The historiography of the French Revolution has traditionally allocated an ambiguous, or even contradictory, role to feelings; this has led to some delay in the conceptualization of the place given to the emotional system in times of revolution and a certain reluctance on the part of historians to fully insert this dimension into their everyday approach. This article proposes to re-examine the issue through the analysis of a specific feeling that was widespread at the time and that contemporaries called the “ivresse de la liberté”: a kind of collective euphoria that affected the social body, related to the first experience of a generalized political participation. This feeling effectively became a powerful behavioural motivation with notable consequences on collective attitudes and it interfered directly at political level, narrowly conditioning the exercise of citizenship.