Focusing on Charrière's unfinished novel Henriette et Richard, this paper shows how the author found it impossible to narrate recent history from an optimistic perspective by the end of 1792. It remains unclear to this day why Charrière did not complete this novel, The acceleration of violence proved a first obstacle, usually recognised as such by scholars. This paper argues, however, that the final elimination of gender from contemporary debates about equality finally prevented her from writing the story she had in mind about a young woman and a young man. History as she anticipated did not actually happen.