General inspector of finances

The general inspector of finances was, under the Ancien Mode, the ministerial person in charge of royal finances in France, after the suppression of the load of Surintendant of finances in 1661, charged to manage finances of monarchy.

History

The office was creates in 1547, with two holders whose function was to check the expenditure and the receipts carried out by the treasurer of the Saving, then true Master of royal finances. The controllers draw their name from the register or against-role in which they took account of the acts of the treasurer. The Office of general inspector is thus not in the beginning a function of administration or government, reserved for the intendants of finances or the Surintendant of finances, but a function of checking.

In 1661, the last superintendent, Nicolas Fouquet, was stopped. It is then Colbert which initially became the chief of the administration of finances with the title of intendant, then starting from 1665, with that of general inspector. Under the administration of Colbert, the system check of finances attracted with him many attributions.

On this date indeed, the king Louis XIV removed the two offices of general inspectors to replace them by single a Commission. This evolution of the position, of a transmissible office at a revocable station according to the wish of the sovereign, marks the transformation of the function well. The general inspector corresponds from now on to a function of government.

The function of general inspector undergoes then interruption only during the Polysynodie (1715 - 1718).

Necker, being foreign and protesting, could not receive the title of general inspector, even if it directed de facto the administration of finances between 1776 and 1781 and 1788 and 1790. Flanked general inspectors fantoches, it accepted the title of “managing director of the royal Treasury” then of “managing director of finances”.

Attributions

The responsibilities for the general inspector of finances were broadest of all the administration of Old Mode: according to the text of the commission of 1665, it has to be able “to submit a report in our Council of all the businesses which will relate to our service and of all others indifferently”.

The general inspector of finances directed finances, agriculture, industry, the trade, the Highways Departments and part of the interior administration.

Colbert, first of the general inspectors, cumulated the wallet of the Navy (1669 - 1683) and that of the superintendence of the buildings (1664 - 1683).

The function was very remunerative: in addition to the treatment of 200.000 books per annum, could be added 20.000 books as a Minister of state, and the various bribes in particular during the renewal of the beams of the general Ferme.

The general inspector is always member of the private Council, where it seldom comes, of the Conseil of the dispatches, of the royal Conseil of finances and the royal Conseil of trade. He almost always ends up being created Minister of state, which gives him access to the Conseil of in top. Beyond the administration of finances (management of the Treasury, perception of the taxes, coinings, etc), it directs all the economy and a big part of the provincial administration. It is in particular on its proposal that are named the majority of the Intendant S of the provinces.

The general inspector was generally selected among the intendants of finances or the main of the requests. It was the ministerial person in charge whose position was ensured, in particular under the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, so much so that its hotel was called the “hotel of the removals”.

Organization

With the difference in the other ministries, the system check of finances was organized in a collegial way. It was divided into several departments whose general inspector directed indeed most important (it included/understood in particular the royal Treasury) while the others were to it each one by a Intendant of finances, the general inspector by exerting only one rather remote supervision. The intendants of finances were six at the end of the Old Mode. This team was often designated by the expression “Sirs of finances” or “people of finances”.

Same manner, the general inspector was assisted by four then five intendants the commercial.

Whereas, in a traditional ministry, only one person - the Secretary of State - had access to the Conseil, the system check had at its head a whole of personalities belonging to the Council: the general inspector and intendants of finances and the trade. Thus created for itself a collegial structure which led people of finances to regard as formant almost a section of the Council. In deterioration resulted from the formations of the Council specialized in finances.

In addition, insofar as the authority were famous to emanate only from the King, people of finances were technically obliged to give to their decisions the form of stops of the Council, while at the same time the administration of finances supposes to make very many decisions, often of little consequence. They are thus reflected to present in form stops of the Council of the decisions which they had actually made between them. Nearly 90% of the stops in finance were taken in this manner, and only approximately 10% emanated indeed from the Council.

The personnel of the system check was comparatively numerous, especially by comparison with that of the other ministries. The offices were essentially located at Paris, where placed the financial ones with which control had to frequently treat. The general inspector had offices in Paris, with the palate Mazarin, street New-of-Small-Fields (today: National library of France) and in Versailles. He had near him only one secretary and its first clerk, as well as part of the offices of this last. The intendants of finances were installed in their hotels in Paris, where they had their secretariat and some first clerks, others having their personnel in their own hotels, a little everywhere in the capital.

Chronological list

See too

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