Original release 25 avril 2022
Previous episode S16E05 - Mata Hari, l'espionne mise à nu !
Number S16E06
Episode runtime 120 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

Jeanne de Belleville, pirate par amour

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Cette combattante médiévale, surnommée « la lionne sanglante », va semer l’épouvante sur les côtes vendéennes au cours du XIVe siècle. Dévorée par la haine depuis que le roi de France a fait décapiter son mari qu’il accuse de trahison, Jeanne de Belleville décide de lui livrer une guerre personnelle sur mer. Les navires marchands du royaume sont pris en embuscade et les équipages passés au fil de son épée. Même le pape intervient pour faire cesser cette colère dévastatrice.

Des marais salants de Vendée aux mystérieuses forteresse bretonnes, Stéphane Bern vous emmène sur les traces de cette féministe avant l’heure. Loin des stéréotypes de l’épouse médiévale soumise, Jeanne de Belleville nous offre ici le visage d’une femme à la volonté infaillible et capable de commander des centaines d’hommes sur terre comme en mer ! Dans la lignée de Jeanne d’Arc et Aliénor d’Aquitaine, Jeanne de Belleville se hisse ainsi au rang des plus formidables combattantes du Moyen Âge.

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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