00:00The Royal Council of Finances was a governing council created by Louis XIV and established by the regulation of
00:05Fontainebleau of September 15, 1661, to assist him in the functions of superintendent of finances, which he had decided to
00:11'to exercise himself after the dismissal of Nicolas Fouquet.
00:14His expertise was broad and encompassed the budget, taxation, industry, commerce, currency, and leases of the
00:20general farm, etc.
00:22The patent for the size of the work, which fixed the overall amount, the projected statement, the budget, and was signed, was deliberated.
00:28payment orders, judged in numerous financial disputes, particularly in tax matters.
00:33It brought together the king, the head of the Royal Council of Finances, a decorative but highly paid figure, the dauphin, sometimes the
00:40Chancellor of France, the Comptroller General of Finances, a few State Councillors, usually two, then the Intendants of Finances.
00:47This council was then chaired directly by Louis XIV or, if necessary, by the head of the Royal Council of
00:53finances in the king's absence.
00:55Until 1715, the Royal Council of Finance met twice a week.
00:59But fairly quickly, the important decisions were made by the king in private with the comptroller general, the
01:05advice that merely endorses them without any real debate.
01:08From 1715 to 1720, it was replaced by the Council of Finance, one of the special councils of the unaudited police.
01:14Under the Regency, and later under Louis XV, the Royal Council of Finances met every Tuesday.
01:20But from the years 1728 to 1730, he was no longer able to keep up the weekly schedule.
01:25In the 1730s and 1740s, it only sat once every two weeks on average, then
01:31once a month from the years 1755 to 1760.
01:35This seemingly inevitable decline had a major cause in the fact that the Comptroller General was the sole rapporteur in
01:41this advice.
01:41He gave affairs the shape he had forged in his study.
01:45Because these matters stemmed from a multitude of details that the other council members did not possess as he did,
01:50The decision was, as if inevitably, in line with his opinion.
01:53Since the rapporteur decided everything, what was the point of convening the council?
01:57The king's work and the office work were enough, Michel Antoine.
