``History is fiction,'' Robespierre observes at one point during British writer Mantel's monumental fictive account of the French Revolution. In her hands, it is a spellbinding read. Mantel recounts the events between the fall of the ancien regime and the peak of the Terror as seen through the eyes of the three protagonists - Robespierre, Danton and Desmoulins - and a huge cast of supporting characters.