ABSTRACT
In the ancien régime the ability and opportunity to govern depended on a multiplicity of factors: e character and skill of the people, certainly; the prevailing economic situation; whether or not there were disputes within the local societies, and the prerogatives and privileges they had wrung from the central government, all undoubtedly played their part. Another inevitable contributing factor was certainly the state of the local nances, or, in other words, the ability to guarantee a constant ow of income and to meet expenses, even in such protracted exceptional circumstances as war.
