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Tear Jerker / The Rose of Versailles

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  • Prince de Guéméné shooting a starving young Street Urchin in the back despite Rosalie's pleas. It's made all the worse by Oscar's rage and tears over the sheer injustice of the act.
  • Poor Charlotte's madness and suicide after being forced to marry a much older man. Yes, she was a Spoiled Brat, but when she's shown washing herself in the nearest fountain, then dancing madly on a balcony and tearfully yelling "I don't want to get married!" She was eleven years old.
    • Even more when Rosalie feigns indifference by saying she doesn't care about her half-sister's death, but sobs shortly after.
    • And even more when Polignac tearfully claims it was an accident, and that her daughter slipped and fell to her death. Everyone understands it was a suicide, but if she admitted it then Charlotte would have died in sin and would be buried under unconsecrated ground, and Polignac is trying to do at least something for the daughter she failed.
  • Louis Joseph's death of tuberculosis, in its most painful form. To make it worse, knowledge of history reveals that his uncle (Louis XVI's older brother) died of the same illness. Even worse? He was a completely sweet, Wise Beyond Their Years child who genuinely wanted to be a good king should he have survived his illness, with Oscar as his queen-but he never made it. Want to make it worse once again? He's the most likely responsible for infecting both Oscar and Marie Antoinette.
  • Nicole's death, accidentally ran over by Polignac's carriage. Especially once the circumstances are revealed: Nicole had spotted and recognized her and tried to stop the carriage to ask for help for Rosalie, but the driver couldn't stop in time - and Polignac, not seeing the body, doesn't understand who just died under her carriage, and when Rosalie arrives she panics and orders the driver to just leave.
  • Andre trying to hide how he's going blind and Oscar being unable to say she knows the truth.
    • Namely, Andre starts losing eyesight on his remaining eye, and at some point he stands next to Oscar's new portrait and starts giving a flowery false description of it to not let Oscar know his eyesight problems. Oscar then tearfully says the picture is as gorgeous as he says it is, not having the heart to tell Andre that she knows the truth.
  • Diann's suicide after her fiance abandons her. Specially when Madame de Soissons tearfully explains what happened, and when Alain (Alain, of all people) cries.
    "Her tender smile and cheerful voice are gone. Until I can come in terms with this, I'll stay here... I'll stay by her side!"
  • The fact that Andre dies the day after him and Oscar finally get together.
  • The fact that Oscar was killed during the attack on the Bastille.
  • In episode 39, when heartbroken Oscar wanders around Paris, she notices a girl carrying a body of the accordion player we sometimes saw during the second half of the series. Turns out, the girl is his daughter and is taking him to river Seine because he wanted his body to be thrown there after his death. And then, after the girl drops the body into water, she takes his accordion and starts playing instead of her father because he apparently told her to, while Oscar slowly walks away in the rain. This scene is rather short, but it’s also incredibly sad.
  • Antoinette's separation from her children and what one of the soldiers tells her about his own child's death by starvation when she tries to stop them.
  • A group of sans-culottes brainwashed Louis Charles into forgetting his parents and accusing Marie Antoinette of having molested him sexually.
  • Girodelle pulling an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and un-proposing to Oscar.
  • Jeanne's murder of her husband Nicholas and her subsequent suicide. Even worse because Nicholas' murder was an honest accident on Jeanne's part, Nicholas was one of the only people she truly loved.
  • Rosalie's fitful attempts to make Oscar hate her after Polignac pulls a Scarpia Ultimatum on her to force her to leave Oscar and marry the creepy old man Charlotte was previously betrothed to. Among other things, she pretends she was only ever interested in Oscar's money and status. It doesn't work, as Rosalie's a terribly Bad Liar ... Which makes it even worse.
  • And after this, Oscar's and Rosalie's tearful farewell and related scenes when Rosalie nevertheless insists she must leave. Especially Rosalie's heartrendingly empty internal monologue as she is shuttled away in the Polignac carriage and resigns herself to her new life.
    "Adieu, my youth. Adieu, my happiness. Adieu, my Lady Oscar ... "
  • Rosalie's monologue in the first gaiden reveals that she envies girls like Caroline, a girl who also has a crush on Oscar, that look and pursue Oscar without hesitation. Then it hits home when she reveals that her insecurities and hatred transformed into self-loathing, and she never tells anyone about this. One wonders if these issues were ever resolved.
  • Louis XV's death and the events preceding to it.
    • The future Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would have wanted to stay close to him in his illness... Then it was identified as smallpox, and they were exiled in the room the farthest from the king's to protect them.
      • Made worse by the fact Marie Antoinette was a smallpox survivor, so was immune and could have visited him... Except Louis XV too was thought to have survived a bout of smallpox (actually measles) at age 2, and upon his apparent reinfection the doctors decided to keep her away to be safe.
    • Madame Du Barry's prayer for him to survive out of fear of what would happen to her if he died... And then the King's confessor got her exiled before the king died.
    • How the Dauphin and his wife are informed that Louis XV has just died and they're now king and queen: a number of nobles barge in their room wearing extremely creepy smiles, and then the Countess of Noailles shouts the traditional words: "The king is dead, long live the king". Louis XVI and queen Marie Antoinette break down crying then and there.
    • In the anime, a humbled and exiled Madame Du Barry opens up to Oscar. As a commoner, she had to survive and lost her mother at the age of 5. She admits that she got greedier. She affirms that she'll keep being a survivor in her exile (despite her eventual historical doom). She thanks Oscar for listening.
  • Marie Antoinette overhearing her brothers-in-law saying they hope Louis Joseph will just hurry up and die of his tuberculosis and questioning the fact their other nephew Louis Charles is actually Louis XVI's son, just because if Joseph died and Charles was declared Fersen's son they would be the new heirs to the throne by default.
  • By the end of a side story about Girodelle and Sophie von Fersen, they promise to kiss each other if he ever made it out of France alive. He was never heard from again.
  • Maria Theresa's horror and fear as she sees a portrait of Marie Antoinette in her usual clothes, as she realizes it's the sign of her getting spoiled and wasteful. Her Imagine Spot of Marie Antoinette in a modest dress seals it.
  • On her deathbed, Maria Theresa prays to God that Marie Antoinette will realize the error of her ways and correct them before it's too late. We all know how it will end.
  • In the anime, Nicole d'Olivia testifying at Jeanne's trial: Jeanne had planned to kill her specifically to prevent this in case she was caught but couldn't bring herself to do so, and at the trial was successfully defending herself when Nicole is brought in and proceeds to identify Jeanne as the woman who paid her to impersonate the queen. Worse still, Nicole is blind and so she has no idea she's testifying against Jeanne at her trial... And Jeanne can't bring herself to call her out. Despite her fuming, Jeanne actually seems to quietly understand Nicole is only doing what she was ordered to do.

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