Other causes of still greater power had contributed to infuse a new spirit into these ancient institutions, and to give to the States of Languedoc an incontestable superiority over those of all the other provinces. In this province, as in a great portion of the south of France, the _taille_ was real and not personal--that is to say, it was regulated by the value of property, and not by the personal condition of the proprietor. Some lands had, no doubt, the privilege of not paying this tax: these lands had, in former times, belonged to the nobility, but, by the progress of time and of capital, it had happened that a portion of this property had fallen into the hands of non-noble holders. On the other hand, the nobles had become the holders of many lands which were liable to the _taille_. The privilege of exemption, being thus removed from persons to things, was doubtless more abused; but it was less felt, because, though still irksome, it was no longer humiliating. Not being indissolubly connected with the idea of a class, not investing any class with interests altogether alien and opposed to those of the other classes, such a privilege no longer opposed a barrier to the co-operation of all in public affairs. In Languedoc especially, more than in any other part of France, all classes did so co-operate, and this on a footing of complete equality. In Brittany the landed gentry of the province had the right of all appearing in their own persons at the States, which made these Assemblies in some sort resemble the Polish Diets. In Languedoc the nobles only figured at the States of the province by their representatives: twenty-three of them sat for the whole body. The clergy also sat in the person of the twenty-three bishops of the province, and it deserves especial observation that the towns had as many votes as the two upper orders.