The nobles and clergy, styled the two upper orders, stood, in right of their privileges, both pecuniary and honorary, apart from the rest of the nation. Nobles did not pay any direct taxes in the same proportion as their fellow subjects, and in the case of the _taille_, a heavy property tax, their privilege approached very nearly to entire exemption. The clergy, except in a few frontier provinces, paid personally no direct taxes whatever. The bourgeoisie was regarded as an inferior class. Those who were able acquired by purchase the rank and privileges of nobles, and in this way had come into existence a nobility of office and royal creation, which, although looked down upon by the old nobility of the sword, enjoyed the same pecuniary immunities. Those left on the other side of the line deeply resented the social superiority claimed by the nobility in right of its privileges. The upper section of the bourgeoisie was, however, itself privileged to no inconsiderable extent. By living in towns, merchants, shopkeepers, and professional men were able to avoid serving in the militia and collecting the _taille_, from which in the country nobles alone were exempt. They also purchased of the government petty offices, created in order that they might be sold, to which no serious duties were attached, but the possession of which conferred on the holders partial exemption from payment of the _taille_ and of excise duties, and other privileges of like character. [Illustration: FRANCE IN PROVINCES 1769–1789. _Longmans, Green & Co., London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta & Madras._] ♦Taxes.♦