Intendant of finances
The intendants of finances were agents of the financial administration of France under the Ancien Mode.
History
The function of intendant of finances was creates in 1552 as a Commission, to manage the subsidies raised for the voyage from Germany . In 1556, these police chiefs took the name of intendants of finances. The intendants formed a collegial ministry of finances, but it was not rare that one of them profited from a preeminence, it was sometimes named Surintendant of finances.The number of the intendants undergoes important fluctuations, passing from three to six in the middle of the 16th century, then to twelve in the middle of the 17th century before totaling three in 1661. The intendants accepted each one the load of a geographical department, to which were added starting from 1661 specialized attributions, like the Highways Departments or the direct impositions.
In 1690, the intendants became officer S, subjected to the direction of the general inspector. This last was titular of a revocable commission constantly, unlike the offices of the intendants of finances: the latter thus ensured, by their stability, the continuity of the administration of finances.
Like the general inspector, the intendants were removed under the Polysynodie, but recreate in 1722.
In 1777 they were again removed and their functions given to main of the requests, which accepted in 1787 commissions of intendant of finances.
Organization
The intendants of finances entered of right only to the private Conseil, but they were not very assiduous there. Two of them sat at the royal Conseil of finances. Almost all ended up being named advisers of State.They profited from a great autonomy in the exercise of their departments, corresponding directly with the Chancelier of France, the Secretaries of State, the provincial Intendant S. It happened that the intendants of finances meet in an abstract way to prepare the files to present to the royal Council finances, which de facto led to replace this one.
The intendants of finances were generally chosen, like the general inspector, among the main of the requests. This identity of origin, allied to the stability of the ones and the instability of the other, tended to blur the hierarchy which existed in theory between the general inspector and the intendants. But even if the row of the latter compared them almost to the Secretaries of State, they did not have the privilege - reserved with the general inspector of finances - to work in particular with the King. Their importance and their row however did not cease continuing until under the reign of Louis XV.
Each intendant of finances was with the head of a department recovering a coherent whole of attributions: impositions; the Highways Departments; forests and fields, etc
See too
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