Original release 29 mai 2012
Previous episode S05E07 - Si les murs de l'Élysée pouvaient parler
Number S06E01
Episode runtime 105 minutes
Country France
Original language French
Genres Documentary, History
External links TheTVDB page
IMDB page
TheMovieDB page
Last update 23 octobre 2026 - 05:37
on 11 databases

Elisabeth II, dans l'intimité du règne

707 members

Dans ce numéro exceptionnel de secrets d’histoire consacré à Sa Majesté la reine Elisabeth II d’Angleterre, qui fête en 2012 ses 60 ans de règne, nous découvrirons, grâce aux témoignages du prince Charles, de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, de Tony Blair, de Margaret Thatcher, de John Major, des biographes officiels, et à l’aide d’archives royales inédites à la télévision française, la personnalité de cette reine au destin hors du commun !
A travers ses rencontres de personnalités - de Winston Churchill à Nicolas Sarkozy -, ses choix vestimentaires, comme ses fameux chapeaux, sa passion pour les chiens, sa façon de vivre les fastes de la couronne britannique ou la mort de la princesse Diana, secrets d’histoire dessinera le portrait de cette timide princesse montée sur le trône d’Angleterre à 26 ans.

Dans les coulisses des châteaux de Windsor et de Buckingham, nous dévoilerons comment s’organisent au quotidien la vie officielle et la vie intime de "Ma’am", comme l’appellent les Anglais !

Pour la première fois, secrets d’histoire consacre un épisode à un personnage encore vivant, dont le règne est déjà l’un des plus longs de l’histoire, tout juste derrière celui de Louis XIV et de son aïeule, la reine Victoria.

BetaSeries' opinion

Secrets d'histoire Season 20 Finale: Stéphane Bern's Messalina Episode Ends a Season About Reputations on Trial

Twenty seasons in, "Secrets d'histoire" can still surprise its audience. The Season 20 finale aired on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at 9:10 p.m. on France 3, and Stéphane Bern closed the season with one of the most notorious women of antiquity: Messalina, the third wife of Emperor Claudius. If you watched it, you already know it was more than a parade of Roman scandal. It was a careful re-examination of a woman whose name has been shorthand for depravity for almost two thousand years. If you haven't caught up yet, this debrief shows why the episode, and the whole season, deserves a place in your watchlist.

A finale that puts history's verdict on trial

The question at the centre of the finale was simple: does Messalina deserve the brutal nickname history gave her? Roman writers handed down a woman driven by insatiable desire and a hunger for power. Bern's team took that portrait apart piece by piece. They asked who wrote the story, why they wrote it, and what they gained from it. This is the series at its best. It doesn't simply retell a legend. It looks into how the legend was made. Messalina's world gave the episode plenty of drama: Caligula, Nero, Agrippina and the freedman Narcissus all appear, each with their own agenda in the deadly politics of the Julio-Claudian court. Without spoiling anything for latecomers, the finale's real emotional pull comes from the gap between the caricature and the young woman caught up in a machine much bigger than she was.

Read the full article