Organization
Unlike other ministries of the period, the Contrôle Général of Finances was organized in a collegiate manner. It was divided into several departments of which the Controller-General ran the most important (like the Royal Treasury), while the others were each directed by an Intendant of Finance, supervised from afar by the Controller-General. There were six Intendants of Finance at the end of the ancien régime; they were often referred to as "Messieurs des finances" or the "gens des finances".
In the same way, The Controller-General was assisted by four and, later five, Intendants of Commerce.
While in other ministries, only one individual—the "Secretary of State"—would attend the king's Counsel, the Contrôle Général appeared before the king as a group comprising the Controller-General and his Intendants of Finance and of Commerce. Because of this, the Contrôle Général considered itself essentially a separate division of the king's Counsel, and those outside of the Contrôle Général lost much of their say in financial matters.
In addition, given that decisions taken by the Contrôle Général—even the smallest ones—were supposed to derive from the king, the members of the Contrôle Général were required to sign their decisions as "arrêts du Conseil" ("decisions of the Counsel"), even when these administrative decisions had been decided merely by themselves outside of the king's Counsel. This was the case in 90% of the financial decisions made by the Contrôle Général, with only 10% having actually been decided in the Counsel.
The Contrôle Général had a very large personnel compared to other ministers. Most of the offices were in Paris, close to the bankers and financiers that the bureau dealt with. The Controller-Général had offices in Paris—at the Palais Mazarin (rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs) which is today the Bibliothèque nationale de France) -- and at Versailles; he was assisted by a secretary and an aide. The Intendants of Finances were lodged in Paris, and were assisted by a secretary and by several aides.
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