The Rose of Versailles

The Sun Sets, The Sun Rises (1x9)

Air date: Dec 05, 1979

King Louis XV catches smallpox. Tension rises in court as everyone decides whose sides to take in case the King dies. Du Barry, fearing her loss in power if the King dies, tries to get Oscar to persuade Antoinette to forgive her. Oscar refuses, even under threats. Orleans also refuses to see her, knowing that the mistress of a dying king lacked any power that would help him take the throne. The King expels her from Versailles on his deathbed in order to receive religious absolution. Oscar stops a soldier from beating the fallen Du Barry and escorts her out of the palace for her safety. Along the way, Du Barry tells Oscar about her past, saying that as a poor orphan, she had learned to do whatever she could to survive, and that she has no regrets because she lived her life the way she wanted to live it. She would later be executed on false charges of treason. Louis XV dies soon after, and the young and frightened Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen of France. Oscar leads the escort of the late king's body to his burial, crying silent tears over the destructive nature of change.