75

With the acclimatization of parliamentary democracy in France in the first half of the nineteenth century, the obligation to vote on State revenues and expenditures and subsequently to account to Parliament on their use gradually became the norm. This movement went hand in hand with the setting up of an accounting administration reaching across the country, centralized and placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance, as well as the parallel and incremental construction of accounting and budgetary law. The Great War brought this peaceful golden age of public accounting to an abrupt end and saw the emergence of new concerns, such as fiscal policy, management of public services or expenditure control. In addition to the all-pervasive General Directorate of Public Accounting, a new central directorate, arose in the ministry of Finance, the Budget Directorate, whose importance within central government will continue to grow throughout the twentieth century.