Reflections on the Revolution in France causes and sided with the Americans in their war for independence; opponents and allies alike were surprised at the strength of his conviction that the French Revolution was a disaster and the revolutionists 'a swinish multitude.'". In 1789, soon after the fall of the Bastille, the French aristocrat Charles-Jean-François Depont asked his impressions of the Revolution; Burke replied with two letters. The longer, second letter, drafted after he read Richard Price's speech "A Discourse on the Love of Our Country" in January 1790, became "Reflections on the Revolution in France". Published in November 1790, the work was an instant bestseller:
Causes of the French Revolution the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large." Because the nobles successfully defended their privileges, the king of France lacked the means to impose a "just and proportioned" tax. The desire to do so led directly to the decision in 1788 to call the Estates-General into session. The financial strain of servicing old debt and the excesses of the current royal court caused dissatisfaction with the monarchy, contributed to national unrest, and culminated in the French Revolution of 1789. Louis XVI, his