The eighteenth century has been depicted as the golden age of the intendants. By the reign of Louis XV the Fronde was just a distant memory, and, while conflicts with the parlements or other corporate bodies were not unknown, the intendants were an accepted part of the provincial scene. Firmly established in their généralités and supported by a numerous body of subdelegates the intendants were able to turn their attention to the welfare of the population. Ardascheff, in his classic study published at the beginning of the twentieth century, painted a glowing portrait of the enlightened intendant, who ‘by his culture, birth and education formed part of this “enlightened public” which was the true mouthpiece of public opinion’. Inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment and by the contemporary concept of ‘bienfaisance’, the intendants promoted agricultural and economic development, attempted to tackle the problems of rural poverty, encouraged education and the arts and sought to diffuse the benefits of advances in medical knowledge.

With administrators of the calibre of Turgot, Auget de Monthyon and Sénac de Meilhan, it is not difficult to see why their reforming efforts have attracted praise, and Maurice Bordes repeated many of the same arguments in his studies of the intendants during the reign of Louis XV. Whereas Ardascheff had claimed that they increasingly saw themselves as the representatives of the provinces in which they served, Bordes stressed their continuing fidelity ‘to their administrative traditions and to their centralising vocation’.