I have Domecq's book, but I haven't read it. I heard him give an interview with J-C Martin and Alexandre Cousin on the radio recently and he didn't seem to have a very original perspective on Robespierre or the Revolution, but of course I can't judge the work itself based on that.
As for what makes a good historical novel, I'm not sure I have any absolute criterion except not to be manipulative. And I realize this is a potentially subjective criterion and it's difficult to define exactly what I mean by that, but to give an example: take the movie "Sade" (hey, it's a ficitional portrayal too). Briefly, the Robespierriste character is shown being abusive to his girlfriend, while Sade is shown as a character who is gentle with and respectful of women. While the former portrayal especially cannot be termed "inaccurate," since the character in question is fictional, I feel that it is manipulating the audience by creating a false sympathy for Sade and a false antipathy for Robespierre and his friends - false in that Saint-Just, an actual historical friend of Robespierre's, wrote that people who beat women should be banished from his ideal republic, while in Sade's ideal republic women have to be sexually available to any man at any time and don't have the right to say no, in addition to his record of sexual assault (which I think may fairly be called the antithesis of his character's implied beliefs in the film). Therefore the film is giving Sade credit for robespierriste beliefs and blaming the Robespierristes for Sade's beliefs in order to elicit sympathy for the former and antipathy towards the latter. And yes, you could argue that it's the viewer's responsibility to realize that this is just fiction and not to allow it to inform their views of Robespierre or Sade, but how many viewers who aren't historians are actually going to do that? Author's of fictions in my view, have a duty to the public not to manipulate them.
Now that we have moral imperatives out of the way, it behooves authors of historical fictions to follow much the same rules they would follow as authors of any kind of fiction: don't create one-dimensional characters or use artificial plot devices; do allow the story to grow in a plausible manner out of conflicts that arise based on the characters and the circumstances they're placed in. Without taking these guidelines into effect, no work of fiction can be considered good.
Finally, I have my own personal criteria, those which make a work of historical fiction, in particular one focusing on the Revolution, worth reading or not to me (see part 2 of this exceedingly long comment).
no subject
As for what makes a good historical novel, I'm not sure I have any absolute criterion except not to be manipulative. And I realize this is a potentially subjective criterion and it's difficult to define exactly what I mean by that, but to give an example: take the movie "Sade" (hey, it's a ficitional portrayal too). Briefly, the Robespierriste character is shown being abusive to his girlfriend, while Sade is shown as a character who is gentle with and respectful of women. While the former portrayal especially cannot be termed "inaccurate," since the character in question is fictional, I feel that it is manipulating the audience by creating a false sympathy for Sade and a false antipathy for Robespierre and his friends - false in that Saint-Just, an actual historical friend of Robespierre's, wrote that people who beat women should be banished from his ideal republic, while in Sade's ideal republic women have to be sexually available to any man at any time and don't have the right to say no, in addition to his record of sexual assault (which I think may fairly be called the antithesis of his character's implied beliefs in the film). Therefore the film is giving Sade credit for robespierriste beliefs and blaming the Robespierristes for Sade's beliefs in order to elicit sympathy for the former and antipathy towards the latter. And yes, you could argue that it's the viewer's responsibility to realize that this is just fiction and not to allow it to inform their views of Robespierre or Sade, but how many viewers who aren't historians are actually going to do that? Author's of fictions in my view, have a duty to the public not to manipulate them.
Now that we have moral imperatives out of the way, it behooves authors of historical fictions to follow much the same rules they would follow as authors of any kind of fiction: don't create one-dimensional characters or use artificial plot devices; do allow the story to grow in a plausible manner out of conflicts that arise based on the characters and the circumstances they're placed in. Without taking these guidelines into effect, no work of fiction can be considered good.
Finally, I have my own personal criteria, those which make a work of historical fiction, in particular one focusing on the Revolution, worth reading or not to me (see part 2 of this exceedingly long comment).