a village to assign to their creditors, he would 
 often meet with no response except from the poorer people, who 
 were totally ignorant of public affairs ; the really responsible 
 parties would simply ignore the summons. || In the larger towns 
 the opposition was scarcely less effective, though it was, perhaps, 
 less open. Summoned to present their accounts, the town officials 
 would resort to the most exasperating subterfuges and delays. 
 Under these circumstances, it is not surprising to find this work 
 of the intendants protracted through a long series of years. 
 
 Colbert was soon persuaded that all these efforts would be 
 only palliatives, if no measures were taken to prevent the commu- 
 nities from incurring new obligations and relapsing into their 
 previous condition. A few months of misfortune, or maladminis- 
 tration, sufficed in most cases to plunge small communities 
 into their former helplessness. In 1680 Colbert requested an 
 expression of opinion from the intendants in regard to measures 
 best adapted to meet these exigencies. If The intendants 
 
 * DeppinR, I. p. 606, No. .30. 
 
 tDepping, L p. 8,59, No. 110. 
 Boisli.sle, I. Nos. 1812, 47fi. 
 
 tin 1670 Colbert wrote, in a circular letter to the intendants, "La liquidation des 
 dettes des eommunautes estant importante au point que vous le sgavez pour le soulasje- 
 ment des peuples, il n'y a rien a quoy vous deviez donner plus de soin et d'application 
 qu"a la conclusion de cette affaire."'— Colbert, IV. p. .50, No. 3.5. 
 
 §'"Je sgais bien que ce travail n'est pas un travail d'un jour, mais j'estime que si 
 vous le commencez avec ordre, et que. sans embrasser toute la generalite, vous vous 
 contentiez de travailler a une seule election et que vous y donniez toute I'applicatioa 
 ndcessaire, vous aurez la satisfaction de voir avancer ce travail beaucoup plus mesme 
 que vous ne le croyez " — Colbert, IV. p. 146, No. 141. 
 
 II For a graphic description of the difficulties that one intendant encountered, see 
 Depping, I. p. 7.58. No. 67. 
 
 T Colbert, IV. p. 138, No. 133.
 
 UNDER LOUIS .\IV. 31 
 
 responded, each with his own project, but three years sHpped 
 away before the government adopted a workable scheme. 
 
 The details of the plan finally adopted have a right to a place 
 in these pages only in so far as they bring to mind the burden of 
 accumulated cares which the intendant bore. In the first place, 
 the system provided that town officials should submit to the 
 intendant of the generality a statement of the town revenues and 
 of the leases [dcj/n-] made during the previous ten years, together 
 with all town reports which had hitherto been made. With 
 these official records as a basis, the current expenses of the town, 
 up to a certain amount, were to be fixed by the intendant ; 
 beyond that amount, by the conseil du roi. These current 
 expenditures were to be met by the reveiines patrimoniajtx* or, if 
 these sources of revenue were wanting, by such ways and means 
 as the inhabitants should determine upon in assembly. The result 
 of these deliberations, with the intendant's advice, was then to be 
 submitted to the conseil for approval or disapproval. All sales, 
 loans, and alienations of property and of octrois, were forbidden 
 except in three cases; i. e., for the lodging of troops, for the 
 re-building of the naves of churches that had collapsed, and for 
 relief in time of pestilence. In these instances the people might 
 meet in assembly, and by a majority vote authorize the negotia- 
 tion of a loan, at the same time deciding how the loan should 
 eventually be paid. This action was then to be reported to the 
 intendant, who might approve it and authorize the loan. He was 
 then in turn to notify the conseil, in order that it might act 
 upon the ways and means proposed to repay the loan. The 
 moneys loaned were to be lodged in the hands of a receiver, 
 or of one of the prorriinent citizens, who, in the presence of the 
 intendant, was to render to the maire and echevins, or to the 
 assembled conmiunity, an exact account of his disbursements. 
 Creditors were forbidden to bring action against public officials, 
 even for the recovery of legitimate loans, except by written order 
 of the intendant. Communities and public officials were forbid- 
 den to begin any suit at law, or to send a deputation of citizens 
 to the royal court, without the consent of the people given in 
 assembly, and aj^proved by the intendant. The duration and the 
 expenses of such "deputations" were also to be regulated by the 
 
 ♦The expression is capable of various interpretations. What is meant is probably 
 the public lands or estates which yielded a revenue in the form of rent.
 
 32 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 intendant.* Re-affirmations of this edict in succeeding yearsf 
 indicate how difficult it was for even the watchful intendants 
 to bring order into the financial chaos of the communities. 
 
 Deputations to the court continued to be a fruitful source of 
 expense, even when honestly conducted, since they too often 
 served no other purpose than to satisfy the greed of certain 
 leaders of the ring that controlled local politics. I The royal 
 ministers did every'thing in their power to check this practice. 
 Colbert was most emphatic in his instructions on this point, since 
 he rightly held that nothing contributed more to the financial 
 ruin of communities. As a warning against future deputations, 
 he told one intendant that he had kept a deputy from Marseille 
 awaiting an audience three weeks !§ 
 
 Few tasks are more baffling than that of attempting to define 
 precisely the functions of the intendant in the administration ot 
 justice. The picture which France of the seventeenth century 
 presents, with its bewildering array of justices ivy a Irs, justices 
 eccUsiastiques, justices seigneuriales, and even justices inunici- 
 pales, is hazy at best, but it loses nerirly all its distinct outlines 
 when the peculiar relation of the intendants to the established 
 courts is brought into the field of vision, for it must be remem- 
 bered that no edict ever created the office, or exactly defined its 
 competence. Nevertheless, the task is not a hopeless one. Two 
 sources remain from which valuable information may be drav.n : 
 the commissions and the instructions of the intendants. Lament- 
 ably brief and woefully contradictory though they be, these 
 documents may be made to yield valuable facts, if they are con- 
 stantly compared with the reports of the intendants ; but, after 
 all, the surest course is to follow the intendant himself in his 
 labors, now here and now there. 
 
 True to the general nature of his office, the intendant 
 possessed, first and foremost, general supervisory and regulative 
 power over the courts of justice and over their personnel. The 
 
 ♦Isambert. XIX. No. 1055. 
 
 tit was re-issued in part in 1687 and 1703: Isambert. XX. Nos. 1263 and 1866. 
 
 tTwo astute politicians from Provence, who were sent on a deputation to Pari.« to 
 conduct a lawsuit, spent some 12,000 livres on their own account and reckoned in that 
 sum as part of their legitimate expenses. The intendant, however, was equal to [l^e 
 occasion and obliged them to make restitution: Boislisle, I. p. 476. 
 
 § Colbert, IV. p. 164, No. 163.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV, 33 
 
 commission of Breteuil read : "Inf.^rmer de tous les abbus quy 
 se commettent en radministration de la justice, soit en matieres 
 civiles par la longueur et la multiplicity de procedures inutiles 
 
 comme aussy des abbus quy se rencontrent aux frais 
 
 de la police, de tous les crimes qui resteront impunis, des raisons 
 et fauteurs de cette impunity, exciter mesme et provoquer sur ce 
 sujet suivant nos ordonnances les plaintes de ceux quy, par 
 quelque consideration que ce soit, n'ont os6 et n'ont pu se plaindre 
 jusqu'a present, informer d'office et decretter contre ceux quy se 
 trouveront coupables et contre lescjuels les juges ordinaires des 
 lieux ne procederaient pas selon le debvoir de leur charges et 
 envoier vos informations et decrets en nostre conseil."* Fur- 
 thermore, the intendant was enjoined to inspect the proch- 
 verbaux of the prevosts, of the inarec}ianx,'\ and of other inferior 
 courts, and also to review the officers of the court to see 
 if they are properly equipped and armed, "comme ils doibvent 
 estre pour le bien de nostre service." To follow the intendant 
 into all the varied activities which this comprehensive duty of 
 supen'ision and control inspired, would be a most remunerative 
 study, but for present purposes a mere sketch must suffice. 
 
 Soon after entering upon his duties as controleitr general and 
 leading counselor of the king, Colbert saw the need of reform 
 in the administration of justice. It was probably a first step in 
 this direction when he summoned the intendants to prepare 
 careful notes on the personnel of the various courts in their 
 generalities. $ It was a delicate undertaking. How well the 
 work was done, it is impossible to say. There is reason to 
 suspect that the personal equation often entered largely into 
 these estimates of character and efficiency; but the persistent 
 frequency with which such expressions as "inteirssd," ''de peu de 
 conscience^' "ainie' ses intirests^' repeat themselves, indicates a 
 sorry state of things in the provinces and the necessity of a sharp 
 
 * noyer de Ste. Suzanue, Pieces jiistijicatives, p. 581. 
 The commi.ssiou to Lebret is more concise: "Proceder au reKlement et rciforma- 
 tion de la justice selon nos ordonnances, reconnaitre si nos offlcicrs font leur devoir en 
 I'exercise et fonction do leurs charges. ouYr les plaintes et doliiauces de nos sujets. pour- 
 voir ou faire pourvoir sur icelles par les offlciers etablis sur les licux ou autres que vous 
 aviserez, ordonner aux procureurs dudit pays, consuls des villes et aux prevots des 
 mariichaux, leurs lieutenants grefflers et archers et autres nos justiciers. ce cjuc vous 
 verrez etre du bien de ladite province et de notre service."— Marchand, Pieces justifica- 
 tives, p. 362. 
 
 t These courts formed a part of the justice seigneur iale du roi. and took cognizance 
 of those cases, which, in earlier times, had belonged to the coniuitable of I'^'rance, as head 
 of the military tribunals. 
 
 i "Notes secrfetes sur le personnel de tous les Parlements et cours des comptes du 
 royaume."— Depping, II. p. 33.
 
 34 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 watch over the judiciary. Eternal vigilance was here the price 
 of simple justice. Charges of corruption are too frequent 
 throughout the reign to pemiit any doubt as to the venality of 
 the courts. "Je suis apres a faire le proces aux juges de village, 
 qui ruinent les peuples par la grande authorite qu'ils se donnent, 
 et qui traitent de tous les crimes a prix d'argent,"* wrote de 
 Berulle from Auvergne. Somewhat later, this same intendant 
 closed an account of the corrupt practices in the courts with the 
 pithy comment, "Enfin tout pille en ce pays!'' 
 
 The formulation of the Ordinance of 1667, — the Code Louis, 
 as it came to be called, — was another step forward in the reform 
 of the administration of justice.! Its purpose is indicated in the 
 preamble, where reform of the procedure of the courts in the 
 interest of despatch and uniformity is emphasized. $ Obvious 
 as the need of such reform was, the ordinance met with resolute 
 opposition from many of the parlements; that of Pau resisted 
 with exasperating obstinacy for nearly a score of years. § Again 
 the government had to rely on the intendants, and again they 
 proved themselves equal to the occasion. 
 
 By virtue of his commission the intendant was empowered to 
 form a special tribunal and pass judgment in last resort upon 
 certain cases, with appeal only to the conseil; in a certain sense, 
 he was himself part of the judicial machinery of the government. 
 Although the form of the commissions varied, the competence of 
 the intendants was substantially the same. The language of one 
 commission was : "Voulant que des cas susditesH et des contraven- 
 tions a nos ordonnances, exactions, exces, violences, assassinats, 
 et autres crimes, meme des rebellions et autres oppositions ou 
 empechements qui pourraient etre apportes directement ou indi- 
 rect ement a la levee de nos droit, soit par nos sujets de ladite 
 province et terres adjacentes, soit par lesdits gens de guerre vous 
 avez a faire et parfaire le proems aux coupables jusques a juge- 
 
 * Boislisle, I. No. 24.5. 
 Foucault reported from Beam: "Les offlciers du Parlement sent peu instruits 
 et mal iatentionncs pour la justice. lis ont peu de soumission aux ordres du Roy et 
 du conseil. II n'y a aucune regie dans la forme de rendre les .iugements, les offlciers 
 demeurent souvent juges dans leur propre cause ou de leurs parens.'' — Boislisle, L 
 No. 47. 
 
 tCheruel, II. p. 263 et seq. 
 
 tisambcrt, XV^III. p. 103. 
 
 §The struggle of Foucault with this refractory parlement forms an interesting 
 chapter in the history of his intendancy: Memoires de FoucauH, p. 110. 
 
 II That is: "desordres," "menees secretes," "tous ports d"armes," "assemblies 
 illicites," "levees des gens de guerre sans commissions," "tous d^lits, violences etexcfes."
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 35 
 
 ment definitif et execution d'icelui inclusivement sans appel et 
 en dernier ressort."* 
 
 The intendant was oblig-ed to associate with him "des juges 
 ou graduest au nombre porte par nos ordonnances;" but by the 
 terms of his commission, he was bidden, whenever he deemed 
 necessary, "seoir et presider en tons sieges royaux de ladite 
 province et autres jurisdictions d'icelle," and it is often impossible 
 to determine from the ofBcial correspondence whether the 
 intendant is sitting in judgment with associates in a special court, 
 or in some one of the presidiaux. It is probable that so long as 
 he could accomplish what he desired through the channels of 
 ordinary justice, the intendant forebore to constitute himself a 
 special tribunal. The necessity of choosing associate judges 
 seems, at first sight, to have been a serious limitation to the 
 jurisdiction of the intendant, since all decisions were given by 
 majority vote; but inasmuch as he was free to choose whom he 
 liked, he could nearly always be sure of the pliancy of his 
 appointees, t In point of fact, the intendant's voice was usually 
 determinative. It would have required judges of more than 
 ordinary stamina to thwart what was tacitly accepted as the 
 will of the king, pronounced through his own agent and 
 representative. 
 
 Besides this jurisdiction, civil and criminal, in affairs of la 
 justice oj'dinaije, the intendant possessed other important duties. 
 Attention has already been called to the jurisdiction which the 
 intendant exercised in suits at law arising from ^'impositions anx 
 taxes d' office" in the pays d' Election. When the capitation§ was 
 established in 1695, ^ royal declaration gave entire jurisdiction 
 over contested cases to the intendant. || Litigations arising from 
 the building of highways and bridges and other public works, 
 also fell within the competence of the intendant. 
 
 It was almost inevitable that the intendant should become 
 involved in continual wrangles with the ordinary courts of 
 justice. Such powers as have been described created the possi- 
 bility of arbitrary interference in the course of justice; and the 
 
 *Marchand, Pieces just., p. 363. 
 
 t The term gradues was applied to those who had gained the title of docteur en droit. 
 
 tMarcluiml, p. ;.'Tt). 
 
 § A personal tax not unlike our poll-tax. 
 
 I For a careful statement of this phase of the intendant's duties, which lies beyond 
 the scope of the present study, the reader is referred to Dareste, " La justice administra- 
 tive," pp. 119 et seq.
 
 36 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 intendant was not slow in taking advantage of his opportunities; 
 often, no doubt, out of mere officiousness or mistaken zeal for the 
 service of his royal master. Such interference, it goes without 
 saying, would have been subversive of the established courts, if 
 it had been capriciously continued. Again and again the ministry 
 saw itself obliged to caution meddlesome intendants to avoid 
 any encroachment upon the competence of the ordinary courts.* 
 That which transformed the intendajit dc justice from a mere 
 judicial functionary with powers of supervision, and made of him a 
 puissant, royal commissioner in matters of justice, was the practice 
 of removing, or evoking, cases from the ordinary courts and of giving 
 the intendants cognizance of them by an arret d' attribution. Noth- 
 ing contributed more to extend the royal power in the provinces 
 and to destroy the vestiges of independence which the local courts 
 still possessed.! The claim had long been recognized, that suits 
 in which the crown had an interest might be evoked from the 
 ordinary courts of justice and transferred to specially designated 
 tribunals. By the very slightest extension of these pretensions 
 what cases might not be withdrawn from the ordinary courts! 
 If the course of justice was perverted by corrupt judges or 
 obstructed by indifferent ones, an arret du conseil would put any 
 cases within the competence of the intendant; or, if the royal 
 ordinances were balked by the spirit of particularism that still 
 came to the surface now and then, an arret du conseil would leave 
 the intendant undisputed master of the situation. The absolutism 
 of Louis XIV. preferred silently to undermine opposition, but 
 there were times when it marched ruthlessly to its goal. 
 
 * Colbert, VL p. 30, No. 18. 
 
 t De Tocquevllle, L'Ancien Regime, chap. IV.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE POLICE DUTIES OF THE INTENDANT. 
 
 If the charges given to the intendant had been simply finan- 
 cial and judicial, they would have made him an officer with 
 wide-reaching powers, but when those attributes summed up in 
 the phrase intendant de police were given to him, the intendant 
 became possessed of vast authority. The modern concept of 
 the police power, as the power to watch for and prevent 
 infractions upon the legitimate sphere of individual autonomy, 
 is none too clear; in the seventeenth century no distinctions at 
 all were drawn. The police power was confounded with the 
 entire internal administration of the government.* The tendency 
 of the crown was to absorb all governmental functions and to 
 reduce individual initiative and local autonomy to lowest terms. 
 This self-imposed task of absorption and restriction made impera- 
 tive the development of a most exacting system of supervision 
 and control, and this system was confided to the intendants. 
 In its broadest extension the police power of these officers 
 fairly enveloped the internal administrative apparatus of the 
 government. 
 
 It should be remarked at the outset that the very nature of 
 the duty of surveillance and control confers great discretionary 
 powers. Where the royal power assumes all governmental func- 
 tions, it must, perforce, act through agents who will be its eyes 
 and ears. Upon them it must rely for intimate knowledge of 
 local affairs and for summary action in exigencies that arise. 
 There must come times when the whole weight of royal power 
 must be vested in these agents, to be wielded at their discretion. 
 Such circumstances made of the intendant a veritable king, 
 ruling by delegated right. It was these considerations that 
 impressed Law, when he made the often-quoted remark: 
 "Sachez que ce royaume de France est gouvern(5 par trente 
 intendants. Vous n'avez ni parlements, ni 6tats, ni gouverneurs ; 
 
 ♦Burgess, Comparative Constitutional L,aw, I. pp. 214, 215.
 
 38 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 ce sont trente maitres des requetes commis aux provinces de qui 
 dependent le malheur ou le bonheur de ces provinces, leur 
 abondance, ou leur sterility." 
 
 Nearly all commissions agree in according to the intendants 
 the task of maintaining the public peaice, in so far as it should 
 be threatened by the soldiers in garrison in their generalities, or 
 by any riotous subjects of the king. The charge was usually 
 given in such language as this: "Aussi vous vous enquerrez du 
 d^portement et fa^on de vivre des gens de guerre, qui sont ou 
 seront ci-apr6s en garnison dans les villes et places dudit pays, et 
 si I'ordre par nous ^tabli pour le payement de leur solde, vivres, 
 routes, et logement est entierement garde et observe, vous 
 employant a ce qu'ils soient contenus sous la discipline militaire 
 et ne se licencient en rien k la foule et oppression de nos sujets."* 
 Although this particular duty dated back undoubtedly to the 
 earliest days of the institution, it had by no means become a mere 
 formality. The succession of edicts and ordinances emanating 
 from the conseil, to restram the license of the soldiery, attest the 
 lawlessness of the times and the necessity for these injunctions to 
 the intendants.t The reports of the intendants are full of tales 
 of lawless deeds committed by the regular army as well as by the 
 militia. I 
 
 In the exercise of this, as in so many of his duties, the 
 intendant was brought face to face with other officers, within 
 whose competence the matters properly belonged which were 
 confided to him in this general way. Military discipline belonged 
 of right to the commanders of the army, or to courts martial ; the 
 intendant might not interfere. It was only when friction of any 
 sort arose between soldier and civilian, that the intendant assumed 
 jurisdiction; but here again was the possibility of conflict, if the 
 intendant intrenched too far upon the disciplinary powers of the 
 commandants. The wise course, and that which the intendant 
 usually and tactfully adopted, was to suffer the military authority 
 to precede his own, and to act only in default of action by the 
 military tribunals. § The competence of the intendant when 
 
 * Lebret's commission in Provence, from Marchand, p. 362. 
 
 tlsambert, XVIII. Nos. 530, .531, .53.5; also XIX. No. 694, and XX. No. 1944. 
 
 t "J'ajouteray encore," wrote the intendant of Moulins, "avec vostre permission, 
 que rien ne mine plus le plat pays que cette milice; ils font des concussions, des 
 violences, plus que toutes les autres troupes reglues." Boislisle, I. No. 1428; see also 
 Boislisle, L No. 11.58. 
 
 § Dareste, La ju$tice administrative en France, pp. 132, 133. The chapter on the
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 39 
 
 constituting an extraordinary tribunal, has already been noted. Its 
 decisions were summary and forceful; the culprit rarely escaped 
 judgment, and punishment was speedy and sure. In the memoirs 
 of Foucault there is this significant item : "J'ai condamne deux 
 dragons du regiment de Tess6 a etre pendus, pour avoir tue un 
 consul et un habitant de Beaumont qui avoient voulu [les 
 empecher de] violer lafemmedeleur bote."* Again, "Les troupes 
 ont fait beaucoup de d^sordres dans leurs quartiers, cette ann^e 
 
 et j'ai ^te oblig^ de punir plusieurs oflficiers et de 
 
 faire pendre des cavaliers, dragons, et soldats."t The thorough- 
 going character of Foucault's administration of justice is 
 evidenced by a letter from Louvois, in which the intendant was 
 warned not to cut oflf the noses of deserters too short, since the 
 complete loss of that valuable member made the victim unfit for 
 service on the galleys. I 
 
 Much the same policy was followed by the intendant in the 
 suppression of riots, and other public disturbances of a more 
 serious type. When the course of ordinary justice failed, or when 
 the ordinary ofificers for the maintenance of the public peace were 
 unable to cope with the disorders, then the intendant made the 
 weight of his influence felt. At his beck and call was the entire 
 police force of the generality, for by virtue of his commission he 
 might summon the i)iarecJia7tsee,% or even the regular troops, to 
 assist him in the preservation of law and order. The intendant 
 was rarely obliged to resort to this last measure, for the mere 
 threat usually sufficed to sober the hot-heads. An intendant at 
 Moulins has left an unusually graphic account of a riot that 
 occurred in his generality, and of the way in which it was 
 suppressed. A rumor that the gab ell c was to be established in 
 the town of Aubusson had thrown the people into despair. In 
 their rage the women pillaged one of the depots of salt, and a 
 riotous demonstration ensued. The arrival of the intendant on 
 the scene and his threat to summon a regiment of dragoons 
 brought the rabble to their senses. In the presence of the royal 
 
 judicial functions of the intendants is admirable, although much is applicable to the 
 intendants of the eighteenth rather than to those of the seventeenth century. 
 
 * Mrmoires de Fortcnult, p. 3;J. 
 
 t Mcmoire.8 de Foucault, p. .36. 
 
 t M('moi7-es de Foucault, p. 1.51. Loss of nose and condemnation to galley-service 
 ■was the punishment for desertion prescribed by ordinance. 
 
 § Mounted police.
 
 40 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 agent they seemed to realize for the first time the enormity of 
 their offence and the probable consequences of it. As the 
 intendant passed through the streets, men and women threw 
 themselves at his feet, begging for mercy, like repentant children. 
 With a mixture of paternal kindness and official severity, the 
 intendant succeeded in restoring order and in persuading the 
 people to restore the depot which they had destroyed in such 
 rebellious fashion.* 
 
 Object of special solicitude to the intendants was ihe. gabellc 
 and the abuses and disorders which that pernicious institution 
 entailed. Tlie term had come to be applied solely to the excise 
 duties on salt, which were farmed out on conditions that varied 
 greatly in different parts of the realm. t Usually the farmers of 
 the gabelle paid a fixed sum to the king and thereby acquired the 
 right to exploit his subjects. Where special tribunals \_greniei's 
 a sel'\ took cognizance of all infractions of the ordinances and had 
 a constabulary force to secure respect for the law, the intendant's 
 duties were largely the familiar one of surveillance. He had to 
 see to it, on the one hand, that the people were not victimized 
 by the rapacity of the farmers of the gabelle, and, on the other 
 hand, that the latter were not defrauded by the all too prevalent 
 practice of smuggling salt from the more favored districts into 
 those where the gabelle rested with crushing weight upon the 
 people. 
 
 In many parts of France a contraband trade in salt was 
 carried on with almost no attempt at concealment. Near Amiens 
 an organized band of forty desperadoes, who styled themselves 
 "la bande royal e," pursued their illicit trade with the greatest 
 audacity, t The intendant who reported this state of things 
 declared that half of the gaj'des des gabelles% were bribed and 
 
 * Boislisle, II. No. 598. For a similar instance see Boislisle, U. No. 703. 
 
 t See Chc^ruel. Dictionnaire hist, des institutions, etc., article gabelle: also Rambaud, 
 Hist, de la civilisation frangaise, pp. 160, 161; also Dareste, Hist, de I'admin. en France, 
 pp. 101-103. France was divided into five distinct districts: the pays de grandes gabellei, 
 in which the excise was assessed very much like the taille, or in which freedom of pur- 
 chase was permitted with a minimum fixed by law for each person and for each family; 
 the pays de petites gabelles; the pai/s de salines, where the excise was levied with refer- 
 ence to the marshes from which salt was obtained; the pays ridimes, where the people 
 were forced to buy at a fixed price of authorized merchants; %\xepays exempts, where 
 the conditions were sim.ilar to those in the pays ridimis. 
 
 X Boislisle, I. No. 415. 
 
 § Special constables or police ofQcers, in the pay of the farmers of the gabelle.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 41 
 
 themselves engaged in smuggling. In some districts the soldiers 
 made common cause with the smugglers, and offered open 
 resistance to the gardes. The intendant of Berry reported a 
 pitched battle between the gardes and a mixed band of 
 smugglers and cavaliers. The latter made good their retreat, 
 but only with the loss of several of their number.* Such inci- 
 dents were by no means isolated.! In Champagne the gardes were 
 practically powerless before the bands of dragoons and cavaliers, 
 so that the intendant appealed to the king to forbid the com- 
 manders of troops to allow their men to leave their rooms at 
 night. The commanders, he maintained, were responsible for 
 these disorders, inasmuch as they granted leave of absence to 
 their men in order to profit by the pay which was thus forfeited.! 
 Auvergne was one of thepaj/s redimes and enjoyed in conse- 
 quence a relative degree of freedom from the hated excise on 
 salt, but as it bordered upon pays de grandes gabelles, its 
 frontiers were infested with smugglers. Since public opinion 
 countenanced the traffic, and even gentlemen of position partici- 
 pated in it, the intendant was well nigh powerless. The 
 magistrates of the presidial, he declared, were "sous le coup de 
 la terreur;" prisoners easily escaped the clutches of the law by 
 liberal bribes ; processes carried on appeal to the conrs des aides 
 were ineffectual. For two years nothing had been done to 
 repress the disorders.§ In spite of this discouraging outlook, the 
 intendant began a series of energetic measures. Stationing four 
 companies of dragoons in the border parishes, he had the gardes 
 deployed in brigades near by, so that they might be in 
 communication with his troops and might be detected if they 
 connived at any smuggling. Menaced by the irate inhabitants, 
 these brigades had to withdraw temporarily, but, nothing daunted, 
 the intendant remanded them to their post and publicly declared, 
 that if any harm were done to them, the village would be held 
 responsible and would be burned. In a single village four people 
 were hanged, and ten condemned to the galleys for smuggling. H 
 And when even this ruthless severity did not suffice to intimidate 
 
 * Boislisle, I. No. 1482. 
 + See also Boislisle, II. No. 668. 
 X Boislisle, I. No. 1883. 
 § Boislisle, II. No. 729. 
 
 II In Jill probability the intendant vcas acting under authority of arrets dti conseil. 
 See Boislisle. II. No. 729. 
 
 Boislijle, II. No. 753.
 
 42 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 the obstinate village folk, he summoned them to a public 
 assembly and forbade any, on pain of being prosecuted as a 
 smuggler, to leave the parish for more than two days, without a 
 certificate from the parish priest. Twice a week a sub-delegate 
 was to call the roll of the inhabitants to catch any delinquents. 
 
 In Languedoc, which, with Provence, formed a part of the 
 pays de grandes gabelles, the situation was almost as desperate. 
 Bloody encounters between smugglers and gardes occurred, in 
 spite of the preventive efforts of the intendant. "II faut parvenir 
 a faire de grandes exemples," he wrote to the controlcnr, "qui 
 n'ont pas ete faits jusqu'a cette heure parceque le directeur a 
 poursuivi ces affaires devant le juge des gabelles, jurisdiction 
 foible, ou rien n'avance, sujette a I'appel a la cour des aides.* 
 He asked an arret d' attribution giving him power to pass 
 sentence upon the culprits ; and upon receipt of it, he promptly 
 sentenced one to the gallows and condemned to infamous memory 
 two others, who had died of wounds received.! Some months 
 later he sentenced a batch of smugglers, twenty-four in number, 
 to various punishments : five were sent to the galleys for nine 
 years, one for life; others were either banished, fined, or sent to 
 the whipping-post or pillory. $ Not all the intendants prosecuted 
 the smugglers so vigorously. De Harouys in Champagne was 
 particularly lenient toward them, either from kindness of heart 
 or from indifference, so that he was sharply reprimanded. On 
 the margin of a letter in which the intendant reported the 
 sentences passed by him, the directeur des finances wrote: "Ecrire 
 a M. de Harouys que I'indulgence a I'egard de ceux qui commet- 
 tent le faux-saunage attire de plus grands maux que la severite 
 des jugements. Les edits et declarations 6tablissent de plus 
 grandes peines dont on ne doit point se departir."§ 
 
 The reverse side of this gloomy picture of crime and ruthless 
 punishment appears from letters of the intendants revealing the 
 abuses perpetrated by the farmers of the gabelle and their 
 employes. At Moulins, the intendant found the clerks of salt 
 
 *Boislisle, XL No. 714. 
 
 tBoislisle, II. No. 714, note. 
 
 iBoisllsle, II. No. 921, note. Turgot had to contend with similar lawlessness in the 
 generality of Tours. Boislisle, II. No. 845. 
 
 § Boislisle, II. No. 1308, note. The penalties had been defined by successive edicts. 
 Smugglers who were convicted of having prosecuted their trade in armed bands of ten 
 or more were to be condemned to tne galleys for nine years; and for life if the offence 
 was repeated. Cavaliers, dragoons, and soldiers convicted of faux-saunage were to be 
 sent to the galleys. Isambert, XIX. Nos. 9,=)t; and 1041.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 
 
 43 
 
 magazines, in return for an interest in the company, persuading 
 the measurers to give shoit weight to the people. Then, too, tlie 
 salt sold to the people was often inferior in quality, so that it was 
 unfit for use. In sheer self-defence the people were forced to 
 resort to smugglers who could supply them with a better quality.* 
 Such frauds and abuses, it hardly need be added, were extremely 
 difficult to detect. Only through sub-delegates and detectives 
 could the intendant cope with the maladministration that was 
 only too common. 
 
 To the special vigilance of the intendants were recommended 
 "vagabonds et gens sans aveu." An arret du conseil of 1673 had 
 ordered all vagrants to quit the realm within a month, on pain of 
 condemnation to the galley s.f The intendants were enjoined 
 "de tenir la main a son entiere execution, n'y ayant rien de plus 
 important que de purger toutes les provinces de ces sortes de 
 gens." In this class were included those nondescripts who 
 went under the name of BoJiinics, and who, so far as their 
 predatory habits are concerned, strongly resemble our gypsies. 
 The intendants were to treat these Bohentes with the greatest 
 severity that the law allowed, "Sa Majeste voulant purger son 
 royaume de toute cette canaille, qui ne sert qu'a tourmenter et 
 piller les peuples."1: To this task the intendants addressed them- 
 selves with all the greater zeal, since they were well aware that 
 Hi? Majesty had other reasons than concern for the peace of the 
 provinces, in desiring these poor beggars to be sent to the galleys, ' 
 
 The Mediterranean flotilla had long been the pet care ot 
 Colbert. To make it more than a match for all opponents was 
 his constant endeavor, and he had for this purpose sought to 
 increase the number and size of the galleys, in the fighting 
 ability of which he had great confidence. The difficulty came in 
 manning these vessels. No man would voluntarily enter upon 
 the frightful life of a galley oarsman; slaves could scarcely be 
 forced into galley service; and when the supply of slaves ran 
 short, the convicts who filled the loathsome prisons of the land 
 were pressed into service. § Even this resource was soon 
 
 ♦ Boislisle, I. Nos. 408 and 610. 
 t Colbert, IV. p. 93, No. 83. 
 t Colbert, IV. p. 141, No. 135. 
 
 §One has only to read the accounts of the prisons given by the intendants to 
 understand why a c'rimiual should prefer the galleys. See Boislisle, II. No. 1061.
 
 44 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 exhausted. Few convicts serving their terms in the prisons were 
 fitted for the laborious Hfe of the galleys; the noisome dungeons 
 and scanty, unwholesome fare of the jails wrecked the strongest 
 constitutions. In these straits Colbert sought recruits from 
 among the condemned criminals whom the courts sent daily to 
 prison. Pressure was brought to bear upon the judges to 
 multiply the number of condemnations to the galleys, even if the 
 law had to be strained to make the penalty fit the crime * 
 
 The intendants were keenly alive to the needs of the 
 government, and left no stone unturned to curry favor with the 
 king and Colbert. They visited the courts of law to stir up 
 indolent judges; they went through the prisons in search of able- 
 bodied convicts; they scoured the country around for smugglers 
 and vagrants whom they might send summarily to Toulon; they 
 listened for any rumors of sedition that they might pounce upon 
 the offenders. Their letters are full of accounts of how they have 
 made up ^Hine belle chaisne" to send to the galleys; they 
 discourse with evident relish upon convicts whom they have 
 discovered to be "bons honinies et vigorenx et fort propres pour 
 servif," etc.t 
 
 The intendants were often put to it, to provide for the 
 miserable wretches condemned to the galleys, until the chain 
 gang, on its way to Toulon, should claim them. If economy 
 cautioned against too great expense in feeding them, it also 
 warned against starving them, for many, weakened by hunger, 
 succumbed to the hardship of the fearful march to the coast. If 
 his contingent was sufficiently large, the intendant made up his 
 own gang and committed it to paid conductors, who demanded 
 so high as 80 or 100 livres for every man delivered at Toulon. 
 The losses on the route were frightful.! Of 96 men in one 
 chain gang from the generalities of Touraine, Anjou and 
 Orleans, 33 died on the way to Lyons. § For the horrors of this 
 iniquitous traffic the intendants were only indirectly responsible; 
 they were but the agents of the crown. The spirit animating 
 
 * Depping, II. p. 940, No. 37. 
 
 tDepping. II. p. 874, No. 2; also II. p. 941. No. 37. 
 
 X Deppinp. II. p. 87.^, No. 2. As this was simply a business contract, the conduct of 
 these conducteurs des chaines was dictated only by heartless self-interest. The treat- 
 ment of the unhappy victims was such as to shock the better classes of people even in 
 that age, so accustomed to demoralizing spectacles. See Depping, II. p. 934, No. 30; also 
 II. p. 908, et seq.; also II. p. 881, No. 5. 
 
 § Depping, II. p. 893.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 45 
 
 the government appears in a note from the hand of Colbert: 
 "Dans la n6cessit6 pr^sente ou le roy est de fortifier les chiourmes 
 des ses galeres, c'est une bonne nouvelle pour Sa Majeste qu'il y 
 eust trente bons formats dans la conciergerie de Rennes "* 
 
 It frequently fell to the lot of the intendant, as the most 
 facile agent of the crown, to aid in the censorship of the press. 
 Louis XIV., who was particularly anxious lest the doctrine of 
 Jansenism should be disseminated through books and tracts, had 
 the intendants institute a general inquiry into the number and 
 resources of publishers and booksellers in their generalities.! 
 One intendant was commissioned to visit the printing offices m 
 Rouen and to arrest any printers in whose possession certain 
 books condemned by the censors were found. $ Equally unpleas- 
 ant missions were given to other intendants, as when Baville was 
 enjoined to keep a sharp lookout for "un libelle manuscrit, tr^s- 
 seditieux," in Languedoc,§ and De Courson was made to search 
 the printing offices of Rouen to find the publisher of Vauban's 
 Projet de dixmc royalc.\ To such lengths will absolutism go, to 
 stamp out the semblance of resistance ! 
 
 That system of tutelage over agriculture, manufacturing, and 
 commerce, which the French monarchy had established by the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, and which proved so disastrous 
 to the political and economic independence of the people, was 
 foreshadowed in the reign of Louis XIV. It would have been 
 strange if a government so intrusive in its anxiety for its fiscal 
 afifairs had not shown a strong tendency to control and develop 
 those natural resources from which its wealth ultimately was 
 derived ; it would have been still more remarkable if that govern- 
 ment had not confided many of these new cares to those officers 
 most intimately acquainted with the resources of the provinces. 
 
 The extreme solicitude for the state of agriculture that finds 
 expression in repeated letters from the controleiirs to the intend- 
 
 * Depping, II. p. 930, No. 2.5. 
 
 tDepping. II. p. ,598. 
 
 \ Depping, II. p. 707. 
 
 § Deppinfj. II. p. 840. No. 109. The title was Avis h tons Its alliez protestans et catho- 
 liques romnins, princes et peuples souvernim et svjets, sur le aeooura gu'on doit donner aux 
 soulevez des Cevennes. It bore the date 170.j. 
 
 |] Depping, II. p. 861, No. 190.
 
 46 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 ants can be easily appreciated when one reflects how great the 
 dependence of the people was upon the produce of the soil. To 
 a great degree the amount that the government was to realize 
 from the taille depended upon the condition of agriculture. 
 Hence, those innumerable letters, already noted, calling upon the 
 intendants for detailed statements regarding the prosperity or 
 the misfortunes of their generalities. "Do not trust others, see 
 for yourselves," is the often recurring warning of the contro- 
 leiir, — and the intendants did see for themselves with aston- 
 ishing fidelity. Almost insensibly they assumed a tacit 
 guardianship over their generalities, suggesting remedies for the 
 misfortunes of this or that parish, and making themselves 
 petitioners in behalf of the unhappy peasants. One intendant 
 reported a large extent of uncultivated land in his generality, 
 which had been abandoned by the discouraged peasants, and 
 ventured to ask the king to be allowed to distribute seed among 
 them in the hope of persuading them to resume cultivation.* To 
 such requests the king lent a ready ear. Some 60,000 livres 
 were appropriated to purchase grain for seed, but on condition 
 that the recipients should repay the government from the next 
 year's harvest.f "Le Roi," said the prudent Colbert, "r^p^te 
 toujours qu'il n'y a rien de plus dangereux que de laisser croire 
 aux paysans que les plus paresseux seront les plus heureux ou en 
 ne payant pas ou en s'attirant des charit^s." 
 
 A disposition on the part of the government to displace 
 individual initiative by direct control manifested itself increas- 
 ingly, as the stress of outward circumstance was felt. During the 
 wars of Louis XIV. certain elections on the frontier were 
 forbidden to sow wheat, lest it should furnish sustenance to the 
 enemy in case of invasion; but the inhabitants might sow otlier 
 cereals ["d'autres petits grains"] for their own support, t When 
 the peasants on one occasion refused to sow their fields, for fear 
 of a general famine, the conscil issued a general decree, ordering 
 the lands to be sowed as usual; i. e., with the same grains and at 
 the same time as in previous years. The intendants were given 
 authority to carry out the spirit of this decree by special ordi- 
 
 *Boislisle, I.No. 585. 
 
 t Boislisle, I. Nos. 628, 664. 
 
 % Boislisle, I. No. 746.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 47 
 
 nances of their own.* Far more pernicious was the practice of 
 regulating by ordinances the circulation, exportation, and impor- 
 tation of cereals in the provinces. These ordinances always had 
 reference to special localities and to special provinces. They were 
 not dictated by mere caprice, as might appear at first sight, but 
 were based on statistical information, more or less exact, fur- 
 nished by the intendants. In general, prohibition of the free 
 circulation of grains was the rule; exportation or importation 
 from one province to another was only temporarily and locally 
 permitted.! More than one intendant protested against a policy 
 of restriction and interference which he saw meant disaster for 
 his province; but when want came, as it often did come, through 
 the mistaken intermeddling of the government, he could only 
 relieve the people by palliatives. Inasmuch as the ministry 
 assumed the direction of the commerce in grain, the intendant's 
 duties in such matters were largely informatory. He visited the 
 parishes of his generality at least once a year to observe the 
 condition of the crops ;t he made careful estimates of the quantity 
 of grain upon reports furnished by his sub-delegates ;§ he watched 
 the market carefully and noted the fluctuations in prices ;|| he 
 kept a sharp lookout for speculators ;1[ and of all these observa- 
 tions he made most minute reports to the controleiir general. 
 
 Colbert was particularly desirous of establishing studs for 
 the breeding of cavalry horses, throughout the grazing districts 
 of France. He sent out a commissioner in 1663, to report upon 
 the condition of the studs, and urged the intendants to assist him 
 in every possible way in this matter, which was of such 
 importance to the state.'' Probably as the result of their efforts, 
 more than 500 stallions were distributed within seven years 
 among the generalities.^ The care of these Jiaras was com- 
 mended to the intendants in that insistent language so character- 
 istic of the ministers when impressing upon the intendants the 
 importance of new departures.^ 
 
 *Isambert, XX. No. \^'l\. 
 
 t Monin, Histoire administrative du Languedoc, p. 289. 
 tBoislisle. I. No. 1228. 
 SBoislisle, I. No. 12.m 
 II Boislisle, I. No. 12S5. 
 *{ Boislisle, I. No. 1718, note. 
 " Colbert, IV. p. 206, No. 14. 
 'Colbert, IV. p. 206, No. 37. 
 8 Colbert, IV. p. 285, No. 104.
 
 48 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 The responsibility of the intendants was even greater in 
 connection with the manufacturing interests of France, since the 
 policy of the government was dictated less by precedent and 
 more by the judgment of the intendants. Whenever the govern- 
 ment proposed to establish new industries in the country, it 
 almost invariably turned to the intendants to learn what natural 
 advantages for such industries their generalities possessed.* On 
 the other hand, a prospective proprietor of a new industry would 
 very often make the intendant his confidant, hoping through him 
 to reach the ear of the king.f As new industries began to 
 multiply, under the fostering care of Colbert, the duty of encoui- 
 aging and protecting them devolved more and more upon the 
 intendants ; at the same time, as a steadily increasing source of 
 wealth, these industries had to be taken into consideration in 
 estimating the tax-bearing capacity of the people. 
 
 Owing to the indifference, or bigotry, of local magistrates, 
 and to natural obstacles, many of these infant industries had a 
 hard struggle for existence. It is interesting to see the personal 
 responsibility that Colbert felt for the success of his policy. 
 '"You will do me a special favor," he wrote to the intendants, "if 
 you will be so kind as to take time to make one or two tours of 
 inspection every year."! One Van Robais, a Protestant from 
 Holland, who had begun a manufactory of textile fabrics at 
 Abbeville, was the special ward of Colbert, if we may judge 
 from the frequent interchange of letters in regard to him 
 between the contToIcnr and the intendant of the generality.§ 
 Every two months the intendant, or his delegate, visited the 
 factory to record the number of operatives and to examine the 
 quality and quantity of the goods manufactured. If the need 
 was urgent, the intendant made grants of money to the manu- 
 facturer. Such timely aid enabled more than one entirprejieur 
 to keep on his feet in hard times. When one mill-owner in 
 Carcassonne fell into straitened circumstances, and was about 
 
 *Boislisle, I. No. 1097. 
 
 Boislisle. I. No. 1671, note. 
 
 Colbert, II. p. 725, No. 317. 
 
 Colbert, II. p. 7.^51, No. 322. 
 t Boislisle, I. Nos. 1085, 1481. 
 t Colbert, II. p. 688, No. 282. 
 § Colbert, II. p. 743, No. 337.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 49 
 
 to go under, the intendant hastened to his aid by recommending" 
 that he be given two years to satisfy the claims of his creditors.* 
 From encouragement and protection, it was but a single 
 step to regular inspection of these industries. While they were 
 still few and easily inspected, the intendants quite naturally 
 assumed the duty. From time to time Colbert called upon them 
 to visit fairs to observe whether the cloth offered for sale bore 
 the manufacturer's name and the place of manufacture, as the 
 government's regulations required.! It was with the intendant 
 at Tours that the idea originated of publicly exposing all defective 
 goods and of attaching to them the manufacturer's name. $ The 
 ordinance of the intendant to this effect was approved by Colbert, 
 and afterward incorporated in a general order to the niaires and 
 cschevins of the towns. § As the industries developed, the 
 instructions of the controleur became often very exacting : "Quant 
 ji I'article 39 [du r^glement g6n6ral des manufactures], je dois 
 vous dire que, pour en conserver I'ex^cution et faciliter le d^bit 
 et I'apprest desdites frocs a Lisieux, vous pourrez rendre vostre 
 ordonnance pour regler le nombre de fils et de portees, et la 
 largeur qu'ils doivent avoir sortant de la main des tisserands, pour 
 revenir a la sortie du foulon a la largeur de demy-aune ordonn6e 
 
 par ledit article "|| Instructions of such import required 
 
 no small degree of technical knowledge on the part of intend- 
 ants, and in the course of time a class of intermediate com- 
 missionersl^ grew up, who acted as inspectors under the eye 
 of the intendant. Although the authority of the intendant was 
 still paramount, the instructions of the ministers were couched in 
 somewdiat different language: "Vous concerterez, s'il vous plaist, 
 tout ce qui sera necessaire pour cela avec le commis, les 
 marchands, les facturiers et les juges de police et des manufac- 
 tures de Laval;" or, "Je vous prie d'examiner cet expedient avec 
 
 * Boislisie, I. No. 1419. Even when the government did not directly subsidize a 
 manufacturer, it often gave him moral support. At Dijon, the town magistrates were 
 urged in almost dictatorial fashion to give "gratifications" to fathers who put their chil- 
 dren to work in the factories. Colbert, II. p. 688, No. 'I'&i,. 
 
 t Colbert, II. p. .539, No. 119. 
 
 X Colbert, II. p. 579, No. 165. 
 
 § Colbert, II. p. 607, No. 196. 
 
 11 Colbert, II. p. 539, No. 119. 
 
 1 These commis pour Pexfctition des reglem,ens f/en£ranx des manufactures were to 
 report to the intendants all cases of negligence or disobedience on the part of the local 
 officers. Such the intendants might punish by fine. The commis were to report all 
 differences and disputes that arose and the condition of the manufactures in general so 
 that corrective measures might be taken by the intendants or by the eonseil. Boislisie, 
 I. pp. 558-559.
 
 50 THE INTENDANT AS A POLITICAL AGENT 
 
 le commis et les facturiers et de prendre les mesures que vous 
 jugerez les meilleures la-dessus."* 
 
 It was probably no meaningless official verbiage when 
 Colbert wrote to the intendant at Riom apropos of public 
 works: "Ce sera une des principales occupations que vous aurez 
 pendant que vous servirez dans les provinces. "t A general letter 
 to the intendants urged them to observe, in the course of their 
 regular tours through the generalities, what rivers could be 
 made navigable, and to give an estimate of the work which 
 they considered necessary for that purpose. I A similar letter 
 urged them to make the most advantageous contracts possible 
 for the repair of the highways.§ These, it is true, were only a 
 part of the public works undertaken by the state through the 
 agency of the intendants, but they serve to indicate the relation 
 of the intendants to this department of public service. 
 
 In the pays d election, public works were supervised by the 
 intendant, and often executed under his immediate direction. He 
 usually estimated their probable utility and cost; he made accu- 
 rate report to the conseil; he devised ways and means for meeting 
 the expense; and, finally, upon order from the conseil, he made 
 the contracts and often provided the materials used in construc- 
 tion. || In the pays d'^tats public works were not usually under- 
 taken by the king, but "Sa Majest6 pent seulement exciter les 
 deputes aux Estats d'y donner ordre et mesme de faire visiter 
 tons les chemins et faire les reparations necessaires pour la 
 commodite publique,"1[ — rule elastic enough to permit the royal 
 government to put through nearly every scheme that it chose to 
 adopt. With the intendant on hand to see that the work was 
 done "solidement et diligement,"^ as he might of right, the 
 projects were usually carried to a successful issue; but left to 
 themselves, the estates either pushed the work only half-heartedly, 
 or abandoned it altogether.' 
 
 *Boislisle, L No. HSO. 
 
 t Colbert, IV. p. 437, No. 20. Colbert made it a point to write to the intendants 
 once a month about the public works. He earnestly urged the intendants to adopt the 
 same rule. Colbert, IV. p. 537, No. 125. 
 
 X Colbert, IV. p. 4.54, No. 38. 
 
 § Colbert, IV. p. 454, No. 39. 
 
 i) Colbert, IV. p. 454, No. 39. 
 
 1i Colbert, IV. p. 561, No. 1.50. 
 
 "Colbert, IV. p. 438, No. 21. 
 
 'Thomas, Une province sous Louis XIV. pp. 185-190.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 51 
 
 Indemnity for private property appropriated for state uses 
 was usually fixed a dire d' experts,* who were appointed by the 
 intendants in the pays d' election,^ and by the claimants them- 
 selves or by the estates in \\iQ. pays d' etats.% All points of dispute 
 between the contractors and private parties, or between the 
 contractors and the government, were adjudicated by the intend- 
 ant with appeal only to the conscil\% and ordinance power was 
 given to the intendants to settle damages where private indi- 
 viduals had suffered from the construction of new roads and 
 bridges. || 
 
 The government was sublimely indififerent to any opposition 
 to schemes of public improvement. When the people in the 
 generality of Caen protested againt the drainage of certain 
 marshes, Colbert ordered the intendant to secure their consent, 
 or to force them to yield : "Et meme si vous avez besoin de 
 quelque autre arrest pour achever enti^rement cette affaire, je ne 
 manqueray pas de vous I'envoyer au premier avis que vous m'en 
 donnerez."^ The whole spirit and history of the old regime is 
 summed up in that sentence. 
 
 * Dareste, L' Administration de justice, p. 136. 
 
 t Such is the natural inference, at least, from the correspondence of Colbert. 
 
 t Thomas, p. 186, Note 1. 
 
 § Dareste, L' Admin, de justice, p. 138. 
 
 II Isambert. XX. Nos. 1955 and 2005. 
 
 1 Colbert, IV. p. 476, No. 65.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 I. 
 
 BoiSLiSLE, Concspondance des Controleiirs gaieraiix des Finan- 
 ces avec les Intendants des Provinces. 2 vols. Paris, 
 1874-1883. 
 
 Depping, Correspo7ida7ice adjniiiistrative sons le rigne de Louis 
 XIV. 4 vols. Paris, 1850-55. 
 
 Clement, Lettrcs, ijistrnctions, et memoiirs de Colbert. 7 vols. 
 Paris, 1861-65. 
 
 Cheruel, Jojirnal cV Ollivier Lefkvre U Orniesson. 2 vols. 
 Paris, i860. 
 
 Baudry, M^nioires de Nicholas-Joseph Foncanlt. Paris, 1862. 
 
 IsAMBERT, Recneil general des anciemies lois fran^aises. 29 
 vols. Paris, 1822-27. 
 
 BouLAiNViLLiERS, £tat de la France. 6 vols. 1837. 
 
 Benoist, Histoire de Vedit de Nantes; containing "Recneil 
 d'Mits, Declarations, Arrets, Reqtietes, Memoires et 
 antres pikes antJientiqnes" in volumes I. II. III. and V. 
 Delft, 1693. 
 
 II. 
 
 Aucoc, Le Conseil d' ^tat avajit et depnis Ij8g. Paris, 1876. 
 
 Caillet, De l' Administration en Fiance sous le viinisth'e de 
 Richelieu. 2 vols. Paris, i860. 
 
 Cheruel, Dictionnaire Jiistoriqjie des institutions, viceurs et 
 coutu7nes de la France. 2 vols. Paris, 1855.
 
 UNDER LOUIS XIV. 53 
 
 Chbruel, Histoire de V administration monarckique en France. 
 2 vols. Paris, 1855. 
 
 Clement, Histoire de Colbett. 2 vols. Paris, 1874. 
 
 Dareste de la Chavanne, Histoire de V administratio7t eft 
 France. 2 vols. Paris, 1848. 
 
 Dareste R., La Justice administj'ative en Fiance. Paris, 1862. 
 
 Clement, Le gouvernevient de Louis XIV. Paris, 1848. 
 
 Clement, La Police sous Louis XIV. Paris, 1866. 
 
 D'Avenel, Richelieu et la monarchic absolue. 4 vols. Paris, 
 1884-87. 
 
 De Broc, La France sous Vancien regime. 
 
 De Tocqueville, L And en Regime et la Revolution. Paris, 
 "1857. 
 
 Rambaud, Histoire de la civilisation franqaise. 2 vols. Paris, 
 1888. 
 
 III. 
 
 BoYER DE Sainte-Suzanne, Lcs Liitcndants de la gen^ralit^ 
 d'' Ami ens. 
 
 D'Arbois DE Jubainville, U administration des intcndants 
 d'aprh les archives de L Atibe. Paris, 1880. 
 
 Duval, £tat de la g^neralit^ d' Alenqon so2ts Louis XIV. 
 
 Hanotaux, Les origines de Vinstitution des Intendaitts de 
 province. Paris, 1884. 
 
 Marchand, Un Intendant sous Louis XIV. 
 
 Monin, Essai sur l' histoire administrative du Languedoc pen- 
 dant L intendance de Basville. Paris, 1884.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 
 
 The writer of the foregoing pages was born at Lowell, 
 Massachusetts, and was prepared for college at the Lowell High 
 School. Entering Amherst College in the autumn of 1888, he 
 pursued courses leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and 
 was graduated in the class of 1892. For two years he was 
 instructor in English and History at the Lawrenceville School, 
 New Jersey, resigning his position to become Roswell Dvvight 
 Hitchcock Fellow in History and Political Science at Amherst 
 College during the college year 1894-95. He received the degree 
 of Master of Arts from Amherst College in 1895, the subject of 
 his thesis being a "History of the Executive Patronage." In the 
 summer of 1895 he went to Germany to pursue studies in 
 Political Science and History and matriculated at the University 
 of Leipzig. After spending three semesters at that institution, 
 he entered the "ficole des sciences politiques" at Paris. Return- 
 ing to the United States in 1897, he became Fellow in European 
 History at Columbia University in New York City and a candi- 
 date for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. At the present 
 time he is Associate Professor of History in Iowa College, 
 Grinnell, Iowa.
 
 9023 « 
 
 AT 
 
 los angeles 
 Library
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 NOV 3 1951 1 
 
 MR 5 igg^ 
 
 MAR 5 195? 
 
 DECd 
 
 REC'D LD-URL 
 
 CD 
 
 iS. APR 6 !93 
 
 «?. JANISM 
 
 
 JUN 151971 
 
 
 JULlzt 
 
 <y^ ^^elVi 
 
 lECOUUJttJ 
 
 flL DEC 12 1969 (0 , 
 
 ^?Q.?" 
 
 251(1-10, ■ll(L'lOi) 
 
 S7J
 
 ,,^C SOUTHERrj REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 J, - --- ■•...Illlllnillllllillll, 
 
 AA 001 176 975 9 
 
 t 
 
 ,^S£ DO NOT REMOVE 
 "^"'tH.S BOOK CARD- _ 
 
 ,#UBR^«^ 
 
 arch Libi-orV 
 
 UnWersitV R^^^ 
 
 •A 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 SI 
 
 «