His political creed may be learned from this passage in his _Mémoires_: "The kings are absolute lords and have naturally the full and entire disposition of all property which is possessed as well by the churchmen as by the laymen, to use at all times, as judicious stewards, that is to say, according to the general need of their State. Everything which may be found within the limits of their States, of whatsoever nature it may be, appertains to them by the same title, and the coin which is in their strong-box and that which remains in the hands of their treasurers, and that which they permit to remain in the commerce of their peoples."
Consequently, the end of this reign of seventy-two years was "very different from its beginning. He received his kingdom powerful and preponderating abroad, tranquil and contented at home; he left it weakened, humiliated, discontented, impoverished, and already filled with the seeds of the Revolution." (Rœderer: _Mémoires_.)
For the administration of the government of the State, there were three great Councils, under the immediate direction of the king, who was his own prime minister. The _Conseil d'en haut_, to which he called the secretaries of State, and sometimes the princes of the blood, corresponded to the modern council of ministers in that it had the general direction of the great political affairs, with the additional function of judging appeals of the _Conseil d'État_, or _Conseil du Roi_. The latter, subordinate to the ministers but superior to the supreme courts, was the great administrative body of the kingdom and was composed of eighteen members. The _Grand Conseil_, which had been invested by Charles VIII with the judicial attributes up to that time appertaining to the Conseil du Roi, in order that the latter might remain a purely administrative body, sat in judgment on ecclesiastical matters, appeals to the higher courts, conflicts with parliamentary authority, etc.
For the administration of the city of Paris, and with the design of replacing the various seigneurial, ecclesiastic, and municipal authorities by one royal one, a decree was issued as early as 1674, in which all these justices, "and even that of our bailiwick of the palace, shall be reunited to the _siège présidial de la prévosté et vicomté de Paris_, held at the Châtelet, ... so that in the future they shall never be separated from it, nor re-established, for any cause, or under any pretext whatsoever." A second seat of the _prévôté_ and vicomté of Paris was established at the same time at the Châtelet with the same powers and prerogatives as the other,--the number of affairs being much too great for the cognizance of one jurisdiction. A supplemental decree, some months later, established the seat of the second in the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. This abolition of the divers administrations of justice by the seigneurs was greatly appreciated by the populace, and greatly resented by the deposed lords, secular and ecclesiastical. In 1687, a magistrate, Nicolas de la Reynie, was appointed as superintendent of the police of Paris, and he was succeeded, ten years later, by the Marquis d'Argenson,--these being the first two _lieutenants de police_. This police, in addition to maintaining the public order, exercised a surveillance over all printed and written matter--even searching the post and opening suspected letters in the _cabinet noir_, and making itself a servile instrument in the abuse of the _lettres de cachet_ through which, as the president of the Cour des Aides, Malesherbes said to Louis XV in 1770: "no citizen has any assurance that his liberty may not at any moment be sacrificed to some personal vengeance."