You want a revolution?: Tale of Two Cities

Who would have wanted to live during the French Revolution? Must have been a horrible and frightening time of complete social upheaval, which Dickens conveys very well in A Tale of Two Cities. But who would have wanted to live in France before the Revolution? Only the nobility, the landed gentry, and the royalty, I would think. Revolution doesn't justify homicide and terror - and some of our contemporary post-revolutionary societies, e.g., South Africa, show that a complete transition of power can proceed successfully. But the homicidal mania of the French Revolution is at least comprehensible if not excusable. If Dickens were less of a jingoist he would have gone to greater length to explore the characters and the motives and even the internal conflicts of the French citizens - but that's not his goal, he's writing a potboiler serialized best seller for the English-speaking readership and the French be damned. So we get to the trial, at last, and 20 people unceremoniously condemned to death but amazingly Darney speaks out when he's at the bar and has some very sympathetic witnesses and the people, those sheep and cows, completely reverse form and cheer him and he's set free. A crowd escorts him back to his temporary home where he's reunited with family - and they talk about leaving Paris as soon as possible, though Darney has unfinished business - an then, the evil Daforge, who actually had saved the good Doctor Mannette at the outset of the novel, is there to arrest Darney once again and haul him right back to prison. This novel is like a horror story or nightmare, and rather than carp about its one-sidedness or its distortions of history (I think) and psychology, as I have been doing, it's probably best just to give in and ride along with Dickens for the journey - presumably, back to England and the best of times.