With its title inspired by Denis Diderot’s Paradox of the Player (1773), this article discusses the way in which royal commissioners got personally involved in the policies they had to implement, as well as the real or supposed impact legal norms had on their daily praxis. Referring to the commissioners in charge of the execution of the Edicts of Pacification in the Reign of Charles IX (1560-1574), the authors distinguish between three main topics: an axiological one, dealing with the commissioner’s neutrality (was he supposed to approve of the policies he had to carry out?); a legal one, dealing with the impact the more or less codified rules had on his praxis (was he subjected to precise rules or was he free to interpret legal texts?); last but not least, a political one which tries to emphasise the commissioner’s contribution to the modernization of administration. The authors try to prove that in this system which relied on commissioners, persons prevail over functions, confidence over delegation and accommodation over rule – all arguments which, far from evincing any signs of administrative modernity, make the commissioner the embodiment of the Edict Policies, precarious and reversible as they were.