Original release 7 octobre 2026
Previous episode S20E05 - Madame de Staël : la liberté à tout prix !
Number S20E06
Episode runtime 90 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

Charles X, le dernier roi de France

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Ce Secrets d’Histoire inédit lève le voile sur ce monarque charnière, un homme bien né, Charles-Philippe de France, comte d’Artois, qui passe les premières années de sa vie à jouir des plaisirs de la cour de Versailles, s’adonnant ouvertement, et avec excès, aux jeux d’argent et de l’amour. Pour l’accompagner dans cette royale frivolité, vous allez voir que Marie-Antoinette, sa belle-sœur préférée, ne manque pas d’imagination.

Stéphane Bern vous invite à découvrir le frère cadet de Louis XVI et de Louis XVIII, qui, le 29 mai 1825, devient à son tour le roi Charles X à l’occasion d’un sacre somptueux, mais en plein cœur d’une France encore meurtrie par les stigmates de la Révolution.

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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