Besides this, the Intendant was a benefactor too. He repressed mendicity and arrested vagabonds. He distributed the funds, which, in the absence of any legal provision for the poor, and in the abandonment by the seigneurs of the old feudal duty of providing for their destitute dependents, the Council annually apportioned for the purpose. He controlled the charitable workshops which the Council annually set up. In times of scarcity it was he who must find food for the people, or, if food were not forthcoming, suppress the riots which the want of it provoked. In the country districts the Intendant dispensed his lofty patronage to farmers and encouraged agricultural improvements. In the villages, though the force of ancient custom still drew the inhabitants to village-meetings, these meetings could not be held without the Intendants leave; they retained only the academic privilege of debate; and when they elected their syndic and collector, they often elected merely the Intendant's nominees. Even in the towns which possessed municipal freedom, the Intendant constantly interfered in all matters of importance and in many little matters of detail, and the burghers protested their eager submission to 'all the commands of his Greatness.' In each of the provinces of France the Intendant represented the omnipotence and wielded the authority of Government; the commands which he received from the Comptroller-General he dictated in turn to a staff of agents termed Sub-Delegates, and dependent on him; and these Sub-Delegates, distributed through the different cantons of the province, carried out their Intendant's orders, assisted his designs, and were responsible only to their superior, as he was responsible to the Council at Versailles.