Btw did you ever see this Mantel-a-la-lanterne discussing why she is so much cooler than historians (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books--a-revolting-obsession-history-is-fiction-said-robespierre-who-knew-how-it-would-treat-him-is-the-novelist-better-equipped-than-the-historian-to-find-human-truths-behind-the-mask-of-fact-1542080.html) Aside form anything else, the flipping ego on the woman - ooh I was a lapsed catholic and a young communist so I must know how they feel! They were just like me! Damn these historians and their fact checking! I knew what it was really like! (To be, um a teenage communist in the 1970s. Not quite the same as being a 30something revolutionary with the whole country on your back in freaking 1793. But would you know it I just knew she was a former communist-who-grew-out-of-it Tip Hillary, Robespierre and co's politics were a little thought out on the spot, I grant you, but probably not ill concieved statements of rebellion to piss off their parents.)