The Controleur was the most important of the King's ministers, and had charge of nearly all the internal administration of the kingdom. He not only collected the revenue, but had gradually subordinated every other function of government to that one. So he took charge {29} of public works, of commerce and of agriculture, and directed the operations of an army of police, judicial and military officials--and all for the more splendid maintenance of Versailles, Trianon, and the courtiers. In the provinces he was represented by the intendant. This official's duties varied to a certain extent with his district or _generalite_. In administration France showed the transition that was proceeding from feudalism to centralized monarchism. Provinces had been acquired one by one, and many of them still retained local privileges. Of these the chief was that of holding provincial Estates, and where this custom prevailed, the chief duty of the Estates lay in the assessment of taxes. Where the province was not _pays d'etat_, it was the intendant who distributed the taxation. He enforced its collection; directed the _marechaussee_, or local police; sat in judgment when disorder broke out; levied the militia, and enforced roadmaking by the _corvee_. Thirty intendants ruled France; and the modern system with its prefects is merely a slight modification devised by Napoleon on the great centralizing and administrative scheme of the Bourbon monarchy. The taxes formed a somewhat complicated {30} system, but they may, for the present purpose, be grouped as follows: taxes that were farmed; direct taxes; the gabelle; feudal and ecclesiastical taxes.