Corruption and Anticorruption in France between the 1670s and the 1780s

This chapter shows that the way in which corruption was dealt with at the level of provincial administration depended on how it was uncovered and on the choice of individual plaintiffs between the ordinary courts of the kingdom (justice déléguée) and the king’s justice retenue. Promising swiftness and harshness in tackling administrative misconduct, the latter, which was represented in the provinces by the intendant, gradually encroached on the business of the ordinary courts. The chapter shows that royal government associated the effectiveness of royal prosecution of corruption with avoiding jurisdictional competition and concentrating judicial proceedings in the intendant’s hands. Although the latter’s judicial duties thrust him into the thick of local politics and local rivalries, his investigations hardly ever tried to follow the political ramifications of corruption cases.