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 Ralph Waldo Emerson that the writing of the book was the "dreadfulest labor [he] ever undertook". In 1909, Peter Kropotkin, a Russian anarchist, published "The Great French Revolution", which attempts to round out the political approach with the perspective and contribution to the Revolution of the common man. Alphonse Aulard (1849–1928) was the first professional historian of the Revolution; he promoted graduate studies, scholarly editions, and learned journals. His appointment to the Sorbonne was promoted and funded by Republicans in the national and Paris governments, but he was not himself involved in party politics. He promoted a republican, bourgeois, and