Of course, sometimes a work has something about it that makes a good deal of this go out the window. I have a great fondness for Victor Hugo's Quatre-Vingt-Treize. Admittedly, it's not counterrevolutionary or particularly manipulative, but it's also not always very accurate, the characters are archetypes rather than actual human beings, and it certainly doesn't provide a historical interpretation of the Revolution that any modern historian would find credible. So why do I like it? It's epic; it's poetic; it's about a fundamental clash of ideas and ideals, even if they're more those of Hugo's time than the Revolution; it has some beautiful passages in it and also some very funny ones. What else can I say? It's Victor Hugo and he's my favorite novelist.

And I guess this brings me to my final point, which is that I can potentially find any work of historical fiction worth reading.* I can come up with criteria as to what makes the best historical fiction all I want, and certainly the more of the criteria a work fits the more likely it is that I'll enjoy it, but in the end, it's just not that simple.

*With one exception: the rule about manipulation pretty much always stands. Especially the kind that seems to go like this: "Author: I hate the Revolution and I want everyone else to hate it too, but I'm worried that they won't hate it enough if I just portray it as I actually think it happened, so I'm going to have Robespierre condone torture or molest children just to be safe."