State Capacity in Seventeenth-Century France: The Role of the Intendants

Over the seventeenth century, France relied mainly on private agents to build its state capacity but it shifted gradually to public agents, the intendants. We document this centralization process. The intendants’ appointment occurred at different times across regions. Their alternating arrivals and departures in the regions created sequences of presence and vacancy that our empirical strategy takes advantage of. Using an original panel dataset, we identify a causal effect of the intendants’ presence on tax revenues, tax and food riots. Before the 1635 Edict that permanently installed them, occasional missions were operated by special envoys who turned to be effective immediately, but only in the provinces that kept the privilege to negotiate on taxation: there, tax revenues increased and tax riots decreased. Under Richelieu and Mazarin governments, from 1635 to 1660, these privilege-provinces resisted as the presence of the intendant triggered a decrease in tax revenues. In the less autonomous common provinces, tax revenues were collected but tax riots were caused by the intendant’s presence. Finally, the institution reached its maturity under the period that saw the arrival of Colbert from 1661 on: tax revenues increased sharply in both types of provinces but so did tax riots. The policies implemeted by Colbert and his successors helped bringing money in but could not prevent the population fromrebelling. Nor the regulations taken by the intendants were sufficient to cope with food riots.