Jump to navigation Jump to search This article is russian dating ottawa public officials especially in non-English-speaking countries called “intendants” in English. France, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. Intendants were royal civil servants in France under the Old Regime.

A product of the centralization policies of the French crown, intendants were appointed “commissions,” and not purchasable hereditary “offices,” which thus prevented the abuse of sales of royal offices and made them more tractable and subservient emissaries of the king. Their missions were always temporary, which helped reduce favorable bias toward a province, and were focused on royal inspection. Generally, they were masters of requests in the Conseil des parties. A symbol of royal centralization and absolutism, the intendant had numerous adversaries.

In the same way, the term intendant général was used for certain commissioned positions close to the State Secretaries of War and of the Navy. As early as the 15th century, the French kings sent commissioners to the provinces to report on royal and administrative issues and to undertake any necessary action. Under Louis XIII’s minister Cardinal Richelieu, with France’s entry into the Thirty Years’ War in 1635, the Intendants became a permanent institution in France. No longer mere inspectors, their role became one of government administrators.

Marquis of Louvois, War Secretary between 1677 and 1691, further expanded the power of the provincial intendants. The position of Intendant remained in existence until the French Revolution. The title was maintained thereafter for military officers with responsibility for financial auditing at regimental level and above. Appointed and revoked by the king and reporting to the Controller-General of Finances, the Intendant in his “généralité” had at his service a small team of secretaries. The French North American colony of New France, which later became the Canadian province of Quebec, also had a senior official called an intendant, who was responsible to the French King. Intendants were introduced into Spain and the Spanish Empire during the eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms. The reforms were designed by the new dynasty to make political administration more efficient and to promote economic, commercial, and fiscal development of their new realms.

As a result of the Seven Years’ War an intendancy was set up in Cuba in 1764. The Cuban intendant had oversight of the army’s and the royal treasury’s finances. Venezuela in 1776, and several in the Río de la Plata in 1783. Rank insignia of an intendant of the Portuguese Public Security Police. From 1760 to 1832, the head of the Police of the Kingdom of Portugal had the title of “Intendant General of the Police of the Court and of the Kingdom”. A similar title – that of “Intendant General of the Public Security” – was used from 1928 to 1932 to designate the head of the Portuguese Civil Police. Presently, intendant is a rank of officer in the Public Security Police, roughly equivalent to the military rank of lieutenant-colonel.