The French Revolution makes no sense without an understanding of the role of emotions: the elation of success, anger at those deemed responsible for suffering, pride in one’s achievements, and fear above all: of violence, of conspiracy, of betrayal and of death. For William Reddy, however, sentimentality was the key emotion, and Maximilien Robespierre personified the excesses of its expression. The “Terror” was “an emotional battleground”. The argument of this article is that, to understand Robespierre’s emotional history, we instead need a holistic approach which integrates the complex expression of his emotions with the particular circumstances of his existence and the exigencies of the revolutionary crisis.