Recettes générales, commonly known as généralités (), were the administrative divisions of France under the Ancien Régime and are often considered to prefigure the current préfectures. At the time of the French Revolution, there were 36 généralités.
Among the multiple divisions utilised for various purposes by the kings' administrators, généralités emerged gradually from the 14th to the 16th centuries. Initially fiscal, their role steadily increased to become by the late 17th century — under the authority of an intendant (reporting to the Controller-General of Finances) — the very framework of royal administration and centralisation.
History Before the 14th century, oversight of the collection of royal taxes fell generally to the baillis and sénéchaux in their circumscriptions. Reforms in the 14th and 15th centuries saw France's royal financial administration run by two financial boards which worked in a collegial manner: the four généraux des finances (also called général conseiller or receveur général ) oversaw the collection of taxes (taille, aides, gabelle, etc.) and the four trésoriers de France (treasurers) oversaw revenues from royal lands (the domaine royal). Together they were often referred to as messieurs des finances. The four members of each board were divided by geographical circumscriptions (although the term généralité is not found before the end of the 15th century); the areas were named Languedoïl (center and southwest of the country), Languedoc (Languedoc, Lyonnais, Forez, Beaujolais), Outre-Seine-et-Yonne (Île-de-France, Champagne), and Normandy (the latter was created in 1449; the other three were created earlier), with the directors of the Languedoïl region typically having an honorific preeminence. By 1484, the number of généralités had increased to six.
In the 16th century, the kings of France, in an effort to exert a more direct control over royal finances and to circumvent the double-board (accused of poor oversight), instituted numerous administrative reforms, including the restructuring of the financial administration and an increase in the number of généralités. On December 7, 1542, by edict of Francis I, France was divided into sixteen généralités. The number increased to twenty-one at the end of the 16th century, and to thirty-six by the time of the French Revolution. The last two were created in 1784.
The administration of the généralités of the early modern period went through a variety of reforms. In 1577 Henry III established five treasurers (trésoriers généraux) in each généralité who would form a bureau of finances. In the 17th century, oversight of the généralités was subsumed by the "intendants of finance, justice and police", and the expression généralité and intendance became roughly synonymous.
List of Généralités - Intendances
Généralité Year of creation Provinces 1. Généralité of Bordeaux, (Agen) (1542) Guyenne 2. Généralité of Provence, or Aix-en-Provence (1542) Provence 3. Généralité of Amiens (1542) Picardy 4. Généralité of Bourges (1542) Berry 5. Généralité of Caen (1542) Normandy 6. Généralité of Châlons (1542) Champagne 7. Généralité of Burgundy, Dijon (1542) Burgundy 8. Généralité of Grenoble (1542) Dauphiné 9. Généralité of Issoire later of Riom (1542) Auvergne 10. Généralité of Lyon (1542) Lyonnais, Beaujolais and Forez 11. Généralité of Montpellier (1542) Languedoc 12. Généralité of Paris (1542) Île-de-France 13. Généralité of Poitiers (1542) Poitou 14. Généralité of Rouen (1542) Normandy 15. Généralité of Toulouse (1542) Languedoc 16. Généralité of Tours (1542) Touraine, Maine and Anjou 17. Généralité of Metz (1552) Trois-Évêchés 18. Généralité of Nantes (1552) Brittany 19. Généralité of Limoges (1558) Limousin, Marche and Angoumois 20. Généralité of Orléans (1558) Orléanais 21. Généralité of Moulins (1587) Bourbonnais 22. Généralité of Soissons (1595) Picardy 23. Généralité of Montauban (1635) Gascony 24. Généralité of Alençon (1636) Perche 25. Généralité of Perpignan (1660) Roussillon 26. Généralité of Besançon (1676) Franche-Comté 27. Généralité of Valenciennes (1678) Hainaut 28. Généralité of Strasbourg (1689) Alsace 29. (see 18) 30. Généralité of Lille (1691) Flanders 31. Généralité of La Rochelle (1694) Aunis and Saintonge 32. Généralité of Nancy (1737) Lorraine 33. Généralité of Trévoux (1762) Dombes 34. Généralité of Corsica, or of Bastia (1768) Corsica 35. Généralité of Auch (1776) Gascony 36. Généralité of Bayonne (1784) Labourd 37. Généralité of Pau (1784) Béarn and Soule
See also Ancien Régime in France Provinces of France Taille
References
de:Historische Provinzen Frankreichs#Liste der Généralités