<P> Under the new king, Louis XVI, radical financial reforms by his ministers, Turgot and Malesherbes, angered the nobles and were blocked by the parlements who insisted that the king did not have the legal right to levy new taxes . So, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed and Malesherbes resigned . They were replaced by Jacques Necker, who supported the American Revolution and proceeded with a policy of taking large international loans instead of raising taxes . </P> <P> France sent Rochambeau, Lafayette and de Grasse, along with large land and naval forces, to help the Americans . French aid proved decisive in forcing the main British army to surrender at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 . The Americans gained their independence, and the war ministry rebuilt the French army . However, the British sank the main French fleet in 1782, and France gained little, except for the colonies of Tobago and Senegal, from the Treaty of Paris (1783) that concluded the war . The war cost 1.066 million French livres, a huge sum, that was financed by new loans at high interest rates, but no new taxes were imposed . Necker concealed the crisis from the public by explaining only that ordinary revenues exceeded ordinary expenses, and by not mentioning the loans at all . </P> <P> When Necker's tax policy failed miserably, Louis dismissed him, and replaced him, in 1783, with Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who increased public spending in an attempt to "buy" the country's way out of debt . This policy also failed; therefore, Louis convened 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, they were shocked; however, the shock did not motivate them to rally behind the plan--but to reject it . This negative turn of events signaled to Louis that he had lost the ability to rule as an absolute monarch, and he fell into depression . </P> <P> Britain, too, was heavily indebted as a result of these conflicts; but Britain had far more advanced fiscal institutions in place to deal with it . France was a wealthier country than Britain, and its national debt was no greater than the British one . In each country, servicing the debt accounted for about one - half the government's annual expenditure; where they differed was in the effective rates of interest . In France, the debt was financed at almost twice the interest rate as the debt across the Channel . This demanded a much higher level of taxation and less flexibility in raising money to deal with unforeseen emergencies . (See also Eden Agreement .) </P>

State the immediate cause of the french revolution