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 have lagged slightly behind the Low Countries, and possibly Switzerland, in per capita wealth, the sheer size of the French economy made it the premier economic power of continental Europe. Historian John Shovlin states, "It is a truism that the French Revolution was touched off by the near bankruptcy of the state." It was the burden of the national debt that led this to the long-running financial crisis of the French government. Before the revolution, the French debt had risen from 8 billion to 12 billion livres. Extravagant expenditures on luxuries by Louis XVI, whose rule began in 1774, were