Why did king louis xvi convert the estate general?
When Louis XVI gained power in 1774, France was heavily in debt due to many of their previous wars in Europe. Louis XVI at first supported radical financial reforms that increased taxes on the nobles. The nobles of course, didn’t like it and they continually insisted that the King didn’t have the power to levy new taxes. The king then changed his mind and sided with the nobles, dismissing the proponents of those reforms. In 1776, Jacques Necker replaced one of these proponents. Necker wanted support for the American Revolution and proceeded with a policy of taking out large international loans instead of raising taxes. When this policy failed miserably, Louis dismissed him, and replaced him in 1783 with Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who increased public spending to ‘buy’ the country’s way out of debt. Again this failed, so Louis convoked the Assembly of Notables in 1787 to discuss a revolutionary new fiscal reform proposed by Calonne. When the nobles were told the extent of the debt, t
