Conseil Du Roi - Administrative Personnel

Administrative Personnel

Under Henry IV and Louis XIII the administrative apparatus of the court and its councils was expanded and the proportion of the "noblesse de robe" increased, culminating in the following positions during the 17th century:

• First Minister: ministers and secretaries of state – such as Sully, Concini (who was also governor of several provinces), Richelieu, Mazarin, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Cardinal de Fleury, Turgot, etc. – exerted a powerful control over state administration in the 17th and 18th century. The title "principal ministre de l'état" was however only given six times in this period and Louis XIV himself refused to choose a "prime minister" after the death of Mazarin.
• Chancellor of France (also called the "garde des Scéaux", or "Keeper of the Seals")
• Controller-General of Finances (contrôleur général des finances, formerly called the surintendant des finances).
• Secretaries of State: created in 1547 by Henry II but of great importance after 1588, generally 4 in number, but occasionally 5:
  • Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
  • Secretary of State for War, also oversaw the border provinces.
  • Secretary of State of the Navy
  • Secretary of State of the Maison du Roi (the king's royal entourage and personal military guard), who also oversaw the clergy, the affairs of Paris and the non-border provinces.
  • Secretary of State for Protestant Affairs (combined with the secretary of the Maison du Roi in 1749).
• Councillors of state (generally 30)
• Maître des requêtes (generally 80)
• Intendants of finance (6)
• Intendants of commerce (4 or 5)
• Ministers of State (variable)
• Treasurers
• Farmers-General
• Superintendent of the postal system
• Directeur général of buildings
• Directeur général of fortifications
• Lieutenant General of Police of Paris (in charge of public order in the capital)
• Archbishop of Paris
• Royal confessor

Royal administration in the provinces had been the role of the bailliages and sénéchaussées in the Middle Ages, but this declined in the early modern period, and by the end of the 18th century, the bailliages served only a judicial function. The main source of royal administrative power in the provinces in the 16th and early 17th centuries fell to the gouverneurs (who represented "the presence of the king in his province"), positions which had long been held by only the highest ranked families in the realm. With the civil wars of the early modern period, the king increasing turned to more tractable and subservient emissaries, and this was the reason for the growth of the provincial intendants under Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Indendants were chosen from among the maître des requêtes. Intendants attached to a province had jurisdiction over finances, justice and policing.