Ah, I do agree that the more read and the more voices listened, the better - but isn't listening to both sides a base? Audiatur et altera pars, a matter of principle to me. What I said about choosing two books was considered a start: realizing that there are always two sides of a coin and many possible points of view on past events and historical figures. As much as the authors try to be objective, they never are, subjectivism can be minimalized, but never gotten rid of. I like to compare different sources and make my own opinion.

I'm not a professional historian, but a philologist, and as such I do not trust written word, favouring critical reading. The point of view of university historians might be and probably is different from mine. My hobbistic studies of French Revolution are still going on and perhaps I'll change my opinion on some particular positions, but as I read both Gaxotte and Mathiez, they seem quite good documented, which makes comparing them even more interesting.

I'd recommend to the author of this topic a few books written in my native Polish, but they have probably never been translated into English - sadly including Ostatnie noce Ventôse'a / Last Nights of Ventôse, a novel by Stanisława Przybyszewska, relatively little known even in Poland, in my opinion with a simply excellent characterization of Robespierre... but who knows about this book? A longer story, why I do.