It's weird, because the book makes such a powerful case that Robespierre was awful! And then is like "Okay, so Robespierre had just led a bunch of bloody purges, and was probably in the midst of planning another bloody purge, and everyone is Paris was so scared of him that more or less the entire city was delighted to see him dead... but was he really that bad?" And... yes? Based on the evidence presented in this very same book, yes he was? I don't know how anyone could write even briefly about, say, the purge of the Dantonists from the Convention, and not come away with the conviction that Robespierre is The Worst.