Editing Intendant (section)

===History===
As early as the 15th century, the French kings sent commissioners to the [[Provinces of France|provinces]] to report on royal and administrative issues and to undertake any necessary action.  These agents of the king were recruited from among the masters of requests, the [[Conseiller d'État|Councillors of State]] and members of the [[Parlement]]s or the [[Chambre des comptes|Court of Accounts]].  Their mission was always for a specific mandate and lasted for a limited period.  Along with these, there were also commissioners sent to the army, in charge of provisioning the army, policing and finances; they would supervise accountants, providers, merchants, and generals, and attend war councils and tribunals for military crimes.  Such commissioners are found in [[Corsica]] as early as 1553, in [[Bourges]] in 1592, in [[Troyes]] in 1594, and in [[Limoges]] in 1596.

When [[Henry IV of France|Henry IV]] ascended the throne in 1589, one of his prime focuses was to reduce the privileges of the provincial governors who, in theory, represented "the presence of the king in his province" but had, during the civil wars of the early modern period, proven themselves to be highly intractable; these positions had long been held by only the highest ranked [[French nobility|noble]] families in the realm.  The Intendants to the provinces —- the term "Intendant" appears around 1620 during the reign of [[Louis XIII of France|Louis XIII]] – became an effective tool of regional control.

Under Louis XIII's minister [[Cardinal Richelieu]], with France's entry into the [[Thirty Years' War]] in 1635, the Intendants became a permanent institution in France.  No longer mere inspectors, their role became one of government administrators.  During the [[Fronde]] in 1648, the members of Parlement of the ''Chambre Saint-Louis'' demanded that the Intendants be suppressed; [[Cardinal Mazarin|Mazarin]] and [[Anne of Austria]] gave in to these demands except in the case of border provinces threatened by Spanish or Imperial attack.  At the end of the Fronde, the Intendants were reinstated.

When [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]] (1643–1715) was in power, the [[François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois|Marquis of Louvois]], [[Secretary of State for War (France)|War Secretary]] between 1677 and 1691, further expanded the power of the provincial intendants. They monitored Louis's refinements of the French military, including the institution of a merit promotion system and a policy of enlistment limited to single men for periods of four years.  After 1680, Intendants in France had a permanent position in a fixed region (or "[[généralité]]"); their official titles being <span title="intendant of justice, police and finances, commissioners departed in the generalities of the kingdom for the execution of the orders of the king">''intendant de justice, police et finances'', ''commissaires départis dans les généralités du royaume pour l'exécution des ordres du roi''</span> (or <span title="of his majesty">''de Sa Majesté''</span>).<ref>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Intendant |volume=14 |page=683 |first=Adhémar |last=Esmein |author-link=Adhémar Esmein}}</ref>

The position of Intendant remained in existence until the [[French Revolution]]. The title was maintained thereafter for military officers with responsibility for financial auditing at regimental level and above.

A 2021 study, which used a dataset of 430 intendants from 1640 to 1789, found that less than half of these officials went through the legally-specified training path.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Sasaki|first=Yu|date=2021|title=The Royal Consultants: The Intendants of France and the Bureaucratic Transition in Pre-modern Europe|url=https://www.nowpublishers.com/article/Details/HPE-0008|journal=Journal of Historical Political Economy|language=English|volume=1|issue=2|pages=259–289|doi=10.1561/115.00000008|issn=2693-9290|hdl=2065/00073286|s2cid=238784308|hdl-access=free}}</ref> The study raised questions about the impersonal nature of these bureaucrats, with evidence indicating that familial and marital ties were factors in appointments, and that appointment duration had wide variability.<ref name=":0" />