Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/27

 Tlie Office of Intendmit in New France i 7 general policy of administrative centralization.' Furthermore, the so-called " fidit de Creation des Intendans " (1635), published in Isambert's Rccucil General des Ancicnncs Lois Fran^aises,' seemed definitely to indicate the genesis of the office. Almost half a cen- tury ago, however, a careful investigator demonstrated beyond question that the edict of 1635 had been printed under a misleading title by the editor of the collection in which it was contained ; that the intendancy was in existence long before the time of Richelieu; and that its powers were so well developed by the first quarter of the seventeenth century that the cardinal-minister could have found but little to add to them.^ On the contrary, if the Testament Politique is to be regarded as Richelieu's legacy of political theory, he would seem, far from having created or developed the office, to have had in truth a very poor opinion of it and to have been actu- ally in favor of curbing its jurisdiction.* The provincial intendancy was, therefore, no spontaneous and arbitrary creation, dating back, as some writers have supposed, only three decades before its transplantation to New France.'^ It was a very old post, and in its origin a not very important one, the jurisdiction of which grew slowly but surely in a general atmos- phere of centralization, its widening powers simply reflecting with fidelity the steadily increasing fusion of administrative functions under the direct control of the crown.' The office of intendant first made its appearance in connection with the afifairs of New France in the spring of 1663. The colony had just been taken away from the Company of One Hundred Associates; and the king, on the advice of Colbert, had decided to provide it with a new framework of government modelled in gen- eral upon that of a French province. To this end an elaborate edict constituting the new administration was issued in April, 1663.' By it provision was made for the establishment in New France of a Sovereign Council (conseil sonverain), to be composed in the first instance of seven members : a lieutenant-general and governor ' Cf. the Memoires of Seguier and of Omer Talon, cited by Gabriel Hanotaux in his Origines de I'Institution des Intcndanfs des Provinces (Paris, igoi), 152-153- 2 Paris, 1822-1833, XVI. 442 et seqq. 3 Jules Caillet, De V Administration en France sous le Ministcre dn Cardinal de Richelieu (Paris, 1857), 44 et seqq. ♦Richelieu, Testament Politique (Amsterdam. 1688), pt. i., ch. iv., §§ iii, iv. 5 James Douglas, Old France in the Neiv World (Cleveland, 1905), 507. 6 Allen Johnson, The Intendant as a Political Agent under Louis XIV. (Lowell, Mass., 1899), ch. i. ' '■ Edit de creation du conseil superieur de Quebec ", Edits et Ordonnances, I. 37-39- AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XII. — 2.