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Intendant of Brittany

office in the government of France

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ3153022 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Intendancy of Brittany was an intendancy created in 1689 by Louis XIV, after 2 attempts to do so in 1636 and 1647. The governor of Brittany had a more prestigious role, but the intendant was the essential relay for the monarch's will.

List of holders

Auguste-Robert de Pomereu, 1689-1692

Louis de Béchameil, 1692-1705, put in place from the sub-delegates

Ferrand de Villemilan, 1705-1716

Paul Esprit Feydeau de Brou, 1716-1728

Des Gallois de la Tour, 1728-1735

Pontcarré de Viarmes, 1735-1753

Le Bret, 1753-1765

Jacques de Flesselles, 1765-1767

François Marie Bruno d'Agay, 1767-1771

Guillaume-Joseph Dupleix de Bacquencourt, 1771-1774

Gaspard-Louis Caze, baron de la Bove, 1774-1784

Antoine François de Bertrand-Molleville, 1784-1788

François-Germain Dufaure de Rochefort, 1788 - resigned to the Directory on 31 August 1790.

Activity of the intendant

Ordinances

Extraordinary missions

History of the institution

(...)

In 1786, the headquarters of the intendance was displaced to Nantes to remove it from the immediate influence of the parliament and the Estates General or their committees. The towns of Brest, Chateaubriand, Le Croisic, Dinan, La Guerche, Lamballe, Montfort and Saint-Brieuc sent letters of protest in reply to the letter that they had received from the community of Rennes; the officers of the présidial or the corporations joined this movement, as did the officers of the maîtres-perruquiers.

See also

Intendant

Sources

Henri Fréville, L'Intendance de Bretagne (1689–1790). Essai sur l'histoire d'une intendance en Pays d'États au XVIIIe siècle, Thèse. Rennes, Plihon, 1953. 3 vol.

Séverin Canal, Les origines de l'intendance de Bretagne, H. Champion, Paris, 1911, aussi publié par les Annales de Bretagne de 1911 à 1915.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Intendant of Brittany” as office in the government of France. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1689, 1636, 1647, 1692—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1689. The account is most persuasive where Intendant, Brittany and office can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as office in the government of France. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3153022. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1689, 1636, 1647 and 1692.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Intendant of Brittany”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Intendant of Brittany primary sources, Intendant of Brittany archive and Intendant research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Intendant of Brittany”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Intendant of Brittany” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.