Historic provinces of France
1 Île-de-France (the historical Domaine royal , capital Paris )
2 Berry (capital Bourges )
3 Orléanais (capital Orléans )
4 Normandie (capital Rouen )
5 Languedoc , mainly the county of Toulouse (main town Toulouse )
6 Lyonnais (main town Lyon )
7 Dauphiné , county Vienne (main town Grenoble )
8 Champagne (main town Troyes )
9 Aunis , an Aquitanian fief (main town La Rochelle )
10 Saintonge (main town Saintes )
11 Poitou , an Aquitaine fiefdom (main town Poitiers )
12 Aquitaine , since the 13th century Guyenne , with Gascogne (main town Bordeaux )
13 Bourgogne (main town Dijon )
14 Picardy (main town Amiens )
15 Anjou (main town Angers )
16 Provence (main town Aix- en-Provence )
17 Angoumois (main town Angoulême )
18 Bourbonnais (main town Moulins )
19 Marche (main town Guéret )
20 Bretagne (main town Rennes )
21 County Maine (main town Le Mans )
22 Touraine ( Main town Tours )
23 Limousin (main town Limoges )
24 County Foix (main town Foix )
25 Duchy of Auvergne (main town Clermont-Ferrand )
26 Béarn (main town Pau )
27 Alsace (main town Strasbourg )
28 Artois (main town Arras )
29 Roussillon (main town Perpignan )
30 Flanders (capital Lille )
31 Franche-Comté (free county of Burgundy) (capital Besançon )
32 Lorraine (capital Nancy )
33 Corsica (not shown on the map, capital Ajaccio )
34 Nivernais (capital Nevers )
35 County Venaissin , 1274–1791 papal fiefdom (Main town Avignon )
36 Mulhouse in Alsace (until 1798 part of what was then Switzerland , the Old Confederation )
37 Savoy , until 1860 part of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont (main town Chambéry )
38 County Nice , until 1860 part of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont (main town Nice )
39 County Mömpelgard (1397–1793 under Württemberg rule, capital Montbéliard )
The historical provinces of France (French provinces , Sg. Province ) are the former territorial units into which France was divided until 1792 .
status
Many provinces formerly correspond independent territories in different ways part of the passage of time the royal domain ( Domaine royal ) of the French kings had become: reverted to the French crown or retracted from this fiefdom , by personal union united with the French crown territories or areas of foreign States ceded to or annexed by France. The part of the Kingdom of Navarre (Royaume de Navarre) , which belongs to France and is also known as Nieder-Navarre (Basse-Navarre) , had a special status . This was in fact one of the provinces of France, but formally legally an independent kingdom connected with France only in personal union, which is why the kings of France until 1789 (and again after the Restoration until 1830) the title of King of France and of Navarre (roi de France et de Navarre) .
The provinces were subject to a common central government, but retained their individual legal status based on customary law (coutumes et privilèges) . Individual areas within a province could in turn have their own customary rights and thus form provinces within this province. It is therefore hardly possible to list all provinces conclusively. The central administration used different territorial administrative divisions for different purposes, which also changed from time to time, so that no uniform list can be drawn up on this basis either.
One of the most important legal differences was the different organization of tax collection . In the majority of the provinces, the so-called pays d'élections , local elected representatives, the so-called élus , were responsible for collecting taxes. In the so-called pays d'États there was a provincial assembly of estates , which was also responsible for the tax approval, although the French kings tried to limit the political role of the provincial estates as well as that of the general estates of the entire kingdom as much as possible. In the so-called pays d'imposition , which were annexed to the French state in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries , there were neither provincial estates nor élus , but the collection of taxes was directly in the hands of the royal intendants .
Institution development
Governorates
The so-called gouvernements had existed as administrative units of the central government since the 14th century . They were under the direction of a governor , who mostly came from the nobility . The governorates initially served primarily military purposes, but over time also took on numerous civilian tasks. Since the noble governors were viewed by the absolutist kings as potential oppositional forces, they tried to limit their power. In 1661, Louis XIV determined that the governors were only allowed to stay in their governors for a limited period with the consent of the king .
The number of governorates fluctuated between 3 and 12 in the 15th and 16th centuries, and at that time a governorate usually comprised several provinces. Under Louis XIII. the number of governorates increased to almost 40 in the 17th century, so that their area now often corresponded to that of a single province. In 1776 their number was fixed at 39, of which 32 large governorates (grands grouvernements) and 7 small governorates (petits grouvernements) , which formed enclaves within the large ones .
Généralités and Intendances
The recettes générales or généralités were created in France in 1542 as districts of financial administration . At first there were 16 of these, in the course of the following centuries their number increased to 36 by 1784. The areas of the généralités only partially corresponded to those of the provinces. In larger provinces there were often several généralités , while several smaller provinces were combined into one généralité . The recettes générales were each subordinate to a receveur général , who was assisted by a trésorier de France , responsible for the royal goods, and a général des finances , responsible for direct and indirect taxes . The maîtres de requêtes had been responsible for financial control since 1555 .
At the beginning of the 17th century, the maîtres des requêtes received the title of police, judicial and financial directors and royal commissioners ( intendant de police, justice et finance et commissaire départi du roi ). Since the end of the 17th century they had their permanent seat in the généralité , for which they were responsible. The directors , who were direct representatives of the king who could be recalled at any time, actually became the heads of the state administration in the territory under their control and thus took over the tasks that had previously been performed by the governors. Often they also took care of the economic development of the area. Since the areas of responsibility of the artistic directors generally corresponded to the généralités , these are often referred to as généralités-intendances . In individual cases, however, the areas of généralités and intendances did not coincide : In Languedoc there were two généralités (in Toulouse and Montpellier ), but only one intendance (in Montpellier).
Dissolution of the provinces
During the French Revolution , in 1789, in the National Assembly , the representatives of the individual provinces declared the renunciation of the inherited privileges of their provinces, which were regarded as incompatible with the equality of all citizens. The National Assembly decided to dissolve the provinces and replace them with the départements , which, unlike the provinces, should all have the same size and status. When naming the newly formed departments, the names of the provinces that had existed up to that point were deliberately not used; instead, most of them were named after rivers and mountains.
The provinces have ceased to be political units since then, but their names live on as geographical names. When naming the present-day French regions , the names of the historical provinces were used again if the area of the region largely corresponded to a historical territory. However, since the borders of a region are aligned with those of the départements, only in a few cases do they exactly coincide with the borders of the former provinces.
Provinces with year of annexation to the crown domain
List of governorates
The following list contains the 39 governorates existing in 1789 with the provinces belonging to them.
| Governorate | associated provinces |
|---|---|
| Anjou | Anjou |
| Artois | Artois |
| Aunis | Aunis |
| Auvergne | Auvergne |
| Bearn | Béarn , Soule , Lower Navarre |
| Berry | Berry |
| Boulonnais | Boulonnais |
| Bourbonnais | Bourbonnais |
| Brittany | Brittany |
| Burgundy ( Bourgogne ) | Burgundy |
| Champagne | Champagne |
| Dauphiné | Dauphiné |
| Dombes | Dombes |
| Alsace ( Alsace ) | Alsace |
| Flanders and Hainaut ( Flandre et Hainaut ) | Flanders , Hainaut |
| County of Foix ( Comté de Foix ) | County Foix |
| Franche-Comté | Franche-Comté |
| Guyenne and Gascogne ( Guyenne et Gascogne ) | Guyenne , Gascony , Labourd |
| Île-de-France | Île-de-France (excluding Paris) |
| Corsica ( Corse ) | Corsica |
| Languedoc | Languedoc |
| Limousin | Limousin |
| Lorraine ( Lorraine ) | Lorraine |
| Lyonnais | Lyonnais |
| Maine | Maine |
| Marche | Marche |
| Nivernais | Nivernais |
| Normandy | Normandy |
| Orléanais | Orléanais |
| Paris | Paris (part of the Île-de-France ) |
| Picardy | Picardy |
| Poitou | Poitou |
| Provence | Provence |
| Roussillon | Roussillon |
| Saintonge and Angoumois ( Saintonge et Angoumois ) | Saintonge , Angoumois |
| Saumurois | Saumurois |
| Toul | Toul |
| Touraine | Touraine |
| Verdun and Metz | Verdun , Metz |
List of Généralités
The following list shows the Généralités that existed immediately before the French Revolution with their respective provinces.
| Headquarters of the Généralité | Year of foundation of Généralité |
associated provinces | Tax status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agen , later Bordeaux | 1542 | Guyenne (partially) | pays d'élections |
| Aix | 1542 | Provence | pays d'États |
| Alencon | 1636 | Normandy (partially) | pays d'élections |
| Amiens | 1542 | Picardy (partially), Boulonnais , until 1754 also Artois | pays d'élections |
| Also | 1716 | Gascony | pays d'élections |
| Bastia | 1768 | Corsica | |
| Bayonne | 1784 | Labord | |
| Besançon | 1676 | Franche-Comté | pays d'imposition |
| Bourges | 1542 | Berry , Marche (partially) | pays d'élections |
| Caen | 1542 | Normandy (partially) | pays d'élections |
| Châlons-sur-Marne | 1542 | Champagne , Brie , Sedan | pays d'élections |
| Dijon | 1542 | Burgundy | pays d'États |
| Grenoble | 1542 | Dauphiné | pays d'États |
| Issoire , later Riom | 1542 | Auvergne | pays d'élections |
| La Rochelle | 1694 | Aunis , Saintonge , Angoumois (partially) | pays d'élections |
| Lille | 1691 | Flanders , from 1754 also Artois | pays d'imposition |
| Limoges | 1558 | Limousin , Marche (partly), Angoumois (partly) | pays d'élections |
| Lyon | 1542 | Lyonnais , Forez , Beaujolais | pays d'élections |
| Metz | 1552 | the three dioceses ( Trois-Évêchés ) Metz , Toul and Verdun | |
| Montauban | 1635 | Guyenne (partially), until 1716 also Gascony | pays d'élections |
| Montpellier | 1542 | Languedoc (partially) (including Gévaudan and Vivarais ) | pays d'États |
| Moulins | 1587 | Bourbonnais , Marche (partly), Nivernais (partly) | pays d'élections |
| Nancy | 1737 | Lorraine | pays d'imposition |
| Orleans | 1558 | Orléanais , Nivernais (partially) | pays d'élections |
| Paris | 1542 | Île-de-France (mostly), Picardy (partly) | pays d'élections |
| Pau | 1784 | Béarn , Soule , Lower Navarre , Bigorre , Quatre Vallées , Pays de Marsan , County Foix | pays d'États |
| Perpignan | 1660 | Roussillon | pays d'imposition |
| Poitiers | 1542 | Poitou | pays d'élections |
| Rennes | 1552 | Brittany | pays d'États |
| Rouen | 1542 | Normandy (partially) | pays d'élections |
| Soissons | 1595 | Île-de-France (partly), Picardy (partly) | pays d'élections |
| Strasbourg (Strasbourg) | 1689 | Alsace Alsace | pays d'imposition |
| Toulouse | 1542 | Languedoc (partially) | pays d'États |
| Tours | 1542 | Touraine , Maine , Anjou , Saumurois | pays d'élections |
| Trévoux | 1762 | Dombes | pays d'élections |
| Valenciennes | 1678 | Hainaut Hainaut | pays d'imposition |