(_assemblées d'élection_) and the latter were to elect the new members of the Provincial Assembly. The march of events after 1787 prevented these elections from taking place. But the nominated assemblies met twice, once for organization and once for business. They came too late to prevent a catastrophe, but lasted long enough to give well-founded hopes of usefulness. The great National Assembly of 1789 and its successors might have had a far less stormy history, had all France been accustomed, though only for one generation, to political bodies restrained by law.[Footnote: Necker, _Compte rendu_, 74. Ibid., _De l'Administration_, ii. 225, 292. Lavergne, _Les Assemblées provinciales sous Louis XVI_. Lucay, _Les Assemblées provinciales sous Louis XVI_., 163.] Within a given province or district, there was no proportional equality among persons in the matter of taxation. It was sometimes said that the noble paid with his blood, the villein with his money. But the order of the Nobility had come to include many persons who never thought of shedding their blood for their country; to include, in fact, the rich and prosperous generally. These were not (as they are sometimes represented to have been), quite free from taxation. Something like one half of the taxes were indirect, and might be supposed to be paid by all classes in proportion to their consumption. Yet even for the indirect taxes, privileged persons managed to find ways partially to escape. Some of the direct taxes were deducted from salaries, or imposed on incomes, but it was said that the rich and powerful often succeeded in having their incomes lightly assessed. By way of increasing the inequality of taxation, the government had a habit, when in need of more money than usual, of adding a percentage to some old tax, instead of devising a new one, thus bearing most heavily with the new impost on those classes which were most severely taxed already. First among French taxes, both in blundering unfairness and in evil fame, came the Land Tax or _Taille_, producing for the twenty-four districts a revenue of about forty-five million livres, or with its accessory taxes, of about seventy-five millions.[Footnote: Bailly, ii. 307. Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. 6, 35, puts the taille at 91 millions, but I think he includes the tailles abonnées, paid by the Pays d'états, although not those paid by cities.] The taille was of feudal origin, and in the Middle Ages was paid to the lord by his tenants. In the fifteenth century, however, it had already been diverted to the royal treasury, and its product was employed in the maintenance of troops. It was therefore paid only by villeins, for the nobles served in person, and the clergy by substitute, if at all.