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:
Historiography of the French Revolution French authors Chateaubriand, Stendhal et Sainte-Beuve, was translated into English (1838) and Spanish (1889), and won him a seat in the Académie française in 1834. It was less appreciated by British critics, in large part because of his favorable view of the French Revolution and of Napoleon Bonaparte. The British historian Thomas Carlyle, who wrote his own history of the French Revolution, complained that it "was far as possible from meriting its high reputation", though he admitted that Thiers is "a brisk man in his way, and will tell you much if you know nothing." The British historian Hugh Chisholm