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All historians acknowledge theimportance of the royal general Farms in the financial and political landscapeof the French Old Regime, and all deplore the partial nature of theunderstanding on this large company. Considered a true “State within a State”,to this day it has never been the subject of a global study integrating all thehistorical issues involved in its activities: political and financial issues,economic and social issues, even cultural issues, while it is true that theroyal general Farms left its impression in the XVII and XVIII centuries, duringthe French Revolution and to the present day. The mention of theFarmers-General immediately conjures strong images such as salt smuggling andthe salt customs officers, the Mandrin tales, property searches, Paris’&#160;mur d’octrois, the partisans and their profits, theKing’s shares and those of his favourites, the revolutionary processes, etc.,but also the patronage of rich financiers, the multiplicity of customs, theremarkable organisation across the country, the export of the administrativemodel to the rest of Europe, etc. It constitutes a real&#160;lieu de mémoire&#160;(P. Nora) which cannot be reducedto the numerous traces, Octrois barriers,&#160;greniers à sel,complaints and songs, etc. that it left behind. The royal general Farms aloneembodies the miseries of the Old Regime. It symbolises injustice, whilstshowing its bureaucratic efficiency. The political protests by those mosthumble through to the most entitled were crystallised by this characteristicinstitution of complex financial set-ups from an era which blended the archaicwith the modern.The ambition of the blog is tounderstand the royal general Farms in its&#160;entirety&#160;throughappreciating the institutions relationship to the individual. It starts withaquestion: Did the royal general Farms, stripped of symbolic attributes ofpower, but bestowed with means of coercion (judged important to this day), seta form of arbitrary governance of the territory and of society, understood bothas a rational means of management and as a process ofcivilisation?&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;To appreciate the power of thisorganisation, its geographic, political, economic, social and culturalinfluence in the Kingdom and in Europe, one must proceed in an exhaustivemanner. The&#160;Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the royal generalFarms (Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la Ferme générale)&#160;willdeal with this expectation. They will fill a wide bibliographic and scientificgap, in so far as the community today does not have access&#160;to any global work in the French language on the subject.Currently the only general work is thatof George-T. MATTHEWS:&#160;&#160;&#160;The royal General Farms ineighteenth century France,&#160;published in New-York in 1958, 60years ago. The study of the royal General-Farmers in the XVIII century (YvesDURAND, 1971 and republished in 1996) presents the social origin, thealliances, the level of fortune and the cultural practices of a group offinanciers. It does not present in itself the royal general Farms and itsrelationship with society even if the author provides precious elements ofanalysis. In 1996, Francois Monnier lamented this absence of research into theFarms itself[1]. Three other very comprehensive works deal on oneside with the customs office (Jean-Claude BOY 1976), with the clerks (Vida AZIMI,1987, p. 176) and with the management of the Hainaut Farms (Jean CLINQUART,1996), the most recent work todate.&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Also, we have access to two unpublishedhistorical theses (that of Micheline Huvet-Martinet on the fake salt merchantsand the salt customs officers at the end of the Old Regime, 1975; that ofPhilippe Savoie on the inspection shifts of the Farmers-General, 1982). Worksthat are more than a hundred years old and specialised articles principally onthe most well-known Farmers or on smuggled goods, complete this extremely thinbibliography (list at the end of this presentation).&#160;No colloquium or specific study day has been set up on thesubject.&#160;On the other hand, we are indebted to Americaneconomist Eugene White (Rutgers University) for two new articles on theeconomic efficiency of the Farms.From a scientific point of view, the&#160;Dictionary&#160;will meet 3 main criteria:a comprehensive approach to a subject of major study, and not a fragmentedor dispersed one. This approach covers all aspects of the subject, both themost well-known and the lesser known (the diffusion of expert accountants, theimpact of the&#160;controle des actes&#160;tax law on the people,the defence of smugglers against the clerks through forged records…revising anambiguous institution/individual dialectic).an analytical approach: a description of the fiscal activities of the royalgeneral Farms alone is not sufficient to understand the political andsocio-cultural issues of its history. It is important, in the records concerned,to present the most comprehensive case studies in order to help the readerunderstand the depth of influence the institution had on society.an all-encompassing approach: the activities of the royal general Farmseasily illustrate the Foucauldian notion of&#160;gouvernementalité,&#160;inso far as they expose the individual to state authority in multiple ways.&#160;Behind the Farms we find the State, that we understand not purely from legalcategories, but from a complex diagram of very varied power relationships, whichare both simultaneously constricting and liberating.The Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the royalgeneral Farms&#160;proposes, therefore, to complete the researchers’ information, and at thesame time to also give a renewed interpretation of the modern State through oneof the most engaging actions of the socio-political structure: tax&#160;[1]&#160;&#160;&#160;François Monnier,&#160;L’administration des finances de l’Ancienrégime, conclusions, Paris, Comité pour l’histoire économique etfinancière de la France, 1997, p. 385.&#160;