provincial officials, each at the head of a _generalite_ (a superior administrative district for purposes of finance); under Henry II. the two functions were combined and assigned to the _bureaux des finances_. The fall of Fouquet led to the suppression of the office of _surintendant_; but soon Colbert again became practically a minister of finance, under the name of _controleur general des finances_, both title and office continuing to exist up to the Revolution. The _conseil du roi_, the origin of which we have described, was an important organ of the central government, and for a long time included among its members a large number of representatives of the nobility and clergy. Besides the councillors of state (_conseillers d'etat_), its ordinary members, the great officers of the crown and secretaries of state, princes of the blood and peers of France were members of it by right. Further, the king was accustomed to grant the brevet of councillor to a great number of the nobility and clergy, who could be called upon to sit in the council and give an opinion on matters of importance. But in the 17th century the council tended to differentiate its functions, forming three principal sections, one for political, one for financial, and the third for legal affairs. Under Louis XIV. it took a definitely professional, administrative and technical character. The _conseillers a brevet_ were all suppressed in 1673, and the peers of France ceased to be members of the council. The political council, or _conseil d'en haut_, had no _ex officio_ members, not even the chancellor; the secretary of state for foreign affairs, however, necessarily had entry to it; it also included a small number of persons chosen by the king and bearing the title of ministers of state (_ministres d'etat_). The other important sections of the conseil du roi were the _conseil des finances_, organized after the fall of Fouquet, and the _conseil des depeches_, in which sat the four secretaries of state and where everything concerned with internal administration (except finance) was dealt with, including the legal business connected with this administration. As to the government and the preparation of laws, under Louis XIV. and Louis XV., the _conseil du roi_ often passed into the background, when, as the saying went, a minister who was projecting some important measure _travaillait seul avec le roi_ (worked alone with the king), having from the outset gained the king's ear. Provincial administration.