Original release 10 janvier 2022
Previous episode S15E12 - Flaubert, la fureur d'écrire !
Number S16E01
Episode runtime 110 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

Molière et ses mystères...

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Stéphane Bern nous propose de démasquer Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, dit Molière.
On ne sait pas de source sûre quand il est né, pourquoi il porte son nom, pourquoi il a consacré sa vie au théâtre, s’il a vraiment écrit l’intégralité d’une œuvre qui a fait sa légende, s’il a épousé la fille ou la sœur de son ancienne maîtresse, voire sa propre fille, quelles pensées il a laissé sur ses papiers intimes puisqu’ils ont tous disparu, quel homme il était en réalité, pourquoi il est mort prématurément en pleine gloire, bref Molière demeure aujourd’hui encore un mystère. Qui continue de fasciner et de diviser les biographes.

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.

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