Description: A map of the 36 Ògeneralities of France prior to the French Revolution, including an inset of the Corsican Generality. ÒThe real, prosaic work was done in the thirty-six Ôgeneralities,Õ as another set of divisions was called. Over each of these was an intendant who was generally of the middle or bourgeois class, accustomed to work. These intendants were appointed by the king to carry on the royal government, each in his own district. They generally did not originate much, but they carried out the orders that came from the capital and made their reports to it. Their power was practically unrestricted. Upon them depended in large measure the happiness or the misery of the provinces. Judging from the fact that most of them were very unpopular, it must be admitted that this, the real working part of the government, did not contribute to the welfare of the people. The intendants were rather the docile tools of the misgovernment which issued from the five councils which were the five fingers of the king. As the head is, so are the members, and the officials under the intendants for the smaller local areas enjoyed the disesteem evoked by the oppressive or unjust policies of their superiors. — Hazen, 1917
Source: Charles Downer Hazen, The French Revolution and Napoleon (New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1917) 62
Map Credit: Courtesy the private collection of Roy Winkelman |
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