Metz Prefecture

The prefecture located in Metz, former hotel of the Intendance or hotel of the King's Intendant, houses most of the decentralized services of the prefecture of the Lorraine region, of the prefecture of Moselle and of the sub-prefecture of the district of Metz. Marshal Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet de Belle-Isle, governor of Metz who embraced the ideas of the Enlightenment, decided to rethink the urban planning of the city of Metz as early as 1728. After planning the construction of a new Hotel of Spectacles on the marshy site of Petit-Saulcy, the governor suggested to the city to build a new building for the Intendance, next to the future opera house. Although the palace of the Intendance is much less sumptuous than the palace of the royal military governor, currently the Palace of Justice, it is nevertheless located on the first modern square of Metz. This disparity in treatment simply reflects the hierarchy of powers in Metz, where the governor is more important than the intendant, unlike in other provinces of the kingdom.

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