Intendants

officials in 17th- and 18th-century France invested with judicial, police, financial, and partial military power. They were appointed by the king for a fixed term and were an instrument of the feudal absolutist government in centralizing the country, ensuring the payment of taxes, suppressing popular movements, and combatting separatism in several of the provinces. The intendants supplanted such old local officials as governors and treasurers and restricted the activity of the provincial parliaments. The office was abolished in 1789 and much of its power was given to the system of prefects.