Evidently the king and his ministers could not give their personal
attention to all these matters. Minor questions were in fact settled by
the bureaux and the secretaries of state, and the king did little more
than sign the necessary license. Thus matters of local interest were
practically decided by subordinate officers in Paris or Versailles,
instead of being arranged in the places where they were really
understood. If a village in Languedoc wanted a new parsonage, neither
the inhabitants of the place, nor any one who had ever been within a
hundred miles of it, was allowed to decide on the plan and to regulate
the expense, but the whole matter was reported to an office in the
capital and there settled by a clerk. This barbarous system, which is by
no means obsolete in Europe, is known in modern times by the barbarous
name of bureaucracy.

The royal councils and their subordinate bureaux had their agents in the
country. These were the intendants, men who deserve attention, for by
them a very large part of the actual government was carried on. They
were thirty-two in number, and governed each a territory, called a
generalite. The Intendants were not great lords, nor the owners of
offices that had become assimilated to property; they were hard-working
men, delegated by the council, under the great seal, and liable to be
promoted or recalled at the royal pleasure. They were chosen from the
class of _maitres des requetes_, and were therefore all lawyers and
members of the Privy Council. Thus the unity of the administration in
Versailles and the provinces was constantly maintained.

It had originally been the function of the intendants to act as legal
inspectors, making the circuit of the provincial towns for the purpose
of securing uniformity and the proper administration of justice in the
various local courts.[Footnote: Du Boys, i. 517.] They retained to the