| dc.description.abstract | As readers of the journal of the marquis d Argenson
will knows the mastres des requetes ordinaires do 1'hotel
du roi were "la vraie pepiniere des administrateurs" in
the eighteenth century (1) From this judicial company
were drawn the intendants of the provinces, finance and
commerce, most of the councillors of state and, sometimes,
secretaries of state, keepers of the seal and chancellors. (2)
The term "pepiniere" could also be used to describe the
masters during the reign of Louis X, at least after
1660..
Yet, before the reign of Louis xiii the description
was not an accurate characterization, for the simple reason that
the centralized administration of later Bourbon
France did not exist.. To be sure administrators abounded,
even though they were fewer in number in sixteenth than
seventeenth-century France. As a well-known article by
Gaston Zeller illustrates Valois France was ruled by a
decentralized. administration. -
(3) "Before the intendants"
the realm was under the supervision of governors, parlements,
estates and local functionaries. Representatives from the centre made few appearances in the provinces,
for the centre was composed of the king and his court
and only a handful of robins and scribes.
From the end of the religious wars until the Fronde
this system began to crumble under the assault of what
historians refer to as administrative centralization..
To say that the monarchy "undertook" this policy would
be misleading since it was mainly a consequence of the
efforts of the crown, supported by much of the elite,
to liberate itself from both the Protestant state-within a-
state and the Spanish hegemony. Obliged to mobilize
resources, to control internal conditions which became
more alarming in the 1620s and 1630s and to handle the
growing influx of administrative and judicial business
which was the result of its policies, the crown required
a group of officials who would be responsible first and
foremost to itself. Local magistrates and administrators,
whose reliability was sometimes undermined by provincial
loyalties and attachments to venerable institutions dis-ow
posing of much independence from the crown, could not be
entrusted with all the necessary, tasks. But the company,
of masters, originally a tiny group of magistrates who
had traditionally received placets presented to the king,
was the tool to which the king had recourse. One of our
intentions is to show how the monarchy adapted this traditional
group to serve ends which were revolutionary.
This work traces what can only be called the rise
of the masters", a phenomena which coincided with their
metamorphosis into the "pepiniere" of a central administration
which was busier and more involved in local
affairs under Louis XIII than under the Valois. The
period covered is one which would have seemed coherent
to men of the l64Os vfor as Pomponne do Bellievre, a
councillor of state, wrote:
de temps en temps les
fonctions do lours charges s'estoient alleves et
quelquefois diminuees, ii est advenu quo los guerres
civilles de la ligue finissantes apres la diminuation
de leurs charges, elles se releverent beaucoup, en
sorte quo le prix d'icelles estant d'un tiers moindre
que les offices au parlement, auiourd'huy, cinquante
ans apres, le prix an est augmente pardessus les
offices au parlement de plus du tiers, l'asseurance
du droict annuel donna courage d'y entrer et L'esperance
at comme certitude d'en sortir conseiller
d'estat: en y ayant beaucoup porte qui autrement n'y
fussent pas entres"., (4)
However, ideally we would be obliged to follow the history
of the company into the 1660s. This has been done in
some, but not all, sections of this work.
The story of the group is a complicated and rich one'
as scholars who have ventured in this direction-- especially
Professors Mousnier and Antoine-- are well aware. (5)
Although the most important cause of the
magisterial success is
the one noted above, it will be necessary to explain other
factors- the conditions of success, some of which lay in
the chaotic financial conditions of Valois France, and
other forces which propelled the masters along an advantageous itinerary. , "such as their skill as a pressure
group. Attention, will also be given to the ambiguities
of their position. for they were tied closely professionally,
and socially to judicial companies which drifted
steadily into opposition to the crown, under Louis XII7. | en_US |
