The works executed by the province were to be carefully prepared beforehand, and first submitted to the examination of the lesser bodies which were to contribute to them. They were all paid for: forced labour was unknown. I have observed that in the other parts of France--the _pays d’élection_--the land taken from its owners for public works was always ill and tardily paid for, and often not paid for at all. This was one of the great grievances complained of by the Provincial Assemblies when they were convoked in 1787. In some cases the possibility of liquidating debts of this nature had been taken away, for the object taken had been altered or destroyed before the valuation. In Languedoc every inch of ground taken from its owner was to be carefully valued before the works were begun, and paid for in the first year of the execution. The regulations of these Estates relating to different public works, from which these details are copied, seemed so well conceived that even the Central Government admired, though without imitating them. The King’s Council, after having sanctioned the application of them, caused them to be printed at the Royal press, and to be transmitted to all the Intendants of France as a document to be consulted. What I have said of public works is _à fortiori_ applicable to that other not less important portion of the provincial administration which related to the levy of taxes. In this respect, more particularly, the contrast was so great between the kingdom and the provinces that it is difficult to believe they formed part of the same empire. I have had occasion to say elsewhere that the methods of proceeding used in Languedoc for the assessment and collection of the _taille_ were in part the same as are now employed in France in the levy of the public taxes. Nor shall I here revert to this subject, merely adding that the province was so attached to its own superior methods of proceeding, that when new taxes were imposed by the Crown, the States of Languedoc never hesitated to purchase at a very high price the right of levying them in their own manner and by their own agents exclusively. In spite of all the expenses which I have successively enumerated, the finances of Languedoc were nevertheless in such good order, and its credit so well established, that the Central Government often had recourse to it, and borrowed, in the name of the province, sums of money which would not have been lent on such favourable terms to the Government itself. Thus Languedoc borrowed, on its own security, but for the King’s service, in the later years of the monarchy, 73,200,000 livres, or nearly three millions sterling.