Intendance of Brittany

The intendance of Brittany is created in 1689 by Louis XIV, after two attempts in 1636 and 1647. The governor of Brittany not having more that one role of prestige, the intendant is the essential relay of the will of the Monarchie.

Once its principle and its nomination accepted by the States, the objective is to manage and develop the province by sparing as well the prerogatives and competences of the States as those of the Parliament. Not having resources with the height of its extended scope, its capacity must be expressed in the control and the framing of the other administrative authorities, either in themselves like structures, or in their concrete achievements or interventions.

If the intendant does not go until involving himself in the operation of the majestic Parliament of Brittany, it is not in the same way relative with the States of Brittany always revêches with regard to the innovations: it intervenes there at all the stages like principal representing of the king. He makes the already evocative opening speech of the royal requirements, sticks to the good walk of the session, but especially supervises the concrete realization of the voted resolutions, primarily tax. Its interventions did not pass unperceived.

The competence of the intendant is narrowly dependant on the desideratas royal capacity on a theoretical basis divided into three shutters:

* Justice: control courts and magistrates. The intendant is often Master of the requests of the Council of State.

* Police: constabulary, public health, begging, lotteries, bookstore, communities of inhabitants, corporations, stations, public works, royal administrations, stud farm, the Highways Departments.

* Finances: establishment and control of the tax roles (size and capitation), dispute of the assistances, controls general receivers of finances.

The intendant of Brittany always had his offices in the middle of the town of Rennes, with the hotel of Blossac. Towards the end of the 18th century, its subdelegate-general supervises three services: war, the Highways Departments, cities and communities, the unit comprising about fifty agents.

Like the others general information of the kingdom, the territory of the province is divided into several zones, each one entrusted to a correspondent of the intendant called subdelegated . The needs related to the administration increasing with length for the century, the number of the Subdélégation S increased in order to have a territory more restricted.

According to the men in place, the contingent factors and the general policy, the role of the intendance was expressed according to appreciably different forms.

In Brittany, beyond their multiple interventions, the most tangible achievements of the intendants related to the improvement of the main road as well as operations of Urbanisme.

Intendants of Brittany

* Auguste-Robert de Pomereu, 1689-1692

* Louis de Béchameil, 1692-1705, installation of subdelegated the

* Ferrand de Villemilan, 1705-1716

* Paul Spirit Feydeau de Brou, 1716-1728

* Of the Welsh of the Tower, 1728-1735

* Pontcarré de Viarmes, 1735-1753

* Bret, 1753-1765

* Jacques de Flesselles, 1765-1767

* François Marie Bruno d' Agay, 1767-1771

* Guillaume-Joseph Dupleix de Bacquencourt, 1771-1774

* Gaspard-Louis Caze, baron of Bove, 1774-1784

* Antoine François of Bertrand-Molleville, 1784-1788

* François-Germain Dufaure of Rochefort, 1788 - resign to the directory on August 31st, 1790.

The activity of the intendant

Ordinances

A good part of the activity of the intendant and her clerks was devoted to the correspondence, with other agents or authorities like subdelegated or the General inspector of finances, but also the many private individuals carrying complaints: the files preserve for example seven parts concerning the very bad year of fishing at the Sardine in 1741.

This correspondence forms several bundles of files, for example in connection with C 158-231 or the town lettre de cachets of Rennes C 241-355.

The intendant translated his injunctions on documents of one or two pages, called ordinances and sometimes printed. Some are returned under the terms of stops of the council of the king, for example in the questions concerning the rebuilding of Rennes following the fire of 1720.

The state of the Prison S belonging to its interests, the intendant makes print for example in 1756 an ordinance of large size to inform adjudication of the repair of the prisons of Fougères.

It seems that the authority of the ordinances underwent some reverses: in 1772, a letter with several signatories and sent Paris, blames of the ordinances denounced like source of the ruin of the trade of the fabrics. With Ploemeur in 1780, the population being hardly hastened to find the horses necessary to a military transport, the intendant must intervene, but the Recteur obstinately refuses to read its parish ordinances with its .

Exceptional missions

Like illustration of the role of relay of the intendant, let us quote for 1773 the “State of the distribution of the money given by the roy for the relief of the poor of the province of Brittany”, that is to say 54 000 pounds to be distributed between 28 subdelegations (in High-Brittany), for example 6024 pounds for that of Fraud; or the “Project of the plan of administration of the helps which it rained with its majesty to grant to the parishes Piriac-sur-Mer and Mesquer” afflicted by the Grêle gone back to August 1757.

All the interventions of the intendant were not envisaged by the regulation, at least if one believes the deliberation of the community of Vannes of July 14th 1775 stopping thanking it for the gift which it made at the time of his passage in the city, of a sum of 600 pounds “to get the marriage of two girls of this city”.

History of the institution

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In 1786, the seat of the intendance having to be moved with Nantes in order to withdraw it from the immediate influence of the Parliament and the States or their commissions, the towns of Brest, Chateaubriant, of Croisic, Dinan, Guerche, Lamballe, Montfort and Saint-Brieuc send letters of protest in reply to the letter which they received from the community of Rennes; with this movement unite the officers of the Présidial or the Corporation S like that of the Master-wig makers.

See too

Sources

Henri Fréville, Intendance of Brittany (1689 - 1790). Test on the history of an intendance in Country of States at the XVIIIe century , Thesis. Rennes, Plihon, 1953. 3 vol.
Severin Channel, origins of the intendance of Brittany , H. Champion, Paris, 1911, also published by Annals of Brittany of 1911 to 1915.

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