The characters for The Rose of Versailles.

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Main Characters

Oscar François de Jarjayes

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lady_oscar.png

Voiced by: Reiko Tajima (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}
Portrayed by: Catriona Mac Coll (live-action film)

A beautiful noblewoman who was raised as a boy by her father. She is educated in such diverse arts as fencing, horseback riding, and etiquette. Eventually, she commands a company in the Garde du Corps du Roi (the senior Household Cavalry regiment), and later transfers to the French Guards.

'80s Hair: For a manga made in the 1970s and set in the late 18th century, Oscar sports a surprisingly permy hairstyle.
Action Girl: Oscar is as capable as any man in royal service, skilled in fencing, riding, and leading troops in combat.
All-Loving Heroine: Her Character Development in the second half of the manga is centered around Oscar becoming fascinated by the French Revolution's ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. This leads her to become more compassionate and empathetic towards the plight of the poor commonfolk.
Ambiguously Bi: Despite her numerous female admirers, she still falls into this. She's definitely attracted to men, since she falls in love with Fersen and later Andre, and she angrily denies being a lesbian when Jeanne claims that Marie Antoinette has a sexual relationship with her. That said, there are hints that she does like women as well, but won't act on those feelings due to French society not looking very fondly on homosexuality at the time; she tells both Rosalie and Fersen's sister Sophie that she would gladly return their feelings if she were male, but otherwise keeps gently turning down Rosalie's romantic affections for her. She also openly flirts with most of the women who attend the ball her father holds so he can set up an Arranged Marriage for her, but this is largely to get back at her father for trying to marry her off in the first place.
Attractive Bent-Gender: She's handsome-looking in male clothes and very pretty in the dress she wore that one time.
Benevolent Boss: When she's made the commander of the French Guard, Oscar treats her soldiers as her equals and repeatedly refuses to punish them despite their disobedience and disrespect of her position because of her gender, as she believes she shouldn't take away their freedom with her authority. Eventually, her soldiers are won over by her goodwill and accept her as their commander.
Bifauxnen: The Trope Codifier, as her overall character was inspired by otokoyaku actresses in the Takarazuka Revue. Due to being raised as a boy by her father (who was desperate for a male heir after having six daughters), she typically wears men's clothing and is drawn with sharper, more masculine features than almost all women in the series (though while her hair starts out as fairly short, it grows longer over the course of the story). She has a lot of female admirers thanks to her androgynously handsome looks, with Rosalie outright falling in love with her. Surprisingly enough, she still manages to enchant so many men despite looking so boypretty.
Bitch Slap: The only time Oscar uses physical violence against the soldiers of the French Guard is when she slaps them in retaliation for their disobedient behavior offending General Buiet who sentences them to detention for one week despite Oscar's pleas to forgive them.
Blasting It Out of Their Hands: A variation. Oscar shoots De Guément in the hand not to disarm him, but specifically to cripple him so he won't be able to ever fire a weapon.
Bling of War:
- Her dress uniform◊ as commander in the Garde du Corps is rather decorather, but has nothing on her French Guard uniform◊. The latter costs her her life, as it's what allows the defenders of the Bastille to identify her as the artillery commander on the Parisians' side and shoot her.
- Averted by her lieutenant uniform◊ and captain-colonel uniform◊, that are relatively plain and undecorated.
Breakout Character: The manga was originally intended to focus on the life of Marie Antoinette, with Oscar as a supporting cast member, and hence the story arc of the manga begins with Marie's birth and ends with her death. Oscar became so popular with readers that she quickly took over the focus of the story, and other adaptations of the manga focus on her as the main character from the start. In particular, the anime begins with the birth of Oscar.
The Brigadier: For her role into Jeanne Valois' death, Oscar was promoted to colonel and commander of the Gards du Corp regiment, becoming a de facto cavalry brigadier general. While in the French Guards she kept the colonel rank, but, commanding a regiment-sized company, became de-facto a colonel.
Childhood Friend Romance: Eventually, she falls in love with her childhood friend André who has loved her for a long time.
Colonel Badass: Oscar, as captain in the Military Household, holds rank equivalent to a colonel's.
Conflicting Loyalty: She's a principled woman whose sympathies lie with the downtrodden common folk, but she's also of noble blood and beholden to her duties as a born royalist and personal affection towards Queen Antoinette. She balances these antithetical feelings as best she can, until The French Revolution forces her to take a side. She and André choose the revolution over the royalists.
Convenient Terminal Illness: After Oscar finds out she's going to die from tuberculosis, she joins the French Revolution because she wants to use the time she has left to fight for the ideals of freedom and equality. Before her illness can kill her, she dies from a gunshot in the Storming of the Bastille.
Cool Big Sis: She sees Rosalie as her cute little sister and plays the role of a cool older sister figure to the girl, while kindly turning down Rosalie's crush on her.
Cover Identity Anomaly: In the side story "The Turkish Pirates and the Abbess", Oscar dresses up as a nun and is worried that she'll be caught since she, as the "Mother Superior", supposedly gives out nightly Mass. Luckily, she bluffs out of the situation by reading aloud Latin from the text that was given to her.
Covert Pervert: When she first meets Saint-Juste, it's revealed that she's read and appreciated his work Organt, a political poem filled with satire, attacks against the monarchy, the nobility and the church and infamous (and banned) for an immense quantity of pornographic episodes.
Crucified Hero Shot: In the Takarazuka Revue, after Oscar gets shot, she's shown in this position, signifying her role as a savior trying to help create a new France.
Cursed with Awesome: Although a lot of people have asked Oscar whether she's unhappy about having been raised like a man, Oscar doesn't mind as she believes had she been raised like a woman, she wouldn't have had so much knowledge about the people's suffering.
Defector from Decadence: As she's inspired by the ideals of equality and fraternity of the early French Revolution, Oscar defects from the nobility that oppresses the starving peasants and joins the revolutionaries.
Defrosting Ice Queen: She becomes more socially conscious and empathetic as the series progresses due in part to her friends exposing her to the real world.
Didn't Think This Through: Tragically Averted: she makes a point of carefully considering her decisions and manages to pull off a lot of crap because of it (such as holding Louis XV's Royal Favorite at swordpoint in her own apartments), but when she correctly anticipated the French Revolution was coming and advised Marie Antoinette on how to prevent it the Queen didn't listen, eventually driving them apart as Oscar drifted closer to the people's positions.
Died Happily Ever After: She dies in the battle of the Storming of the Bastille and sees herself reuniting with André in the afterlife.
Drowning My Sorrows: She goes drinking once in a while as tragedies pile up.
Dude Magnet: André, Girodelle and Alain really like Oscar. Fersen admits he would love her as well, if he wasn't devoted to Marie Antoinette. When her father wants her to get married, many men get in line to propose to Oscar.
Eating the Eye Candy: When she walks in on a shirtless André, she can't help thinking about how much she wants to bury herself in his bare chest.
Elegant Classical Musician: One of her hobbies is playing the violin and sure looks elegant while doing so.
Even the Girls Want Her: Being a stylish Bifauxnen and Action Girl, she always has women swooning over her whenever she appears. Charlotte and Rosalie are both in love with her, and Marie Antoinette has a little crush on her in their teenage years. She also manages to attract quite a few men, such as Andre and Girodelle.
Everyone Loves Blondes: Oscar is a beautiful blonde woman who is popular among men and women alike.
Expository Pronoun: She uses the very masculine "ore" when she's around people who is of lower level than her such as André or Rosalie, but uses "watashi" in the presence of those with higher status.
Gender-Blender Name: Her father gave her a masculine name when he decided to have her Raised as the Opposite Gender.
Go Out with a Smile: Shortly after she's fatally wounded in the Storming of the Bastille, Oscar sees the revolutionaries have taken the fortress. She dies with a smile, believing the French Revolution will create a country where everyone is equal, and hopes to see André again in the afterlife.
Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's a blonde noblewoman who is beautiful, heroic and compassionate.
Heartbroken Badass: She despairs after André dies just after they got engaged. Although she feels her heart already died with André, she participates in the Storming of the Bastille where she's killed in action.
Her Heart Will Go On: After André is fatally wounded while protecting her, Oscar briefly gets suicidal, but she's reminded of André's advice to not let herself be controlled by her emotions. Knowing André would have wanted her to keep fighting, she leads the French Guard in the Storming of the Bastille and she gets shot, joining André in death.
The Heroine: Although the story is meant to be about Marie Antoinette's life in France, Oscar's heroic actions become the focus for most of the manga.
Historical In-Joke: Her father, the General de Jarjayes, has an historical counterpart who actually raised his daughter for a man, naming her Jean-Antoine Pierre Marie Victor. Jean-Antoine was believed an actual man until her birth certificate was discovered.
Hopeless Suitor: She feels attracted to Fersen, but his heart belongs only to Marie-Antoinette and he only thinks of Oscar as a good friend.
Hot-Blooded: She's rather level-headed until someone she cares for is in danger. Then she'll become this, and you'll have a pissed off Oscar after your head.
Hot Blooded Sideburns: As a manga heroine of the The '70s, she's got the sideburns and the Hot-Blooded attitude.
If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Oscar refuses to kill Bernard "Black Knight" Chatêlet, the one to blame for André's Eye Scream situation, because of this.
Impersonation Gambit: She dresses up as a nun in "The Turkish Pirates and the Abbess" side story to infiltrate a convent.
Improbable Age: She's a captain in the Royal Guard at only 14 years old when Marie Antoinette becomes Dauphine. It's later mentioned that she hadn't even graduated from the military academy yet when she became a captain.
Incurable Cough of Death: In the last parts of the story, Oscar starts coughing blood, which is one of the signs of tuberculosis. This lets her know she doesn't have much time left.
Informed Attractiveness: Among the female characters, Oscar is the one whose beauty is most often commented on, mostly by noblemen or fellow soldiers. In fact, this was one of the reasons some soldiers disrespect her: she's a woman and too much of a beauty for them to take her seriously as their commander.
I Want My Mommy!: Played for drama. After walking away from the fiasco of Company B kidnapping her, with Andre helping her, she leans by a window and softly cries out for her mother.
Lady of War: She carries herself with elegance and majesty in the battlefield.
Loving a Shadow: After being rejected by Fersen, Oscar realizes her feelings for him are mainly based on admiration for the Courtly Love between Fersen and Marie Antoinette. Without that, Oscar probably wouldn't feel attracted to him in the first place.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Masculine Girl to André's Feminine Boy. She's a royal guard who was raised as a man and while André isn't that feminine, he's more in touch with his feelings than Oscar is.
Meaningful Name: As commented on by Dianne, "Oscar" means "God and swords" in Hebrew. This is, however a case of Artistic License – Linguistics; the name Oscar is of Gaelic origin and means "Lover of Deers".
Messianic Archetype: She was born on Christmas day, dies in her 30s, and has a Crucified Hero Shot in the musicals.
Mirror Self: Episode 7 revolves around Oscar confronting a self in which she was raised as a woman.
A Mother to Her Men: Eventually, Oscar trying to win over the rebellious soldiers with heart had worked in her favor in the end and they wholeheartedly followed her. Even more ironically, Alain, the leader of said rebellious soldiers who was the most adamant in disobeying her, ended up falling in love with her.
Must Not Die a Virgin: As she realizes tuberculosis is slowly killing her and the first battle of the French Revolution is about to start, Oscar sleeps with André. Both are killed in action shortly afterwards.
Named After Somebody Famous: Her father gave her the middle name François in honor of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, Maria Theresa's husband and former Duke of Lorraine.
No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Word of God stated she's loosely based on Pierre-Augustin Hulin, the historical leader of the people and the French Guards in the storming of the Bastille. In an Historical In-Joke, Hulin serves under her and gets his historical role due to Oscar being shot and outranking Alain.
No Kill like Overkill: Oscar dies by being shot by over a dozen muskets. Justified by the inaccuracy of smoothbore muskets, that, barring the very high aiming skills of a professional hunter, meant you had to resort to this when you shot a single person at that distance.
Not The Illness That Killed Them: Shortly before the Revolution starts in earnest, Oscar starts caughing up blood as a sign that she's dying from tuberculosis. But instead of being claimed by the illness, she's fatally shot during the storming of the Bastille.
One of the Boys: She always stays with the boys' side, and when she interacts with girls, it's more like a man talking to a woman rather than two women interacting.
Onee-sama: In some Takarazuka adaptions and in one CD drama, her niece Loulou sometimes refers to Oscar as "Oscar onee-sama", showing that Loulou regards Oscar as an older sister rather than an aunt.
Other Me Annoys Me: Oscar's Mirror Self in Episode 7 appears and disappears throughout her lifetime, causing Oscar some distress on her other self's identity. This all culminates to the final part, where Oscar's dopplegänger reveals who she is; that she is Oscar if she were raised as a woman.
Pass the Popcorn: Her usual reaction to the court's squabbles, as long as they don't involve her. She did it even to Marie-Antoinette and the Du Barry's battle, before the latter got her family involved.
Pimped-Out Dress: The one time she wears one, it is pretty grand.
Pretty in Mink: At least in the manga, she has a fur-trimmed cape on her trip to the ball when she went undercover as the mystery lady.
Raised as the Opposite Gender: She was the youngest daughter of a high-ranked military man, so she was raised as a boy by her father, who was desperate for a male heir after already having five daughters. By the time she meets Andre at age 7, she already knows she is a girl and identifies as such. By the time Oscar joins the military at age 14, most people can tell she is female. It can be a Historical In-Joke since the Real Life counterpart of her father did the same thing to his firstborn daughter, and was more successful in hiding her true gender (it was found out only years after both their deaths, when people stumbled on her birth certificate).
Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's the hotheaded Red Oni to André's calm Blue Oni.
Royal Favorite: Oscar is a favorite of Queen Marie Antoinette, serving as a confidant for her woes. Oscar seems aware of this and tries to dodge some of her more overt demonstrations of favor, like when she rejects a gift of hers.
Say My Name: "ANDRÉ!"
Secret Secret-Keeper: In the anime, André 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 André that she knows he's almost blind.
Secretly Dying: Towards the end of the series, Oscar discovers she's dying from tuberculosis, but doesn't tell anyone.
She Cleans Up Nicely: She once puts on a Pimped-Out Dress when she goes to a ball to dance with Fersen. Andre's reaction is different in each media: he gets angry in the manga, but in the anime, he laughs about it.
Significant Birth Date: Oscar's birthday is on December the 25th, also known as Christmas Day.
Simple, yet Opulent: Her one-time dress is grand, but actually less loaded with the frills and trimmings typical of the nobility of the time.
Single Woman Seeks Good Man: At first, she's attracted to Fersen out of admiration for his unwavering and selfless devotion to Marie Antoinette. Later on, she falls in love with André because he's so loyal to her that he never hesitates to risk his life for her.
Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Originally the protagonist was supposed to be Marie Antoinette, but Oscar's popularity forced the author to give Oscar this role until her death.
Star-Crossed Lovers: With André. He's in love with her and she eventually comes to love him in the same way, but their class difference prevents them from being together. At the end, Oscar asks André to marry her after the Revolution, but he dies while protecting her and she follows him in death soon after.
Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Oscar is a very cool and composed woman due to being raised as a royal guard, but she's also kindhearted, loving and compassionate to those she grows to care about.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the female royal guard who was Raised as the Opposite Gender, making her the Tomboy to her much more traditionally feminine friends, Marie Antoinette and Rosalie.
Tomboyish Name: Considering her father intended to raise her as a boy, it's no surprise he gave her a boy's name.
Tomboyish Voice: She's a tomboyish and headstrong Action Girl with a husky voice.
True Blue Femininity: Her grand dress is mostly shades of blue.
Tsundere: Harsh type. Oscar is known for her fierce Lady of War attributes, but she also has a severe crush on Fersen and later falls deeply in love with her childhood friend André.
Unkempt Beauty: Since she's raised as a man, she never wears make-up (actually she did once to impress Fersen, but it failed). And yet she remains beautiful, to the point of attracting even women.
Unknowingly in Love: When her fiancé Girodelle kisses her, Oscar wonders why the feeling of his lips pales in comparison to the passion she felt when André kissed her. Later on, Oscar turns down Girodelle's marriage proposal because she can't bear to make André unhappy by marrying another man. When Girodelle asks her if she loves André, Oscar says she doesn't know yet because she thought they were Like Brother and Sister, but she's realizing she might be mistaken. Near the end of the manga, she comes to terms with her romantic love for André and they become a couple.
Unsettling Gender-Reveal: For people who didn't know Oscar's gender, their reactions were almost always "What, you're a GIRL?!" It also didn't help that she apparently looks handsome enough for the guys to think that she's a girly boy at first sight. For example, Fersen thought that Oscar was being too "royalty" when she requested for him and Andre to stay outside while she changed because he thought there was no problem for boys to see another boy changing. It's only when her nanny screamed at him angrily that Oscar was her "mademoiselle" did he notice her lean and girly features. He was pretty embarrassed about that too.
Uptown Girl: Oscar is a noblewoman, while André is a commoner. She eventually returns André's love for her and both yearn for an equal world where they could get married without any concern for their social class.
Violently Protective Girlfriend: While they're not an item yet, Oscar completely flips her shit out when André is blinded in one eye by Bernard, and very nearly kills him.
Wholesome Crossdresser: She dresses as a man for her day job of commander of the Royal Guard, as well as due to her father raising her as a boy, and she's a very heroic character. The number of times she wears feminine outfits can be counted on one hand, and she's shown to be very unused to it.
Wine Is Classy: Being a noblewoman, she looks very elegant while drinking wine.
You Are Worth Hell: In the manga, Andre vows to always be her shadow "until the depths of Hell."

André Grandier

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/andre_grandier.png

Voiced by: Taro Shigaki (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}
Portrayed by: Barry Stokes (live-action film)

Oscar's childhood friend and the grandson of her nanny. André and Oscar learned the arts of fencing and horsemanship together when they were children. As they grew up, Oscar became the Dauphine's guard and the class gap between them widened. He has been described as a "true working-class hero" by Helen McCarthy. He is secretly in love with Oscar.

Anguished Declaration of Love: When he can't stand to see Oscar pining for Fersen any longer, André has a full-on breakdown where he confesses his love for Oscar. It quickly gets disturbing when he forces a kiss on her and tears off her shirt before he realizes what he's doing and stops himself.
Ascended Extra: He goes from a Plucky Comic Relief supporting character in the first half of the story to the Deuteragonist and Oscar's main love interest in the second half.
Betty and Veronica: The Betty (commoner childhood friend who only has eyes for Oscar) to Fersen's Veronica (foreigner count who can't return Oscar's feelings because he's devoted to the queen) for Oscar's Archie. Fersen rejects Oscar's love and she eventually ends up with André.
Big Eater: According to Oscar, he likes to eat a lot.
Break the Cutie: He's a handsome commoner guy in love with the noblewoman he's known ever since childhood. In the second half of the manga, he undergoes several breakdowns as a result of his frustration about his unrequited love, losing an eye to then have his other eye losing sight too, and Oscar's father trying to set her up in an Arranged Marriage.
Childhood Friend Romance: He's in love with his childhood friend Oscar and they become a couple shortly before they die near the end of the series.
The Conscience: Oscar briefly loses herself in a vengeful rage towards the Black Knight because he blinded André's left eye. She tries to damage his eye in the same way he did to André, but André stops her and reminds her that as an officer, she shouldn't act based on her emotions.
Crazy Jealous Guy: Particularly in the manga, his jealousy gets the better of him. This eventually culminates in André almost poisoning Oscar to prevent Girodelle marries her. Fortunately, it gets subverted when he realizes he's turning into a possessive monster before it's too late and he accepts to be happy with Oscar being alive no matter who she chooses to be with. When Alain forcibly kisses Oscar, André can keep a cool head enough to let it go.
Declaration of Protection: He swears to protect Oscar until his last breath.
Determinator: In one scene of the anime, he gets a serious bashing from the other guards under Oscar's command, who sees him as Oscar's lackey. He keeps fighting back until he can't even move anymore.
Deuteragonist: In the second half of the series, André takes the role of the second protagonist as his Inter-Class Romance with Oscar and his struggle with gradually going blind become focal points to the drama.
Died Happily Ever After: André is shown coming to retrieve Oscar's soul after she is fatally shot the day after his death. In the manga, they are also shown retrieving Andre's grandmother when the latter dies too.
Dies Differently in Adaptation: He dies from being shot in both the manga and anime, but in the manga he takes the bullet to protect Oscar.
Dogged Nice Guy: Since he's aware of his position as a commoner and servant, he knows he shouldn't get pushy about his romantic affections for Oscar, but he has his limits.
Drowning My Sorrows: At least once in the anime.
Dude, She's Like in a Coma: He carries Oscar in his arms after a Bar Brawl and kisses her while she's unconscious.
Expository Hairstyle Change: His hair grows messier as the story and his loss of eyesight progress.
Eye Scream: He loses the sight on his left eye due to the Black Knight hitting his face with a whip. He does his best to keep on fighting. Even when his remaining eye starts to malfunction as well.
First Guy Wins: He has known Oscar the longest out of her suitors and has been by her side since they were children. In the end, Oscar falls in love with André and asks him to marry her. Sadly, André dies protecting her.
Heel Realization: In the manga, just before Oscar can drink the poisoned wine André gave her, André remembers the day he swore to give his life for Oscar out of gratitude for her risking her own life for him. André then stops Oscar from drinking the poison, having realized he has gone so mad with jealousy that he acted selfish and almost forgot his true wish to protect Oscar.
Heroic Sacrifice: Early in the story, André vows to one day give up his life for Oscar. He makes true to his promise near the end of the manga.
Hiding Behind Your Bangs: After his left eye is injured, he hides it with his hair.
Hiding the Handicap: Soon after his left eye is blinded, he slowly starts losing sight on his right eye as well. He keeps this a secret, especially from Oscar, because he knows a blind servant would be nothing but a burden. Oscar doesn't realize André has gone blind until he's dying and he has to touch her face to know where she is.
Hyper-Awareness: As he starts to go blind, he learns how to recognize people from the sound of their footsteps.
If I Can't Have You…: Subverted. André despairs when Oscar is almost forced into an Arranged Marriage with Count of Girodelle. As the loss of his eyesight affects his mental state, André makes an attempt to poison Oscar and himself. Thankfully, he stops her from drinking it since he realizes he's being selfish and from then on, he goes back to his usual self who would sacrifice himself in order for Oscar to live.
The Lancer: He's the main companion of Oscar throughout the story, serving as her closest friend and Foil.
Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He ties his hair back into a ponytail before he cuts it to impersonate the Black Knight.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Feminine Boy to Oscar's Masculine Girl. It's downplayed since André is trained in fencing like Oscar and doesn't come off as particularly effeminate, but he's generally more sensitive and passive than her.
Nice Guy: André is a very friendly, sensitive and passionate man.
Patient Childhood Love Interest: He has been by Oscar's side as her servant and friend since childhood. He's in love with her, but a romantic relationship between them is forbidden by their social class difference. André tries to content himself with being close to Oscar, but the chance of her being taken by a nobleman is a major source of frustration for him.
Plucky Comic Relief: He starts off as Oscar's nice and somewhat goofy childhood friend who often gets slapstick moments thanks to his strict grandmother getting angry at him, but as the tragedies pile up he gets more and more serious.
Previously Overlooked Paramour: André is Oscar's childhood friend and while he's in love with her, she only thinks of him as a brother figure for most of the series. Oscar is initially infatuated with Count Fersen, only to be rejected because his heart belongs to Marie Antoinette. Eventually, Oscar slowly realizes she does love André as a man and they become a couple shortly before they both die at the start of the French Revolution.
Raised by Grandparents: His parents died when he was a little boy, so his grandmother took him in.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the calm Blue Oni to Oscar's hotheaded Red Oni.
Satellite Love Interest: In the first half of the manga, André's only role is being Oscar's childhood friend with an unrequited crush on her. Although, he does get a more rounded characterization in the second half even if his love for Oscar is always a big defining part of his character.
Say My Name: "OSCAAAAAAAAAR!"
Second Love: Fersen turns down Oscar's feelings because of his devotion to Marie Antoinette. Oscar then slowly develops romantic feelings for André as she realizes how much he means to her.
Shadow Archetype: He and Oscar are often referred to as 'the shadow' and 'the light'.
Shirtless Scene: In the manga, Oscar walks in on him while he's changing out of his rain-soaked uniform. Her getting all flustered is one of the first signs that she's developing feelings for him.
Single-Target Sexuality: André is very Oscar-sexual. From a young age, Oscar has been the only woman he wants as his wife.
Star-Crossed Lovers: With Oscar. He has always loved her, but since he's a commoner, he can't hope to marry her even though she eventually returns his feelings. They become engaged at the start of the Revolution, but both are killed in action and can only be together in the afterlife.
Take Me Instead: When General de Jarjayes threatens to punish Oscar for supporting the revolutionaries, André intervenes and offers him to take his life instead of Oscar's.
Taking the Bullet: In the manga, he dies from taking a bullet for Oscar.
Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's tall, dark-haired and handsome, especially after his hairstyle change.
Tears of Joy: He tears up when Oscar tells him she intends to never get married, meaning André doesn't have to worry about another man taking her from him.
What You Are in the Dark: In the manga, he considers poisoning Oscar's wine and killing himself afterwards. However, he stops her from drinking the poison just in time as he realizes all he wants is for Oscar to live even if she won't be his.

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette of France

Voiced by: Miyuki Ueda (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

An archduchess of Austria and youngest daughter of Queen Maria Theresa. At fourteen years old, she's sent to France and marries the Dauphin Louis XVI, becoming the Dauphine and later Queen of France.

Armor-Piercing Response: She pleads with the guards not to take away her only remaining son and implores them if they have sons as well. One of the guards tells her she’s right, they all had sons. But they’re Forced to Watch their sons die of malnutrition due to being too poor to buy food, let alone milk. The guard also points out this was going on while she was living the high life in Versailles without a care in the world for her subjects suffering through poverty and starvation. The look of her face spelled out how much the realization shook her to the core.
Apathetic Student: She's shown early on to not be fond of studying, often weaseling her way out of it by tricking her tutors into giving her more free time.
Arranged Marriage: Queen Maria Theresa arranges a political marriage between Marie Antoinette and King Louis XV's grandson, Louis XVI, to form the Franco-Austrian alliance. While she does care deeply for her husband, Marie Antoinette finds more romantic compatibility in Fersen.
Book Dumb: She doesn't like studying, and her mother Maria Theresa is shocked to find out that she does poorly at every academic skill required for a queen and can't even write correctly in her own native language, let alone French; dancing is the only thing she can do right. This is Truth in Television, since the real Marie Antoinette was noted to be "hard to teach" and lacking in writing skills.
Brainless Beauty: She's beautiful and charming, but also Book Dumb, sheltered and very naive.
Break the Cutie: She's a charming and beautiful, if ignorant and naive, young queen who was taken away from her homeland and entered a loveless political marriage, but finds comfort in a forbidden romance with Hans Axel von Fersen. In the last years of her life, she has everything taken from her during the French Revolution and is subjected to many humiliations by the commonfolk who hate her for her lavish lifestyle at Versailles. When she's finally sentenced to death and executed on the guillotine, she only can feel relieved about her suffering being finally over.
Convicted by Public Opinion: Marie Antoinette is a collateral victim of Jeanne swindling Cardinal de Rohan, but as soon as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace goes public, the commoners believe Jeanne's false accusations towards the queen, which results in Marie Antoinette being framed as the true mastermind of the crime who set up her lesbian lover as her scapegoat. Even in her final trial, no one believes Marie Antoinette's denials to even have met Jeanne.
Deconstructed Character Archetype: She deconstructs the Princess Classic and Stock Shoujo Heroine. Marie Antoinette starts her life as a lovable and innocent Austrian princess who is spoiled by her servants, but her mother suddenly makes the decision to have her marry the Dauphin of France, even though her carefree daughter doesn't know anything about being a ruler. Upon arriving in France, she finds herself in a loveless political marriage, so she looks for comfort in luxury and an affair with Count Fersen. Due to prioritizing her own gratification above all else, she ignores her duties after ascending to the throne and her irresponsible behavior gives her enemies both among the nobility and the common folk, but she doesn't even realize this until her public image has been ruined beyond repair. By the time of the beginnings of the French Revolution, she becomes inflexible and oppressive to those who oppose the royal family and refuses to sympathize with the exploited commoners. This results in even one of Marie's former loyal guards siding with the Revolution which eventually sends the queen to the guillotine.
Demoted to Extra: Downplayed; the story was originally intended to be about Marie Antoinette's life as Dauphine and then Queen of France, but Oscar's popularity with the manga's readers drove Ikeda to give her the role of the main protagonist with a much more active involvement in the events that lead to the French Revolution. While Marie is still an important character in every version of the story, she gradually takes on more of a tritagonist role (to Oscar's protagonist and Andre's deuteragonist) as the manga goes on. She finally retakes the role of protagonist in the closing chapters after Oscar and André both die.
Despair Event Horizon: The failure of the escape to Austria and the subsequent abolition of monarchy causes Antoinette to give up all hope of Louis XVI retaking power, but the revolutionists taking away her youngest and last son, Louis-Charles, breaks her down even more. She and her husband resign themselves to wait for their death sentence.
Disease Bleach: The stress of the Flight to Varenne, the failure and the hostility of the people during the return to Paris permanently dyed her hair white. This condition is even named after her.
The Dog Bites Back: When Hébert relays the accusation of incest with her son Louis-Charles at her trial, Marie Antoinette at first refuses to reply, and when she's forced to answer she declares "If I have not replied, it is because Nature itself refuses to respond to such a charge laid against a mother". This nearly gets Hébert lynched, succeeding in putting him on Robespierre's and Saint-Just's shit-lists (in real life, Hébert barely survived five months after the trial before being executed as a thief).
Dumb Blonde: While not outright stupid, the blonde Marie Antoinette is Book Dumb, terribly naive and shortsighted, leading her to make a lot of poor choices as a queen.
Everyone Has Standards: As horrible a spendrifts she is, she makes a point of asking the price every time she buys anything, and outright refuses to buy the infamous Diamond Necklace because one could build and fully equip a 74-gun ship of the line for the same price. And when she finally gets some perspective on what her expenses are doing to the state budget she immediately cuts said expenses (though too late for it to affect the impending French Revolution).
Face Death with Dignity: When brought to the guillotine, her only thoughts are of showing her dignity as queen of France and the daughter of Maria Theresa. The manga also reports her final letter to her sister-in-law Elizabeth, in which she reaffirms her dignity by saying she doesn't view her execution as a shameful death and she hopes to show the same firmness in her last moments as her husband did.
Fatal Flaw: She's benevolent and caring to those she's personally fond of, but her treatment of everyone else borders on Lack of Empathy; a flaw that is worsened by the fact that being the queen makes her expect everyone will still worship her regardless of her apathetic treatment of them. Another flaw is her love of extreme money-draining luxury, whilst France is going through a major debt crisis while her subjects are going through extreme poverty, starvation, and high taxing. Her behavior only gets her alienated by the French nobles and the commoners come to see her as the prime symbol of the corrupted royalty, which eventually culminates in the French Revolution and her death by guillotine.
Gem-Encrusted: Several of her dresses, headdresses, and a couple of her ermine dresses and capes.
Genre Savvy: She knows well that a queen is supposed to rule for the people and Versailles' gates guards are rather lazy, and identifies Oscar as a trusted soldier and Du Barry as someone who shouldn't be trusted as soon as she sees them, even before asking around who they are. She also knows that Beauty Equals Goodness may be subverted (and notes that Du Barry is beautiful just as she tells herself she shouldn't trust her). Sadly, she's rather bad on practice...
Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She fits the girly girl role of the Tomboy and Girly Girl aspect due to being an elegant Princess Classic when compared with Bifauxnen Oscar, but she also feels confined by her royal status and wants to do things on her own like riding a horse. While she's occasionally referred to as "tomboyish" by other characters, this is largely by 18th century standards; her girly side is far more prominent, especially as she gets older.
Good Parents: For all her faults as a ruler, she cares greatly for her children, who are more important to her than her own life. Shortly before her execution, General de Jarjayes and Fersen propose one last desperate plan to save Marie Antoinette's life, but she refuses because the plan only guarantees her escape and she couldn't bear to live while leaving her captive children in France.
Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Has a few dresses in purple. She also wears a royal cape that is purple, but it's worn in a scene that fails to evoke Purple Is Powerful to the people.
Green-Eyed Epiphany: She realizes she's in love with Fersen when she's heartbroken at hearing the possibility of him being set up in an Arranged Marriage with someone else.
Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's a queen with beautiful blonde hair and a pure heart.
Hates Reading: She detests books and doesn't understand why her husband is fond of reading.
Heroic BSoD: She goes into shock when she's told the royal budget isn't enough to cover the Dauphin's funeral, as she never thought France's financial problems would ever get that bad and wonders if she's suffering karmic retribution for overspending her wealth.
Historical Domain Character: Marie-Antoinette is a very famous historical figure.
Honor Before Reason: Antoinette always lets her honor and pride as a queen reign over her choices, even when they aren't to her benefit. This comes to a head during the French Revolution, where Antoinette insists she must maintain her dignity even after her husband gets dethroned and she becomes nothing but a prisoner awaiting execution under the new constitution. After the failed Flight to Varenne, she's still offered a few chances to escape, but refuses to do so because attempting to abandon France again will only degrade the royal family's public image even more and more importantly, she doesn't want to escape if her children can't come with her because she has a sense of honor as a mother too.
Horrible Judge of Character: She's convinced that Duchesse de Polignac is a pure and lovable woman, not having a clue about Polignac's manipulative and parasitical true nature. At one point, Marie Antoinette stops listening to Oscar and Count de Mercy, her truly trustworthy advisors, in favor of indulging in luxury with Polignac who keeps getting tons of money out of her. It's not until the Affair of the Diamond Necklace happens that Fersen advises Marie Antoinette to cut off her relation with Polignac and open her eyes to who is taking advantage of her status.
Kill the Cutie: Marie Antoinette is portrayed as a sweet and lovable young woman. Like in history, however, her story ends with her being sent to the guillotine.
Laser-Guided Karma: She tries to appeal to the guardsmen who take her son away from her to raise him as a commoner. She gets No Sympathy because many of their sons died impoverished while their labour funded the royal family's decadence.
Like Parent, Unlike Child: Antoinette's mother, Maria Theresa, thinks what's the best for her nation and doesn't let her personal feelings cloud her judgement when it comes to making decisions because that's what a queen is supposed to do. On the contrary, Antoinette is ruled over by her emotions and pursuit for pleasures, making her gullible, immature, and careless about her duties as a queen.
Limited Social Circle: Deconstructed. The suffocating environment of Versailles leads Marie Antoniette to seclude herself in Petit Trianon where she allows entry to no one but her children and personal favorites from the court. What she fails to realize is that isolating herself from the majority of the nobility only gains her more enemies and her image as queen continues to deteriorate.
Lord Country: Averted Trope: as the Queen of France she has no surname (they serve to help people tell the difference between other Marie Antoinette and her, after all, and she signs her letters only as "Marie Antoinette". This becomes a plot point starting with the Affair of the Diamond Necklace:
- When Cardinal De Rohan produces letters supposedly from her to prove he was obeying her will, Louis XVI takes a look and points out that not only the handwriting is completely different, but that them being signed "Marie Antoinette of France" is the mark of obvious fakes from someone who didn't know of that tradition.
- Since the Rohan family holds the rank of prince étranger, Cardinal De Rohan knew of that tradition... But was so happy Marie Antoinette apparently gave up on her feud with him he failed to notice the wrong signature, getting him charged with the scam because Marie Antoinette couldn't believe he would be that stupid.
- With the French Revolution she lost her royal status... And since she had given up her old surname^note when she married Louis she was assigned Capet after Hugh Capet, founder of the Capetian dynasty that her husband's House of Bourbon was part of.
More Insulting than Intended: She insults Louis XVI's favorite hobby by saying locksmithing is absurd. Louis XVI then starts to cry and Marie Antoinette cries too when she realizes she went too far.
Moving Angst: At fourteen years old, she moves to France and gets married to the Dauphin, but she feels terribly sad and distressed as she realizes she isn't allowed to bring anything from her homeland Austria and she must leave everything familiar to her behind to become the Dauphine of France.
My God, What Have I Done?:
- Once her eldest son dies, she’s horrified to discover that there’s hardly any funds left for a funeral and they have to resort to selling the palace's candlesticks. It finally hits her what her shopaholic habits have cost her.
- When she tries to pleads with the guardsmen from taking away her surviving son, they have No Sympathy for her since they were Forced to Watch their sons die of malnutrition due to their poverty, while she was living a luxurious lifestyle at Versailles whilst never giving a shred of concern for the commoners going through poverty, since it was their labor that payed for her and the rest of the nobility’s expensive indulgences. This forced her into realizing how uncaring she was and unfit to rule as a queen.
Nerves of Steel: When forced to confront an angry mob screaming for her blood and threatening to shoot her on the spot, Marie Antoinette doesn't even flinch or beg for her life and solemnly bows down to the peasantry. Her bravery is what convinces her subjects that she does have the dignity of a true queen, after all.
Never Sent Any Letters: The Affair of the Diamond Necklace happens because Rohan believed he was having a secret affair with Marie Antoinette through the letters that Jeanne gave him supposedly on the queen's behalf. The truth is Jeanne had someone else forge the letters. When the con is finally exposed, it's proven that Marie Antoinette never wrote letters for Rohan because she wouldn't have signed personal letters with her full name.
Outliving One's Offspring: Her first son, Louis Joseph, dies of illness when he's only seven years old. Marie Antoinette despairs at losing her beloved son and learning the royal family has no funds left for his funeral.
Overly Long Name: Her full birth name is Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen.
Pimped-Out Cape: She wears quite a few ermine-trimmed capes.
Pimped-Out Dress: Being the princess and queen, she has some of the fanciest dresses. After becoming queen, she commissions hundreds of them due to her seamstress convincing her that as the Queen of France, she should always be at the forefront of fashion. Her mother Maria Theresa greatly disapproves of this, due to her belief that a true queen should dress modestly.
Prematurely Grey-Haired: Her blonde hair turns white from the stress of the Flight to Varenne, the failure and the hostility of the people during the return to Paris.
Pretty in Mink: To show her status, she wears several fur-trimmed capes, and wears an ermine-trimmed dress and cape when she goes to France. In the manga, she wears a similar dress for her husband's coronation.
Princess Classic: She's a very beautiful, pure-hearted and innocent princess who easily charms those around her. Tragically, her life in France as dauphine and eventual queen doesn't turn out like the fairy tale she had dreamed of.
Princesses Prefer Pink: She's a princess and later queen who wears several pink and rose-colored dresses.
Protagonist Journey to Villain: Downplayed, as even at her worst Marie's personal virtues shine through, but her arc has elements of this. Her precocious infatuation with all things gaudy and glittering spins an innocent princess into a rigid queen who's utterly unwilling to compromise her life of power and luxury, and her refusal to elevate the people at any expense to the royal family is a major contributing factor to the revolution's bloody turn. With Louis XVI's dithering, the story splits responsibility for the violence between Antoinette and Robespierre; Robespierre might have been an opportunist, but Antoinette's adherence to a system built to facilitate decadence and excess gave him his opportunity. In the end, even Oscar sides against her.
Regal Ringlets: Her hairstyles have ringlets as often as not.
Requisite Royal Regalia: She has a number of tiaras and capes.
Sheltered Aristocrat: Deconstructed. After arriving in France, Marie Antoinette is locked in the royal social bubble of Versailles. As she enjoys her lavish lifestyle, she's completely oblivious to the dire circumstances of the peasants living in poverty and she quickly becomes a public symbol of everything the common people hate about the nobility. Marie Antoinette has no idea of how much the public hates her until the Affair of the Diamond Necklace happens and most of the public believes Jeanne's false accusations of the queen being behind the crime.
Skipping School: In her childhood, she had the habit of sneaking away from her tutors and avoided lessons altogether. Naturally, this left her very lacking in education and her mother realized this only after she had decided to make Antoinette the next queen of France.
Star-Crossed Lovers: Antoinette and Fersen fall madly in love, but they can never be together because she's married to Louis XVI and he eventually leaves France to prevent more rumors about their affair. As in real life, their love story ends in tragedy; Antoinette is executed during the French Revolution and Fersen spends the rest of his life regretting his failure to save her until he meets a violent death at hands of a mob.
Stock Shoujo Heroine: Despite being a Historical Domain Character, she's still portrayed as this, since Ikeda deliberately modeled her on typical shoujo protagonists of the era. She's introduced as naive and Book Dumb due to her sheltered upbringing and dislike of studying, but her pure heart and beauty still enchant everyone who knows her. She also wants to have a real romance, and falls in love with the handsome Swedish nobleman Hans Axel von Fersen. Unfortunately, these traits later prove to be her undoing; her naivete and dislike of learning make her a Horrible Judge of Character, and she falls in love with Fersen despite already being married to Louis XVI, which causes rumors about her being unfaithful.
Sympathetic Adulterer: She's in a political marriage with Louis XVI who is very distant towards her for many years due to his shyness. Feeling lonely and neglected by her husband, Antoinette has an affair with Count Fersen who does love her deeply. It helps that, knowing her duties as the Queen of France, they keep things platonic until the French Revolution progresses and the lovers share one night of passion as they see the chances of Marie Antoinette being spared are very slim. Even Louis XVI himself is understanding of her affair, since he's insecure about how he was obviously a poor match for her and only wants her to be happy, even if it's with someone else.
Tranquil Fury: She never loses her temper. Even when accused of incest with her own son at her trial she keeps calm, with only a Death Glare and calling the charge an insult to all mothers showing she is, in fact, furious at being accused of such a thing.
Trauma Conga Line: With the Revolution, she's subjected to a major one. First, she's nearly lynched by the women of Paris (who calm down only after she makes a reverence to them), then she's forced to move to the Tuileries Palace with the Royal Family, then there's the failure of the escape to Belgium with the relative hate of the people, the forced abdication, Louis XVI's trial and execution, the Committee of Public Safety taking her children away (by this time she's suffering of tuberculosis and uterine cancer), a sham trial finalized to sentence her to death, member of the Committee Jacques Hébert brainwashing her son into accusing her of incest, and, finally, she's executed.
Traumatic Haircut: On the day of her execution, most of her hair is forcibly cut before she's taken to the guillotine. She tries to hold back the tears as she prays to God and endures the humiliation before her death.
True Blue Femininity: She's a beautiful and graceful queen who wears quite a few blue dresses.
The Tyson Zone: At one point, people started believing everything about her, including but not limited to cheating on the King and giving birth to one of her lovers' children, having lesbian lovers, swindling innocent men and her own lesbian lovers to get a diamond necklace, and that infamous quote about cake. She never did anything of the above (and in fact the cake quote was older than her). At the very least, when she's accused of incest with her own son at her trial before her execution, the witnesses believe her when she denies the accusation, and in fact it's the accuser who risks being lynched.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her many expenses cause enormous scandal and bring the country, already economically damaged by Louis XV, on the verge of bankrupt—and by the time she realizes the consequences, the French Revolution is already coming. Also, her actions during the lead-up to the scandal of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace were taken in complete good faith, not imagining the terrifying consequences.
Whole Costume Reference: The bejeweled ermine dresses are heavily based on this dress worn by Marie Leszczynska, wife of Louis XV◊. It's even more clear in some side art for the manga.

Hans Axel von Fersen

Hans Axel von Fersen, The Younger

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/le_comte_fersen.png

Voiced by: Nachi Nozawa (TV series) Katsunosuke Hori (TV series EP 6-8) ^{Foreign VAs}

A handsome Swedish aristocrat who comes to the court of Versailles and becomes involved in a forbidden romance with queen Marie Antoinette.

Adaptational Angst Upgrade: After coming home from the American Revolution, he shows signs of PTSD, being unable to adapt to civilian life and stating to Oscar he is grateful to be so alive in the TV series. The manga shows him unchanged by the war.
Adaptational Badass: While he takes part in the American Revolution offscreen, he never actually demonstrates any fighting ability in the manga. However, his portrayal in the anime shows him as growing into a hardened veteran after returning from America, being skilled enough with a rifle to shoot a thrown apple a distance away with ease.
Betty and Veronica: The Veronica (foreigner count who can't return Oscar's feelings because he's devoted to the queen) to André's Betty (commoner childhood friend who only has eyes for Oscar) for Oscar's Archie. He rejects Oscar and she ends with André.
The Bus Came Back: He repeatedly leaves France to protect Marie Antoinette's reputation from being more damaged because of their affair. Not that many chapters pass before he comes back again and again, though.
Chick Magnet: Almost all the ladies of Versailles, including Marie Antoinette and Oscar, are very smitten with him.
Courtly Love: He's in love with Marie Antoinette, but their romance is forbidden because she's married to King Louis XVI. Fersen swears to devote all his heart and soul to Marie Antoinette while keeping his distance so their affair doesn't go public.
Devoted to You: Marie Antoinette can't become his wife due to her Arranged Marriage to Louis XVI, but Fersen makes a vow to never get married because his heart belongs to Marie Antoinette only.
Historical Domain Character: Hans Axel von Fersen was a real Swedish count who had a close relationship with Queen Marie Antoinette and it's presumed he was her lover.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Marie Antoinette is the love of his life, but he leaves France more than once because he knows their affair will only further damage her declining reputation.
Love at First Sight: He falls hopelessly in love with Marie Antoinette from the moment he sees her face.
The Mourning After: According to the epilogue, Fersen is unable to move on from Marie Antoinette's tragic death and he never gets married because the Queen of France was his one and only love.
Oblivious to Love: For ten years, he doesn't even notice that Oscar has a crush on him because all of his attention is on Marie Antoinette. He realizes how Oscar feels about him when she puts on a dress just to dance with him, but he makes it clear that he's still devoted to the queen.
Romantic False Lead: He's the first man that Oscar feels attracted to, but his devotion for Marie Antoinette keeps him from returning Oscar's feelings. Oscar ends up with André.
Single-Target Sexuality: Even though Marie Antoinette is a married woman, Fersen swears to never love any woman but her.
Star-Crossed Lovers: With Marie Antoinette. They fall madly in love, but can never be together because she's married to Louis XVI and he eventually leaves France to prevent more rumors about their affair. As in real life, their love story ends in tragedy; Antoinette is executed during the French Revolution and Fersen spends the rest of his life regretting his failure to save her until he meets a violent death at hands of a mob.
Survivor Guilt: After Marie Antoinette is executed, Fersen spends the rest of his days tormented by guilt and regret for not dying with her even though he was the one who planned the failed escape to Austria that cemented the royal family's sentence.
Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Downplayed. He may be considered dark by Swedish standards, but definitely not by French ones. He even dyes his hair a much darker shade in order to disguise himself later in the story.
Took a Level in Jerkass: After Marie Antoinette's death, he grows cold, cynical and hateful of the commoners.
Tragic Keepsake: After Marie Antoinette is executed, General de Jarjayes brings the ring she received from Fersen back to him.
Trauma Conga Line: He fails to save the woman he loves, then his friend is beheaded, and then the love of his life suffers the same fate. Years later, his close friend, the Crown Prince of Sweden, dies in a tragic accident and he is falsely accused of murdering him and ends up being lynched at his funeral.
Undying Loyalty: He vows to be at Marie Antoinette's side, even if it eternally damns him.
The Von Trope Family: He's a Swedish count whose family name is von Fersen.

Rosalie Lamorlière

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rosalie_lamorliere.png

Voiced by: Rihoko Yoshida (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

The adoptive daughter of a commoner named Nicole Lamorlière. Oscar teaches her the art of fencing, manners, history, and other courtly skills and Rosalie comes to admire and love Oscar greatly.

Adaptational Angst Downgrade: In the anime, she never makes amends with Charlotte and pretends to be unaffected by the latter's death at first before finally actually crying. In the manga, they tearfully make up to each other and she is openly crying and desperate at Charlotte's suicide.
Back for the Finale: After the Black Knight arc, Rosalie permanently leaves the Jarjayes household to marry Bernard. She isn't seen again until the final arc where the French Revolution begins and Oscar goes to Bernard's house to ask for his help in breaking her soldiers out of prison. Rosalie then is present at the Storming of the Bastille where Oscar dies and later becomes Marie Antoinette's maid shortly before the former is executed.
Barefoot Poverty: She's so poor that she can't afford shoes.
Beta Couple: Rosalie marries Bernard, a supporter of the Robespierre. At the end of the series, they're the only couple who gets a happy ending because neither of them die.
Break the Cutie: She starts as a sweet peasant girl who is trying to support herself and her ill mother. But life isn't kind to her; her mother is ran over by Polignac's carriage, she finds out Polignac is her biological mother, her crush on Oscar is unrequited because of Incompatible Orientation, one of her half-sisters commits suicide and the other frames the queen in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.
Clingy Jealous Girl: She reveals that she envies all of the girls that look at Oscar.
Demoted to Extra: Rosalie wasn't very well liked by Japanese readers, so she fades away from the spotlight as time passes.
Florence Nightingale Effect: She falls in love with Bernard while taking care of his bullet wound that she gave him herself.
Gayngst: Her unrequited crush on Oscar gives her nothing but angst and she wishes Oscar was a man so Oscar could love her back. During her monologue in the "Countess in Black" gaiden, Rosalie reveals that she harbors self-loathing and low-esteem issues stemming from her inability to have a relationship with Oscar.
Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's a gentle and docile girl with blonde hair.
Happily Adopted: She loved her adoptive mother Nicole more than the latter's biological daughter Jeanne ever did.
Hates Their Parent: She hates her birth mother Duchesse de Polignac who is directly responsible for the death of her adoptive mother and later pushes her half-sister Charlotte into suicide when she tries to marry Charlotte off to a duke at eleven years old.
Heroic Bastard: She's a good girl who just happens to be the illegitimate daughter of Duchesse de Polignac.
Historical Domain Character: Loosely. There was a Rosalie Lamorlière in real life (Marie-Antoinette's caretaker and maid when she was imprisoned), but she obviously wasn't like the girl we meet in this manga.
Hopeless Suitor: She has a big crush on Oscar who says she would marry Rosalie if she was a man, but since she's a woman, she can only see Rosalie as a little sister figure.
Incompatible Orientation: Oscar is her First Love, but Rosalie is heartbroken whenever Oscar reminds her that she can't fall in love with another woman.
Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: She's the sweet and pure Light Feminine to Jeanne's manipulative and greedy Dark Feminine.
Naïve Everygirl: She's a working-class girl who's also sweet and naive, which makes her more similar to the series' target audience than Oscar or Marie Antoinette. One standout example of her naivete is when she mistakes the Jarjayes estate for Versailles, having no idea just how huge and heavily guarded Versailles really is.
Nice Girl: She is described as "a stereotypical good girl; sweet, obedient and timid".
Perverted Sniffing: She sniffs her crush Oscar's uniform once.
Pimped-Out Dress: She wears quite a few, given to her by Oscar's family.
Precious Photo: Before she's forced to leave the Jarjayes household to join the Polignac family, Oscar gives Rosalie a portrait of herself as a farewell gift.
Pretty in Mink: In the manga, the clothes she gets from Oscar's family includes a fur-trimmed cape and a jacket and muff◊.
Rags to Royalty: She's a sort of 'Sleeping Beauty' type. Her then-teenaged mother gave her up to a poor family, thus Rosalie has no idea of how said mom has gone Rags to Riches in the meantime and considers herself the daughter of Nicole Lamorlière for a long while.
Royal Bastard: She's the illegitimate daughter of a noblewoman named Martine Gabrielle who is no other than Duchesse de Polignac. Her father is the Baron de Saint-Rémy, the last descendant of the royal House of Valois.
Runaway Fiancé: Madame de Polignac blackmails her into officially joining the Polignac family, but all Madame de Polignac wants is using Rosalie as the deceased Charlotte's replacement in the Arranged Marriage to the Duke of Guiche. Rosalie runs away before she can be married off to the duke.
Sibling Yin-Yang: She and her half-sister Jeanne are polar opposites. Rosalie is sweet, humble and selfless, while Jeanne is vile, greedy and selfish.
The Stool Pigeon: A Whistleblower Wilma. Rosalie is willing to turn a blind eye to Jeanne escaping jail until the latter starts publishing pornographic books that slander Marie Antoinette and Oscar as lesbians. Before leaving the Jarjayes household, Rosalie gives Jeanne's letter to Oscar and André, which lets them know where Jeanne's hideout is.
You Killed My Mother: She wants to take revenge on Polignac for running over her mother with her carriage and killing her.

The Jarjayes Household

General de Jarjayes

General Reynier de Jarjayes

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/francois_augustin_regnier_de_jarjayes_1.png

Voiced by: Kenji Utsumi ^{Foreign VAs}
Portrayed by: Mark Kingston (live-action film)

The head of the French military, a member of the royal court and father of Oscar and her sisters.

Abusive Parents: He uses physical violence to punish Oscar for disobeying him. In the very first episode of the anime, he goes far as to push Oscar down a flight of stairs just because she refused to wear the uniform and become Marie Antoinette's bodyguard. In the manga and anime, he was close to killing her after Oscar escapes capture to free the 12 soldiers of Company B. In the manga, the General was going to kill Oscar even while knowing that she was already pardoned by Marie Antoinette. This was softened in the anime by having a messenger arrive with the pardon before the General planned to kill both Oscar and André.
Age Lift: The real de Jarjayes was only ten years older than Marie Antoinette. This version of him, however, is old enough that his youngest daughter is the same age as her.
Fourth-Date Marriage: He decided to marry Georgette after two brief but passionate encounters. Once they learned her grandfather was Louis XIII's royal painter, they got married almost immediately.
Happily Married: He's fiercely loyal to his wife, much to the puzzlement of the other nobles who find perfectly natural to have lovers and think the Jarjayes are weird.
Historical Domain Character: François Augustin Reynier, first Count of Jarjayes is an historical character. The main differences between the historical general and Ikeda's version is that Ikeda made her own older in order to have a daughter of the same age as Marie Antoinette (the historical version was only ten years older than Marie Antoinette), and the historical character raised his firstborn daughter as a male, not the last, and was more successful in hiding her actual gender.
Love at First Sight: He and his wife fell passionately in love the moment they first saw each other.
Outliving One's Offspring: His youngest daughter Oscar is killed in action during the Storming of the Bastille.
Parental Hypocrisy: At one point, Reynier talks to Oscar about the Jarjayes staying loyal to the Royal Family, and that a noble and a commoner can't marry without the King's permission. As a young man, however, Reynier was prepared to disobey Louis XV's decision to choose a wife of better social standing, and marry Georgette who was just an aspiring artist at the time.
Parents as People: He has a good heart, but he is a bundle of HUGE issues and many of them pass onto his daughter Oscar.
Shipper on Deck: Reynier openly states that the only thing keeping him from having Oscar marry André is that he's a commoner.
Undying Loyalty: As he says himself, even if the entire nobility and even his own daughter turn against the royal family, he'll be loyal to them until the very end.
Wanted a Son Instead: He wanted a son who could succeed him as general, but all of his six children are women. Because of this, he has raised his youngest daughter as a man.

Madame de Jarjayes

Madame Georgette de Jarjayes

Voiced by: Hiroko Kikuchi

The wife of General de Jarjayes and mother of Oscar.

Death by Adaptation: In the 1979 live action film she dies offscreen at the beginning of the movie giving birth to Oscar.
Death by Despair: She dies from grief after her youngest daughter, Oscar, joins the Revolutionaries and gets killed in the Storming of the Bastille.
Fourth-Date Marriage: She had two brief but passionate encounters Reynier and they got married as soon as they learned her grandfather was Louis XIII's royal painter.
Good Parents: She seems to be a decent and kind Proper Lady, and Oscar loves her very much.
Happily Married: She's fiercely loyal to her husband, much to the puzzlement of the other nobles who find perfectly natural to have lovers and think the Jarjayes are weird.
Intimate Artistry: After falling in Love at First Sight, she made a drawing of Reynier's face.
Love at First Sight: She and her husband fell passionately in love the moment they first saw each other.
Marry for Love: In her youth, her family was in serious financial trouble and could only be saved from poverty if she married an older rich man. However, Georgette was already in love with Reynier and couldn't fight her passion for him even though their social gap was apparently too big. Fortunately, they were allowed to get married because her grandfather was Louis XIII's royal painter.
Second Love: Reynier married her after his first wife died.
Suddenly Suitable Suitor: She was originally an aspiring artist and thought it would be impossible for her to be allowed to marry a nobleman of high rank like Reynier. However, the painter Armand revealed Georgette's great-grandfather, Georges de La Tour, was the "Painter of the King" for Louis XIII. Thanks to this, Reynier got Louis XV's permission to marry Georgette.

Nanny

Maron Glacé "Nanny" Montblanc

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/marron_grasset_montblanc_1.png

Voiced by: Hisako Kyoda (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

The housekeeper and nanny of the Jarjayes, as well as André's grandmother.

Gruesome Grandparent: Downplayed; she's usually very strict with her grandson André and isn't above hitting or kicking him whenever he fails to keep Oscar out of trouble, but there are moments where it's shown that she does care about him.
Kindly Housekeeper: She's an elderly and kind housekeeper.
Miniature Senior Citizens: She's an elderly woman who's a good deal shorter than her grandson.
Passed in Their Sleep: Near the end of the manga, her health deteriorates from old age and she passes away in her sleep shortly after André and Oscar die.
Plucky Comic Relief: She's the most consistent source of comedy and slapstick as she constantly frets over Oscar's lack of femininity and whales on André for failing to prevent Oscar from getting into scrapes.

Oscar's older sisters

The five older daughters of General de Jarjayes. Unlike Oscar, they weren't raised as men and were married off at a young age.

What Happened to the Mouse?: In the anime, Oscar's older sisters make a single appearance on the day she is born, then they are never shown or even mentioned again. In the manga, Oscar has Rosalie pose as a distant relation-in-law of one of her sisters. In a supplemental manga story, Oscar visits one of them, her eldest sister Hortense de la Laurencie.

Loulou de la Laurencie

Oscar's mischievous young niece, and the daughter of Oscar's older sister Hortense. First appearing in the supplementary story "The Countess in Black", she later becomes the main focus of The Rose of Versailles Side Stories: The Great Detective Loulou.

Child Prodigy: Ikeda outright describes her as "precocious" and "cute". Despite being only six years old, she's remarkably smart for her age.
Crazy-Prepared: The doll she carries around isn't just her beloved toy; she also stashes numerous useful items in it such as a corkscrew, caltrops, and even gunpowder. She frequently uses these items to deal with sticky situations.
Mouthy Kid: She's rather mischievous and tends to get in trouble with adults for her smart mouth, but much of what she says is surprisingly accurate.
Quirky Curls: She stands out for her huge, curly hair, which highlights how she's considered a rather odd child by 18th century standards.

Royal Family

Louis XVI

King Louis XVI of France

Voiced by: Yoshito Yasuhara (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

The Dauphin and later King Louis XVI. He is also the husband of Marie Antoinette.

Big Beautiful Man: He's a rather cute chubby guy.
The Ditherer: The Insecure/Submissive type. Louis XVI has no idea of what decisions he should take in the awake of the French Revolution. Most of the nobles flee Versailles because they can't rely on such an irresolute king.
Extreme Doormat: He's a good man, but he's also weak-willed and easily influenceable. Several nobles of his court pressure him to take actions that enrage the commoners, like firing the minister of finance Jacques Necker twice and demanding the National Assembly to be disbanded, all of which leads to the start of the French Revolution.
Face Death with Dignity: When he's sentenced to death, he makes his son swear he won't try and avenge him. Then, once brought to the guillotine, he takes off his jacket, tells the assembled people he wished them well, and places his neck under the blade.
Historical Beauty Update: He's portrayed as a Big Beautiful Man.
Historical Domain Character: Louis XVI was the last king of France until the fall of the Ancien Régime during the French Revolution.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: He really wants Marie Antoinette's happiness, and it's implied he knew she was in love with Fersen well before the rumor mill and allowed it because it made her happy and Fersen wasn't around her only to get favors (he states he likes and trusts Fersen exactly because of this). His only problem with them being Star-Crossed Lovers was that the rumor mill picking it up and blowing it out of proportions had upset his beloved.
Insecure Love Interest: He would like to express more affection for Marie Antoinette, but he's shy, awkward, overweight and his hobbies are boring to her. He acknowledges he isn't a good match for his beautiful and cheerful wife so he's perfectly understanding about her being in love with the handsome and dashing Fersen.
Last Request: Before his execution, he asks his son Louis Charles to not seek revenge for his death as his final wish.
Lazy Husband: Played for Drama. During the French Revolution, Louis XVI does nothing as the royal family gradually loses their power, even after they're forced to move out of Versailles and kept under house arrest at the Tuileries Palace. Seeing that her husband can't act as an authoritative monarch, Marie Antoinette takes it into her own hands to conspire against the Revolution and gets Fersen's help to plan the Flight to Varennes that ends up dooming the royal family.
Lord Country: Averted Trope: as the King of France he doesn't have a surname, he's just the Louis and surnames serve to tell other Louis from him. This becomes important during the French Revolution, as not using the name of the House of Bourbon allows the revolutionaries to force on him and his family the surname "Capet" (after Hugh Capet, founder of the Capetian Dynasty of which his house was part of).
Modest Royalty: He tends to wear simple and practical clothing (especially when compared with his wife's many overdecorated dresses), unless the occasion calls for more decorated clothes.
Nice Guy: His niceness is even lampshaded by two royal guards, who note his modesty (especially compared to his wife), love for simple things, lack of lovers, and that he truly loved his people. Sadly, he's too nice for his own good: had he been a little less nice and somewhat harder (and capable of resisting his wife's strong opinions), he would have been able to avoid much of the trouble that ends up causing the Revolution. But he's still nice to the end, even taking time before his execution to make his son swear he'll not try to avenge him and, before placing his head on the guillotine, wishing the French people luck and prosperity.
No Social Skills: He prefers to immerse himself in reading books and locksmithing instead of going to parties and other social events, as opposed to his more outgoing and sociable wife. He admits himself that he does love Marie Antoinette despite their political marriage, but he just doesn't know how to talk to her due to his shyness.
Pimped-Out Cape: As the King of France, he owns a magnificent blue cape with white fur trimmings and decorated with golden lilies (the symbol of the French monarchy). It's only seen at his coronation and the opening of the Estates-General, when the occasion demands him to show everyone exactly who is the King of France.
Secret Secret-Keeper: It's implied he learned about Marie Antoinette's secret affair with Fersen about at the same time as Oscar did (i.e. when Louis XV was still alive, years before the rumor mill picked it up and months before Antoinette herself had any hint) but he lets it slide because he wants his wife to be happy and rightly trusts her to not imperil the succession.
Shrinking Violet: His own grandfather describes him as painfully shy, and he certainly has reason to. It's also deconstructed; his shyness keeps him from forming a proper romantic connection with his more extroverted wife and she seeks comfort in an affair with Fersen.

Louis XV

King Louis XV of France

Voiced by: Hisashi Katsuta (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

King of France and grandfather of Louis XVI.

Death Equals Redemption: On his deathbed, he's compelled by his priests to exile his mistress, with whom he lived in sin.
Historical Domain Character: Louis XV is the real-life grandfather and predecessor of Louis XVI.
Horrible Judge of Character: Fails to recognize the sinister designs Orleans and du Barry have on his throne. He is thoroughly played by his mistress in particular, and kowtows to her politically inexpedient demands even to the detriment of the Altar Diplomacy he brokered.
It's All About Me: He's happy to laugh off the rivalry between Princess Marie and his mistress, du Barry, until the latter convinces him that an insult to the king's Royal Favorite is an insult to the king.
Meal Ticket: He's Madame du Barry's. With royal enemies who resent her rise to power and few, if any true friends at court, du Barry knows she's screwed the moment Louis bites it. Funnily enough, it's a penitent Louis who gets rid of her just before then; he renounces their sinful union on his deathbed and has his mistress banished.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In time, his many wars and court expenses would end up causing the French Revolution. Most important to the narrative, he commissioned a certain diamond necklace for Madame du Barry, not ever imagining the scandal it would cause during his successor's reign.

Marie-Thérèse

Princess Marie-Thérèse of France

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/marie_therese_rose_of_versailles.png

Voiced by: Masako Sugaya

The eldest child and only daughter of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France.

Ancestral Name: She was named after her maternal grandmother Maria Theresa.
Broken Bird: After all of her direct family is taken from her in the French Revolution, she grows up into a sorrowful and melancholic young woman.
Fallen Princess: After the revolutionaries abolish monarchy, Marie-Thérèse is stripped of her title as princess and becomes a prisoner in the Temple Tower until she's sent to Vienna in exchange of French prisoners.
Historical Domain Character: Marie-Thérèse Charlotte of France, also known as Madame Royale, was the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and the only one to reach adulthood.
Regal Ringlets: Her hair is styled into ringlets even when she isn't a princess anymore.
Sole Survivor: She's the only member of the imprisoned French royal family to survive the French Revolution.
Strong Family Resemblance: She has a close resemblance to her mother Marie Antoinette. As a young woman, she's seen as the spitting image of her deceased mother.
Trauma Conga Line: During the French Revolution, she's imprisoned along with her family in the Temple Tower. Her father, mother and paternal aunt are all executed by guillotine and her younger brother Louis Charles is taken away. She's finally released from imprisonment when she's exchanged for some French prisoners in Austria and she's sent to Vienna, all while resenting her mother's side of the family for doing nothing to save the French royal family.

Louis Joseph

Louis Joseph, the Dauphin

Voiced by: Yoshiko Matsuo ^{Foreign VAs}

The second child and first son of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France.

Death of a Child: Like in real life, he dies at age 7 from osseous tuberculosis.
Delicate and Sickly: He's a very sickly young lad. Just like in real life, he dies of Pott disease (also known as tuberculosis of the spine) when he's only seven years old.
Historical Domain Character: In real life, Louis Joseph was the first son of King Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette. He died of tuberculosis during the Estates-General of 1789.
Identical Stranger: He looks almost exactly like a male, younger Oscar, from some of the face features to his blond hair, and his bangs are even styled the same way as hers.
Precocious Crush: He has a crush on Oscar who is over twenty years older than him. On his deathbed, he says that he wanted to be a good king with Oscar as his queen.
Too Good for This Sinful Earth: He's a sweet and innocent young prince who dies from osseous tuberculosis just before the French Revolution starts. Then again, considering what happens to the French royal family during the revolution, it's unlikely he would have a long and happy life even if he didn't get ill.
Wise Beyond Their Years: He's very smart and empathic, and would've been a good Dauphin if he didn't die from illness.

Louis Charles

Duke of Normandy, Louis Charles Capet, later Louis XVII

Voiced by: Yuko Mita

The third child and second son of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The day before his father is executed, Louis Charles tries to beg Committee of Public Safety to spare his father.
Historical Domain Character: Louis Charles, also known as Louis XVII, was the second son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. After his father was executed, Louis Charles was recognized as King Louis XVII of France by the royalists, but he died at ten years old in his prison cell and never ruled.
Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Some nobles trying to take the throne spread rumors about Louis Charles being Marie Antoinette's illegitimate son with Count Fersen. When Louis XVI receives a letter accusing Louis Charles of being Fersen's son, Marie Antoinette swears that she hasn't slept with Fersen and Louis Charles is the king's son. This is also what forces Marie Antoinette to stop seeing Fersen until the French Revolution.

Duke of Orleans

Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/louis_philippe_joseph_dorleans_1.png

Voiced by: Osamu Ichikawa ^{Foreign VAs}

Cousin of Louis XVI who secretly tried to usurp the throne. Second in row to the throne of France after Louis XVI's children and brothers.

Adaptational Curves: He's well-built in the anime, in contrast to the manga where he's overweight like his cousin.
Adaptational Villainy: In the manga, he's merely mentioned as a suspect who might have helped Jeanne Valois' breaking out of prison and he allows the "Black Knight" to use Palais-Royal (his residence in Paris) as hideout. In the anime, he's the Starter Villain and makes assassination attempts.
Ambition Is Evil: He's the cousin of Louis as well as the leading candidate to the throne after Louis' immediate family. Of course he plays more than one gambit to knock Louis off, even in the first episodes.
Ascended Extra: He barely appears in the manga, but plays a bigger role in the anime.
Bad Boss: He constantly kills off his catspaws and co-conspirators, either to cover his ass or to punish various failures.
Big Bad Wannabe: He's the undisputed villain of the anime's first act, but his importance wanes after Antoinette's coronation and his subsequent attempts to seize the crown are fewer and far between. He's among the nobles who support the Third Estate, and undermines his family by (allegedly) orchestrating the diamond necklace scandal, but he tips his hand during the revolution and his final bid for the throne is laughed off by Robespierre.
Composite Character: The anime folded his father Louis Philippe I into him.
Didn't Think This Through: After failing to murder his way up the line of succession, he besmirches the royals' reputation and throws his support behind the Third Estate, hoping his alliance with Robespierre will at last see him crowned. As you know, that's not the way that whole mess goes; Orleans' undermining of the throne he'd hoped to usurp only hastens his own march to the guillotine.
Even Evil Has Standards: Differently from the king's brothers, he doesn't wish Louis Joseph will just hurry up and die of tuberculosis, nor does he spread lies about Louis Charles' legitimacy.
Historical Domain Character: Louis Philippe II was a cousin of King Louis XVI. He actively supported the Revolution of 1789, and was a strong advocate for the elimination of the present absolute monarchy in favor of a constitutional monarchy. He voted for the death of Louis XVI, only to be guillotined himself in 1793 during the Reign of Terror.
Historical Villain Upgrade: While not the only one, his is one of the most egregious examples in the anime. The real Louis Philippe certainly had his faults, but he didn't constantly try to have his cousin murdered.
Karma Houdini Warranty: He appears to be a Karma Houdini in the anime, but history lets us know he ended up guillotined during the Revolution for being a relative of the late Louis XVI.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: He takes an active part in his plots and assassination attempts, and personally bloodies his sword.
Smug Snake: A competent schemer, but frequently undone. Robespierre actually bursts out laughing when Orleans betrays his transparent ambition.
Starter Villain: His creative attempts to plunge the royal family into disarray and pave his way to the throne drive much of the early series conflict, but after Antoinette's coronation he mostly fades into the background. By the end, he's far eclipsed by the likes of Robespierre.

Maria Theresa

Empress Maria Theresa

Voiced by: Masako Kitamura

Holy Roman Empress and Archduchess of Austria, and mother of Marie Antoinette.

Childhood Friend Romance: Her husband, Francis Stephen, was her childhood friend.
The High Queen: She's portrayed as a wise and majestic queen who knows how to be a respectable ruler, in contrast to her daughter.
Historical Domain Character: Maria Theresa was the Holy Roman Empress and mother of Marie Antoinette.
Ignored Expert: Her parting gift to Marie Antoinette is a list of instructions on how to act as a princess and a queen, including never giving jobs and money as favors and always listening to Count de Mercy. Had she followed her instructions about jobs and de Mercy, Marie Antoinette would have avoided many of the errors and wastes that ended up causing the Revolution.
Modest Royalty: While her clothes are more pimped out than they were in Real Life, they're still quite modest compared to other characters', with only a purple sash and her crown to point out she's the Holy Roman Empress. She even states that a queen should dress modestly, with only a crown to evidence her position and her own dignity as decorations, since this will bring out her natural beauty. This is why she disapproves of Marie Antoinette's love for extravagant gowns.
Parental Fashion Veto: She's appalled when she sees a portrait of Marie Antoinette in one of her usual Pimped Out Dresses, and even says that she looks more like a gaudily-dressed actress than a queen. The trope is played more seriously than usual, since this is due to her belief that a queen should dress modestly without needing extravagant ornamentations, and she worries about her daughter spending needless amounts of money on expensive clothing and accessories.
Parents as People: She cares for her children and worries about Marie Antoinette's fate as the Queen of France, but isn't above using her children for political purposes and interfering in their lives. Just like she did in Real Life.
Perfectly Arranged Marriage: She was originally arranged to marry Prince Léopold Clément to forge a Habsburg-Lorraine alliance. After the prince's untimely death, she married his brother, Francis Stephen. Maria Theresa was happy about it because she and Francis were truly in love.
Pimped-Out Dress: Downplayed; while they're portrayed in this series as fancier than they were in real life, her clothes are the simplest seen on any noble except for Louis XVI's preferred coat.
Pink Means Feminine: Her dress in the anime.
Simple, yet Opulent: Her preferred clothes are a simple dress with a purple sash (an incredibly expensive dye) and a small diadem.
Tough Leader Façade: All of her choices are motivated by making the Holy Roman Empire prosper. She's saddened by sending her youngest daughter away to rule France, but keeps her vulnerable feelings inside.

Nobility

Madame du Barry

Voiced by: Ryoko Kinomiya (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

Lover of King Louis XV and enemy of Marie Antoinette.

Alas, Poor Villain: In the anime, Oscar has some sympathy for her predicament in the end and escorts her into exile. Madame du Barry is moved by the gesture and parts with her onetime enemy cordially.
Break the Haughty: Downplayed. She goes off to her fate disgraced but not truly humbled, although history does not give her the chance to rise again.
Did Not Think This Through: Twice over:
- She made herself an enemy of Marie Antoinette out of sheer pride, not thinking that her power derived from Louis XV's support and the moment the old king died Marie Antoinette would become the Queen of France, something Oscar points out as part of her "The Reason You Suck" Speech to her. Once Oscar is finished, du Barry tries to mend her relationship with the future queen, but by now it's far too late.
- She flaunted to the court her influence over the king, making herself widely hated and finding no further support for the moment the old king would die-or keep the royal confessor from having her kicked out by Louis XV on his deathbed.
The Exile: With the death of Louis XV, Madame du Barry is exiled from Versailles and sent to a convent.
Genre Blind: Early on in the series, Oscar was for the most part neutral in the political conflict between du Barry and Marie Antoinette until du Barry brought Oscar's mother, Madame de Jarjayes, into the conflict. du Barry thought that doing this would win Oscar's support and help resolidify her power at court. Instead by doing this du Barry gave Oscar a good look at her ruthless and untrustworthy nature, threatened Madame de Jarjayes' safety, and forced Oscar to pick between publicly supporting du Barry or Marie Antoinette in the court's hierarchy of power. To no one's surprise, Oscar felt the best option was Marie.
Gold Digger: Deconstructed subtly. She uses her relationship with Louis XV to gain power, influence, and control over the internal workings of the court, but as he lay dying, she becomes terrified for her future and tries to encourage him to live longer because he's all she has.
Historical Domain Character: The real life du Barry was a complex individual whose nature historians still debate over to this day. In her time, though, she was actually highly unliked by everyone in court.
Historical Villain Upgrade: From what is known of the real Jeanne Bécu (Madame du Barry), she was rather good-natured and generous to her friends and elderly mother, as well as patron of the arts. A far cry from the vicious and cunning (if myopic) villainess that the manga and anime portray her as.
The Mistress: She's the mistress of King Louis XV, although his wife is already dead.
Noblewoman's Laugh: In the anime, she laughs like a dramatic noblewoman.
Pimped-Out Dress: At one point she deliberately tries to out-dress Marie by way of challenge.
Royal Favorite: She's a favorite and mistress of King Louis XV. His daughter-in-law Marie Antoinette gets along poorly with her, and is humiliated when she has to treat her with the same respect as everybody else at court.
Smug Snake: She thinks she has all the court of Versailles beneath her thanks to being the king's Royal Favorite and rejoices in the Dauphine being forced to acknowledge her. When Louis XV dies, she realizes she has nothing left to keep her noble status and gets exiled from Versailles.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She never imagined that all the expenses she had the king commit would end up helping lay the seeds for the French Revolution.

Henri de Guémént

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guemene_koushaku.png

Voiced by: Mikio Terashima

A cruel, cold nobleman who resorts to violence and kills a young boy for a petty crime, appalling Rosalie, Oscar and Andre.

Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Subverted: Oscar shoots him in the hand not to disarm him, but specifically to cripple him so he won't be able to ever fire a weapon. See below for the reason why...
Historical Domain Character: Henri Louis, Prince of Guéméné, was a member of the House of Rohan and was involved in personal and political scandals.
Would Hurt a Child: Rosalie begged Guémént to spare the Street Urchin Pierre, and yet he didn't, shooting him dead.

Duchesse de Polignac

Madame Yolande de Polastron, aka the Countess (later Duchesse) de Polignac

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yolande_martine_gabrielle_de_polignac_1.png

Voiced by: Reiko Mutou (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

Singer at the Court. She befriends Queen Marie Antoinette to take advantage of her power.

Beautiful Singing Voice: Marie Antoinette is instantly charmed when she hears Polignac singing.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She's described as having angelic looks and she quickly becomes Marie Antoinette's Royal Favorite by befriending her, but she's really just taking advantage of their friendship in order to gain more power.
Blackmail: She blackmails Rosalie into joining her household by threatening to spread information implicating Oscar was in cahoots with Nicholas de la Motte in the Necklace Affair if she does not.
Evil Chancellor: As the Queen's favorite, basically the Distaff Counterpart to this. Not powerful, but influential enough to appoint and dismiss ministers.
Evil Matriarch: She tries to marry off her daughter Charlotte to a much older man she doesn't love just to benefit her own social status. After Charlotte kills herself, Polignac blackmails her other daughter Rosalie to force her to take Charlotte's place in the engagement.
Hate Sink: She's portrayed as a despicably shallow, manipulative and self-serving exploiter who leeches off the queen and tries to basically sell off her own daughter to an old nobleman for status twice.
Historical Domain Character: The real-life Duchess of Polignac was the Royal Favorite of Queen Marie Antoinette.
Historical Villain Upgrade: The real Polignac was extravagant to the max and apparently more than a little cold and calculating, but nowhere near the levels she gets in the manga and anime.
It's All About Me: She will not think twice about killing off potential threats to her special relationship with the Queen, or marrying off an 11-year-old daughter to a creepy old man if it increases her own power and prestige. Her view of others is very instrumental.
Karma Houdini: After all the tragedy she's caused, to say nothing of contributing to the downfall of the French monarchy, she escapes from France and the revolution altogether. Frustratingly Truth in Television, although in Real Life she died soon after Marie Antoinette of an undiagnosed illness.
Luke, I Am Your Father: She's revealed to be Rosalie's birth mother.
Malicious Slander: Targeted at Oscar, in particular.
Marriage of Convenience: She and her husband married for convenience and social standing. This drives them to cheat on each other.
My God, What Have I Done?: She has this reaction when Charlotte mentions Rosalie Lamorlière's full name, as she fully realizes that she had killed the woman who raised her firstborn daughter, and she had earned said daughter's fully justified hatred.
Overly Long Name: Her full name is Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron.
Rank Up: She's introduced as a countess, but later becomes a duchesse as her husband is made a duke.
Royal Favorite: She quickly becomes Marie Antoinette's favorite and she takes advantage of this position to leech off the Queen for all money and influence that she can get from her.
Shipper on Deck: She encourages Marie Antoinette to pursue Fersen.
Smug Snake: She's very smug about having the queen wrapped around her finger, but as soon as Marie Antoinette stops listening to her every request, she finds herself powerless.
The Sociopath: Her anime characterization very easily lends itself to this interpretation, given her frequent use of Crocodile Tears, shameless exploitation of the gullible Queen, horrible abuse of her daughters and general Manipulative Bitch tendencies.
Sympathetic Adulterer: She openly admits she has a lover since she and her husband are in a Marriage of Convenience and having affairs is considered normal by pretty much all French nobles.
Teen Pregnancy: She gave birth to Rosalie when she was 14.
Toxic Friend Influence: She's a big influence for Marie Antoinette indulging in the lavish lifestyle that makes her so unpopular among the commoners and the noblemen that she leaves out of her social circle.

Charlotte de Polignac

Voiced by: Kazue Komiya ^{Foreign VAs}

Daughter of the Lady Polignac, a beautiful and very sheltered 11-to-12 year old girl.

Adaptation Personality Change: She is much more of a Spoiled Brat in the anime and never makes amend with Rosalie, but in the manga, their shared unrequited feelings for Oscar helps them make up to each other, with Charlotte even tearfully exclaims that Rosalie is just like a sister to her. And while she turns mad before her suicide in the anime, in the manga, she is in a completely normal state of mind and commits her suicide tearfully instead.]]
Calling the Old Woman Out: She's not above of calling her mother out for making an attempt on Oscar's life.
Death of a Child: She kills herself when she's barely eleven years old.
Driven to Suicide: Her mother plans to marry her off to the Duke of Guiche when she's only eleven years old. To escape such horrifying fate, she throws herself off a high place and dies.
Fangirl: She's a big fan of Oscar.
Locked Out of the Loop: She never learns that Rosalie is her half-sister.
The Ophelia: In the anime, being forced into an engagement with the Duke de Guice causes her to lose her mind and show up at a party with her long blond hair down, no shoes, and talking and laughing madly about how she doesn't want to get married. She later climbs up to the top of a building and jumps off, committing suicide.
Pimped-Out Dress: Being a noble girl, she wears expensive dresses.
Pink Means Feminine: Her dress is pink in the anime.
Precocious Crush: She's only eleven years old, and she has a crush on the much older Oscar.
Rich Bitch: At first, she acts like a snobby and arrogant noble who looks down on Rosalie for her commoner manners. Her attitude towards Rosalie improves when the latter comforts her about her unwanted Arranged Marriage.
Trophy Child: Her mother pretty much pawns her off to a creepy older duke to gain power. Once Charlotte commits suicide out of despair, Polignac blackmails Rosalie into filling the spot, but Rosalie manages to run away.

Duke de Guiche

Duke Roland de Guiche

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/roland_de_guiche_1.png

Voiced by: Taro Ishida

Charlotte's ex-fiancé.

Old Man Marrying a Child: He's not an ancient man, but the fact that he's a grown man wanting to marry the 11-year-old Charlotte is awful enough.

Count of Mirabeau

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/count_de_mirabeau_1.png

Voiced by: Kenichi Ogata, Tito Reséndiz (Latin-American Spanish dub)

A liberal nobleman and one of the leaders of the Third Estate at the Estates-General.

Big Ol' Eyebrows: He has large eyebrows.
Bring It: When the Marquiss de Dreux-Brézé reminds the National Assembly the king has just ordered their dissolution, Mirabeu declares they won't move unless forced by bayonets-and when he's told the French Guards are coming there to do just that, he just waits there.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He first shows up trying to get Rosalie (who still lived with her mother) in his bed, and Oscar notes that he's an infamous pervert and alcoholist (albeit one who seemed having an inhuman luck or power) riddled with gambling debts. Fast forward to the Estates-General, and Oscar is left wondering how the hell that nobleman managed to get elected as a Third Estate representative from Aix, and that's before he becomes the driving force in the creation of the National Assembly.
Gonk: Compared to other characters, he has a big nose and small eyes. Truth in Television; the Count of Mirabeau had been disfigured by smallpox as a child.
Historical Domain Character: Real life Count of Mirabeau was a key leader of the French Revolution in its first years. He sought an alliance of the Crown and the Third Estate against his own class, the nobility.
Kavorka Man: Despite his unflattering looks, he was also a successful casanova.

Marquis de Dreux-Brézé

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dreux_breze.png

Louis XVI's Grand Master of Ceremonies and the man who refers his orders.

Historical Domain Character: Real life Marquis de Dreux-Brézé was a member of the French nobility who played a role in the meeting of the states-general in 1789.
Just Following Orders: How he justifies leaving the representatives of the Third Estate in the rain: he had orders from the king to have them enter from a side entrance only.
Oh, Crap!: He has a silent, if rather effective one, when he reminds the National Assembly that the king has just ordered their dissolution and Mirabeu tells him they'll not move unless forced by the strength of the bayonets.

Marquis de Launay

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/launay_rose_of_versailles.png

Voiced by: Kan Tokumaru

The cynical governor of the Bastille.

Adaptational Badass: He kills Oscar in the anime. In the manga, truer to his historical persona, he was hidden in his office, and Oscar's killers were lieutenant Deflue and his thirty soldiers, detached from the Salis-Samade regiment to reinforce the Bastille).
Dirty Coward: He stays hidden in his office inside the Bastille while his men fight to defend the fortress in the manga.
Hero Killer: He kills Oscar in the anime.
High-Class Glass: He's a marquis wearing a monocle.
Historical Domain Character: In real life, Marquis de Launay was the French governor of the Bastille at the time it was stormed in 1789.
Karma Houdini Warranty: In the anime, he apparently gets away with killing Oscar, but study of history reveals he was lynched later that very day.

Military

The Count of Girodelle

Florian F. de Girodelle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/victor_clement_de_giordelle_1.png

Voiced by: Keiji Mishima (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

Oscar's adjutant in the Royal Guard and later, her arranged fiancé.

Adaptation Name Change: In the anime, his name is Victor Clement de Girodelle. In the manga, it's Florian F. de Girodelle.
Amazon Chaser: He didn't think highly of Oscar until she easily defeated him in a sword fight. He has longed for her ever since.
The Beautiful Elite: A member of the Gardes du Corps, the elite cavalry regiment of France and including beautiful men only. He flat-out admits that, being in that regiment, he's obviously a beautiful man.
A Death in the Limelight: The extra manga stories have three chapters dedicated to showing Girodelle's perspective on several major events of the series as well as his unrequited love for Oscar. The third chapter concludes with him choosing to die in the Reign of Terror.
Disposable Fiancé: Reynier chooses Girodelle as the fiancé for Oscar, but she opposes to it because she doesn't want to become a housewife and also, she's falling in love with André.
Fake-Out Make-Out: He kisses Fersen's sister to save her from getting caught by royal guards when she's in the middle of helping her brother have a secret meeting with Marie Antoinette.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Once Oscar tells him she won't marry him because of her feelings for André, Girodelle gives up on making her his wife as his final proof of his love for Oscar. Also, if he had married Oscar, he wouldn't have objected if she had decided to take André as a lover.
Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He's an attractive young man with long hair.
Not with Them for the Money: When he asks Oscar's hand in marriage, she thinks he's only after her wealth and status. He denies that being the case as he has always been attracted to her as a woman, not a soldier.
Number Two: He's second-in-command of the Royal Guard after Oscar.
Remember the New Guy?: In the manga, he's introduced by Oscar giving him an order as he had always been there.
Single-Target Sexuality: Oscar is the only woman he has ever been interested in. He does briefly contemplate the possibility of a romance with Fersen's sister, but ultimately his feelings for Oscar prevail even though she's already dead and he goes to France to get killed in the Reign of Terror.
Subordinate Excuse: He's in love with his commander Oscar. In fact, she's the reason why he joined the royal guard in the first place.
Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: Oscar turns down Girodelle's marriage proposal out of love for André. Not being able to move on from Oscar, Girodelle vows to never get married in his whole life. After the start of the Reign of Terror, he willingly returns to France in order to join Oscar in death.

Alain de Soissons

Voiced by: Keaton Yamada (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

The sergeant of the Company B, the troops assigned to Oscar's service in the French Guards.

Beard of Sorrow: He grows a beard when he's depressed about his sister's suicide.
Combat Pragmatist: Outside of duels he fights very dirty. Eroica drives home the point in his first meeting with Napoleon, when Alain was trying a Bavarian Fire Drill to sedate the 13 Vendémiaire Insurrection by using cannons in the streets of Paris, the same tactic Napoleon had decided to implement (hence Napoleon taking him under his protection).
Everyone Has Standards: When he tried to sedate the 13 Vendémiaire Insurrection by using cannons in the streets of Paris he came up with the plan only because losing would mean the end of the Revolution and the royalists coming back to power, and didn't like it one bit... And was shocked when Napoleon not only came up with the same deadly tactic but didn't care one bit for the collateral damage.
Excessive Mourning: He's so shocked by his sister's suicide that he locks himself in a bedroom with Diane's corpse for several days until Oscar arrives to snap him back to sanity.
Fire-Forged Friends: In the sequel Eroica he develops this relationship with Napoleon, until the latter decides to crown himself Emperor.
Forceful Kiss: He steals a kiss from Oscar. André almost punches him for it.
Four-Star Badass: He was the first person to go toe-to-toe in a duel with Oscar and he's quite a skilled brawler. In the sequel Eroica, where Napoléon Bonaparte promotes him before the Second Italian Campaign (he started trying to give him the promotion after witnessing his valor at Lodi in 1796, but it took three years for Alain to accept the promotion). He would have been made a Marshal of the Empire, had he not died in a failed attempt to kill Napoleon before he could crown himself Emperor.
Heartbroken Badass: After Oscar dies, Alain continues to fight for the ideals of the early French Revolution, knowing Oscar died for said ideals. He also helps Oscar's relatives escape from France to honor his late love.
Heroic BSoD: When his little sister Dianne kills herself, Oscar and Andre find him sitting next to her death bed, his body tense and his eyes full of tears of despair. As Madame de Soissons explains what happened, he apologizes and says he cannot go back for a while, so takes a 10-Minute Retirement.
Hopeless Suitor: He develops feelings for Oscar, but she's already falling in love with André when Alain meets her. Happens again in Eroica, where he falls for a woman from Lyon who happens to be a Royalist.
Impoverished Patrician: He's from an impoverished noble family.
Master Swordsman: His swordsmanship is on par with Oscar's.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His previous commander tried to force himself on his sister and Alain broke the commander's jaw as payback. He got demoted to warrant soldier, despite being of noble rank, as punishment.
Secret-Keeper: He finds out that André is secretly going blind. André convinces him to keep quiet about it, especially concerning Oscar.
Stay in the Kitchen: Initially, he and his soldiers try to get Oscar to quit the French Guard because they don't want a woman to be their commander. She eventually gains their respect and they accept her.
Tragic Bromance: In Eroica his relationship with Napoleon becomes this, as Alain takes Napoleon's plan to become emperor as a betrayal of the values of the Revolution and dies trying to kill him before the coronation.
Tsundere: Harsh type. He's antagonistic towards Oscar because she's a female commander and a high-ranking noblewoman, but he develops feelings for her because of her strong will and compassion for the commoners.
What You Are in the Dark: In his Day in the Limelight chapter, he's given the chance to shoot his sister's ex-fiancé and the pregnant rich girl he left his sister for. He then remembers André's words about soldiers needing to stay in control of their emotions and Alain decides to spare the couple, thinking that's what his sister would have wanted too even though he'll never forgive the man who drove her to suicide.

Pierre-Augustin Hulin

A sergeant in the French Guards.

Adapted Out: He doesn't appear in the anime.
Chekhov's Gunman: Genius Bonus version: unless you already know history, you won't realize his importance when he's named until he performs his historical role. Even then, it may escape you.
Historical Domain Character: Hulin's claim to fame was to lead the French Guards in helping the Storming of the Bastille.
Sergeant Rock: Happens off screen, but he is a sergeant, and leads the Storming of the Bastille after Oscar was shot.
You Are in Command Now: After Oscar is shot, he takes command of the French Guards and leads the storming of the Bastille.
Young Future Famous People: He doesn't look like much in the series, but he'll survive The Terror, serve under Napoleon to become a Colonel Badass first and a general later, and played a part in saving Napoleon's throne when former general Malet tried a coup in 1812.

Napoleon Bonaparte

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/napoleon_manga.png

The future Emperor of the French, and protagonist of the sequel Eikou no Napoleon - Eroica. He shows up in the manga during the Estates-General.

Awesomeness Is a Force: He was just passing by when Oscar was terrified by him and asked for his name, rank and regiment.
Combat Pragmatist: As a general he fights dirty. In Eroica he makes this extremely clear when Barras puts him in command of Paris' outnumbered garrison to try and suppress the impending Royalist revolt and he casually asks how many cannons he can use in the streets of Paris (Alain coming up with the same idea is what starts their friendship).
Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Oscar, in a way: both are close friends with Alain, command Paris' garrison during their career, and as the latter do something important with artillery, but Oscar was the commander of the French Guards during the monarchy, used her cannons to lead an insurrection against the government, and started the French Revolution, while Napoleon commanded the garrison for the First Republic, used his cannons to suppress a royalist insurrection against the government, and ended the Revolution when he staged his own coup.
Et Tu, Brute?: Happens repeatedly to him in Eroica:
- After announcing his plan to crown himself Emperor, he suffers an attempt to his life from Alain, his closest friend. He can't understand why he'd do this.
- He deeply trusted Bernadotte due their old friendship and Bernadotte having married his sister-in-law (and former fiancee) Desiree, and is caught by surprise when he instead brings Sweden in the Seventh Coalition.
Fire-Forged Friends: He becomes this with Alain, even trying to give him one of his sisters in marriage (and taking well when he refuses due his lingering feelings for Oscar) and planning to make him a Marshal of the Empire once crowned Emperor.
Historical Domain Character: Napoléon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and became Emperor of the French.
Magnetic Hero: In Eroica, he just attracts people to his cause with astonishing ease.
Modest Royalty: In Eroica, after becoming Emperor of the French, he distinguishes himself from other royals and even his own marshals by wearing the basic artillery officer uniform. The only time he's sees wearing rich clothes is at his own coronation.
Tragic Bromance: With Alain, due the latter dying trying to kill Napoleon before he can become emperor.
Young Future Famous People: When he appears in the story, he's just a lieutenant. After the French Revolution, he becomes the Emperor of the French.

Third Estate

Maximilien Robespierre

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maximilien_francois_marie_isidore_de_robespierre_1.png

Voiced by: Katsuji Mori ^{Foreign VAs}

French lawyer and politician.

Ascended Extra: In the manga, his role in the story is relatively small (apart from his historically documented appearances at important events, he only shows up four times, only two of which are actually important to the plot and one being at Marie Antoinette's trial, where he was historically present but in which he had no role). In the anime, he shows up much more often, and both Bernard and Saint-Just work for him (with the latter causing him a lot of trouble due his attempts at murdering nobles and starting armed revolts).
Broken Pedestal: When he meets Oscar in Arras he admits he used to have great hopes for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, thinking they would be the ones to solve France's economic issues, but now he finds them just another pair of incompetent royals.
Even Evil Has Standards: Even after becoming a member of the Committee of Public Safety, like Saint-Just, he's utterly disgusted with Hébert for accusing Marie Antoinette of committing incest with her son.
Historical Domain Character: Maximilien Robespierre was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution.
Historical Villain Upgrade: Downplayed. The real man's innermost workings are for the historians to puzzle out, but the anime presents him as an Opportunistic Bastard whose personal ethics are quite flexible. Saint-Just raises this point against him in derision, but Bernard is willing to accept that Robespierre might just waiting for the right moment to abandon the pretence, as he's still the Lesser of Two Evils.
Hope Bringer: His serves as the inspiration of the soon-to-be revolutionaries, mainly Oscar and Bernard, as he embodies the ideal of creating a France where everyone is equal and there's no poverty.
Jerkass Has a Point: When he meets Oscar and André in Arras, he doesn't try to hide his disdain towards Marie Antoniette and Louise XVI, and bluntly tells them that the new king and queen are a couple of incompetent sovereigns who live in luxury and gossip and doesn't care if their own people are starving. In his defense, he apologizes for his Brutal Honesty, and while his statement greatly offended Oscar, even she is forced to admit that he's right.
Knight in Sour Armor: He experienced Parental Abandonment and poverty in his childhood, so he wants to change France and rid it of the unfairness of the class division.
Overly Long Name: His full name is Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre.
Parental Abandonment: His mother died when he was six years old and his father abandoned him and his three younger siblings.
Pragmatic Villainy: In the anime, he condemns Saint-Just's brazen and impulsive acts of violence as premature.
Scholarship Student: He attended Louis-le-Grand academy on a scholarship.

Bernard Châtelet

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bernard_chatelet_1.png

Voiced by: Akio Nojima (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

Newspaper reporter from Paris and one of Maximilien Robespierre's followers.

Beta Couple: He marries Rosalie and they're the only couple who gets a happy ending because neither of them die.
Black Knight: Sorta. He does don a black cape and mask and refers to himself as such, while performing what was supposed to be Just Like Robin Hood acts sponsored by the Duke of Orleans.
Bonding over Missing Parents: He and Rosalie sympathize with each other after they learn both of them lost their mothers because of the cruelty of their noble parents.
Dark and Troubled Past: His mother tried to commit Murder-Suicide after his father, who was a nobleman, threw them out into the streets. His mother succeeded, while Bernard survived.
Freudian Excuse: He hates the nobility because his nobleman father replaced his mother with a new mistress and kicked her out along with a young Bernard. His mother drowned herself as a result.
I'm Cold... So Cold...: When recounting his backstory to Rosalie, Bernard notes how cold the Seine river was when his mother tried to drown him.
Intrepid Reporter: After his "Black Knight" stunt reaches an end thanks to Oscar.
Just Like Robin Hood: As the Black Knight, he steals from the nobles to give resources to the poor.
Knight in Sour Armor: He believes it's wrong for the commoners to live under the oppression of the nobles and supports revolutionaries like Robespierre to create an equal society for France.
Like Parent, Like Spouse: He quickly falls in love with Rosalie because she reminds him of his deceased mother. Oscar jokingly accuses him of having a mother complex because of it.
No Historical Figures Were Harmed: He's loosely based on Camille Desmoulins, a journalist who is known for stirring the masses of the commoners during the early years of the French Revolution.
Reformed Criminal: Oscar captures him, but she doesn't turn him in and just asks him to stop stealing. Bernard then becomes a journalist and marries Rosalie.
Royal Bastard: His mother was a poor merchant's daughter and she became the mistress of a nobleman, resulting in Bernard's birth.
Second Love: To Rosalie. She gets over her unrequited crush on Oscar soon after meeting Bernard and they get married.
Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Though he does tone down his cynicism a little.

Leon de Saint-Just

Louis Antoine Léon Florelle de Saint-Just

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/saint_just_rose_of_versailles.png

Voiced by: Toshio Furukawa ^{Foreign VAs}

A military and political leader during the French Revolution.

Adaptational Badass: In the TV series, he carries out a series of successful assassinations including an attempt on Reynier, injuring in the process and later on Oscar, forcing the latter to fight tooth and nail to survive. He was just a mere debater in the original manga.
Adaptational Villainy: In the manga, the worst thing he does is persuading the revolutionaries that the king and queen need to be executed to not risk them being put back in power by royalists. Compare that to the anime version where he's a noblemen Serial Killer.
Ascended Extra: Where the manga had him appear only near the end, the anime elevated him to a quasi-Big Bad role.
Blood Knight: He quite enjoys his bloody work and tends to advocate extreme measures.
Connected All Along: As revealed by Bernard, he and Saint-Just are distant relatives.
Cool Mask: In the anime, he wears a white opera mask when carrying out his murders.
Covert Pervert: The manga remembers us he's the author of L'Organt, a politically-motivated satirical poem filled with an immense quantity of pornographic episodes. He maintains the book was banned for the attacks against the monarchy, nobility and church, and takes offence when Bernard calls it porn.
Dude Looks Like a Lady: In the manga, Oscar mistakes him for a woman twice (partly thanks to Bernard's habit of calling him Florelle), and only realizes his true gender when Bernard tells her his full name. When he's about to make his speech advocating that Louis XVI must die, the crowd jeers at him and calls him a girl when he briefly falters, only for him to silence them with a Death Glare.
Even Evil Has Standards: He was called Angel of Death and he's personally responsible for Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI being executed instead of kept prisoners, but he put Jacques Hébert on his shit list (and got him guillotined as a thief) for dishonoring the Revolution by falsely accusing Marie Antoinette of incest with her own son.
The Heavy: His independent villainy for the Third Estate's cause, often undertaken without Robespierre's consent, drives a lot of conflict.
Historical Domain Character: His real-life counterpart was a major figure of the French Revolution.
Karma Houdini Warranty: In the anime, he escapes his final duel with Oscar with his anonymity intact, and ends the series in triumph, his many murders and misdeeds lost to history. But his eventual death-by-guillotine is mentioned in the narration.
Overly Long Name: His full name is Louis Antoine Léon Florelle de Saint-Just. Lampshaded by Oscar in the manga.
Serial Killer: In the anime, he targets and kills the nobility, whom he despises.
Too Much Alike: In the anime, this is his opinion on why Robespierre butts heads with him.

Nicole Lamorlière

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nicole_la_moliere_1.png

Voiced by: Keiko Kuge

The commoner who raised Jeanne and Rosalie.

Deathbed Confession: She's mortally injured after being run over by Polignac's carriage. As she lays dying, she explains to Rosalie that her true mother is a woman named Martine Gabrielle... Polignac herself.
Dropped a Bridge on Her: She gets a carriage dropped on her.
Parental Substitute: After Polignac gave her baby daughter away, Nicole raised Rosalie as her own daughter.
Sleeping with the Boss: She was working for Jacques de Valois, Baron de Saint-Rémy, when he got her pregnant.

Jacques Necker

Voiced by: Tamio Oki

Louis XVI's on-again/off-again minister of finance.

Almighty Janitor: Being of Protestant faith, he could not hold the position of Controller-General of Finances (the minister of finances), but held an advisorial position to a minister that everybody knew was simply a placeholder. The only exceptions were the period around the French intervention in the American Revolution, where the position was vacant, and the September 1788-July 11 1789 period, where he actually held the position.
Genre Savvy: Why he was hailed as the savior of France: he knew exactly what he was doing. Justified by him having been a successful banker before getting into politics.
Historical Domain Character: Jacques Necker was a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI.
Ignored Expert: He advised to have the nobles pay the taxes for a long time, but was ignored (and it even cost him his job). Also, in July 1789 he advised the king to not concentrate the troops on Paris on account that a series of floods had already caused food shortages that the troops would make worse, thus risking a popular insurrection, and that added Marie Antoinette to the list of his enemies at court (getting him dismissed again).

Participants of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace

Jeanne Valois

Jeanne Valois aka Jeanne de la Motte

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jeanne_rose_of_versailles.png

Voiced by: Yoneko Matsukane (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

An ambitious young woman raised by a poor seamstress along with her half-sister, Rosalie.

Adaptational Sympathy: Compared to the manga, Jeanne gets a few scenes that portray her in a more sympathetic light in the anime. For example, in the anime, she intends to kill Nicole d'Olivia, the prostitute who she hired to impersonate the queen and the one person who can connect her to the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, but can't bring herself to do it. In the manga, on the other hand, while not liking doing it, she could bring herself to kill Nicole, but she is still unsheathing her knife when Oscar and her soldiers barge in with an arrest warrant, both saving Nicole and discovering her existence.
Ambition Is Evil: Her ambition is to be richer than even the queen. To get a fortune, she resorts to lies, manipulations, murder, and fraud.
Bastard Bastard: In contrast to her Heroic Bastard half-sister, Jeanne is a bastard in every sense of the word.
Con Woman: She makes herself pass as a sickly noblewoman to take money from nobles. After she makes acquaintance with Cardinal de Rohan, she forges letters under the name of Marie Antoinette and keeps using the queen's name to get tons of money out of the cardinal.
Disc-One Final Boss: She's the biggest villain of the first half of the series, culminating in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace where she frames Marie Antoinette and Jeanne dies while escaping being arrested by Oscar.
Disney Villain Death: In the manga, she dies when she falls off a balcony and the building explodes shortly afterwards.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Downplayed. While she abandoned her poor mother to seek a rich life, Jeanne does look grief-stricken when Rosalie tells her their mother Nicole has died.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: It's clear that she really loved Rosalie by the end, and perhaps came to think better of the impoverished mother she left behind. Her relationship with her partner in crime, Nicholas, is also mutually affectionate; in the manga, she's horrified when she accidentally stabs him after intending to kill Oscar, and in the anime, they're happy to die together after sharing a Last Kiss.
Evil Brunette Twin: She and Rosalie are half-sisters instead of twins, but Jeanne is indeed the good blonde's evil brunette sister.
The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Sort of. She and Rosalie love each other, but when Jeanne was starting to feel satisfied with the lot she had earned into life she saw that Rosalie, thanks to Oscar, had free access to Versailles, and decided she couldn't let Rosalie live a better life than herself.
Heel Realization: She never really expresses regret for her most heinous crimes, but she does come to tire of a life of constant scheming and reconciles with Rosalie. She even saves Oscar from Nicholas in the end.
Historical Domain Character: She's a very highly fictionalized Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, the mastermind behind the infamous Affair of the Diamond Necklace.
Historical Villain Upgrade: While the real Jeanne and her husband were thieves and con artists extraordinaire, they didn't actually murder anyone.
Jerkass: She's utterly selfish, cruel, greedy, manipulative and treacherous.
Lack of Empathy: Apart from Nicole, Jeanne treats no one else like a human being.
Lady Drunk: She's often seen with a bottle of vodka.
Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: She's the manipulative and greedy Dark Feminine to Rosalie's sweet and pure Light Feminine.
Manipulative Bitch: She gets people's trust with lies and then swindles money out of them.
Mark of Shame: After being found guilty of fraud, her shoulders are branded with the "V" that signifies "Voleur" (Thief in French).
Murder by Mistake: While trying to kill Oscar, André gets in the way and Jeanne kills her husband Nicholas by mistake.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In the anime, she can't bring herself to kill Nicole d'Olivia to cut that loose end in her plot. Nicole ends up being the main witness against her at the trial, dismantling her entire defense.
Pet the Dog: Even though she initially planned to murder Nicole to cover up her crime, she has a sudden bout of compassion and gives Nicole a sack of coins so she can flee. When Nicole is brought to testify against Jeanne, Jeanne is furious and she's tempted to hit her. But then Jeanne's frustration melts into a gentle understanding that Nicole is only doing what she can do under the circumstances.
Rags to Royalty: The most twisted Cinderella type ever. She uses her being the natural child of the last descendant of the Valois dynasty to be taken in by an old noblewoman with it, then kills her benefactor to inherit her riches. It gets worse, and worse, and worse...
Royal Bastard: She's the illegitimate child that Baron de Saint-Rémy, the last descendant of the royal House of Valois, had with his maid Nicole Lamorlière.
Sibling Yin-Yang: With her half-sister Rosalie. Jeanne is vile, greedy and selfish, while Rosalie is sweet, humble and selfless.
Slave to PR: She's hell-bent on keeping the pretense of being born a noble. When Rosalie comes to visit her during a rich people's meeting, Jeanne sends Nicholas to whip her own sister because being seen with Rosalie could expose her poor beginnings.
Social Climber: She hates being born as a peasant, so she gets a marquise to adopt her, murders her to obtain all of her inheritance, lies about her husband being a count and persuades Cardinal de Rohan to make her husband the captain of the Royal Guard.
The Sociopath: Not quite a clean-cut example, as she does appear to feel remorse for some of her deeds, but something is clearly not right with a girl who will have her sweet sister whipped for no good reason or murder without qualms an adoptive mother who has been nothing but nice to her, just in order to inherit the estate. See also above, under It's All About Me.
Together in Death: In the anime, she kills her devoted but often abused husband Nicholas, the one person in the world (except Rosalie) who is still on her side, because she does not wish to die alone.
Ungrateful Bitch: She rewards Oscar's great generosity toward her by publicly slandering her as a lesbian.
Unholy Matrimony: Her husband Nicholas is her main accomplice in her crimes.
Villainous Breakdown: In the manga, she realizes that Rosalie (the only person Jeanne really loved and trusted) told Oscar where to find the now wanted Jeanne. It gets worse after Oscar reminds her of her happy childhood with Rosalie, and she completely snaps after she accidentally kills Nicolas.
Villain's Dying Grace: In the anime, she's resolved to die rather than surrender when the French Royal Guard tracks her down, but she does Oscar the good turn of saving her from Nicolas first.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the anime, it's the Duke of Orleans who slips where Jeanne is hiding, as he didn't need her anymore.

Nicholas de la Motte

Voiced by: Michihiro Ikemizu (TV series) ^{Foreign VAs}

Jeanne's husband. He's also member of the Garde du Corps; Oscar is his commander.

The Brute: Say what you want about his character, but this guy overpowered Oscar in hand-to-hand combat, something that usually takes at least three or four muscle-bound men, and was much less injured than the three or four muscle-bound men.
Con Man: His wife Jeanne makes him pass as a count to get him into the Royal Guard and also has him help out in her other cons, like when she pretends to be sick to get money out of nobles.
Henpecked Husband: Even though he knows Jeanne's cons are getting risky, he's very submissive to his greedy and domineering wife.
Historical Domain Character: In real life, Nicholas de la Motte was the husband of Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Remy. He claimed to be a nobleman and gave himself the title of count. However, his claim to nobility was dubious.
Jerkass: Like Jeanne, he's a nasty scumbag.
Kick the Dog: He whips and tortures Rosalie under Jeanne's instructions.
Love Martyr: He's very devoted to Jeanne and stays by her side even after her insatiable ambition and cons eventually make them into national criminals.
Stuff Blowing Up: He managed to get his hands on an unholy amount of Berthollet's potassium chlorate, at the time the most powerful explosive in existence and discovered just that year.
Together in Death: In the anime, Jeanne kills him and embraces his body before they die when their hideout is blown up.
Unholy Matrimony: He's as much of a vile villain as his wife.

Cardinal de Rohan

Cardinal Louis de Rohan

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rohan_rose_of_versailles.png

Voiced by: Junkichi Yarita

A cardinal and former ambassador to Austria. He's hated by Maria Theresa and Marie Antoinette for his debauchery. Jeanne Valois gives him forged letters that trick him into thinking he has Marie Antoinette's favor, which eventually causes the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.

Abhorrent Admirer: Just looking at him makes Marie Antoinette feel so disgusted that she leaves the ballroom immediately after he arrives. However, Jeanne's lies convince Rohan that the queen is actually smitten with him and is just keeping their affair secret.
Dirty Old Monk: He's a cardinal who is infamous for his womanizing ways.
Failed a Spot Check: The fake love letters are signed "Marie Antoniette of France", but since it's custom for the King and Queen of France to sign only with their names they should have been signed just "Marie Antoinette". With the Rohan family having the rank of prince étranger, second only to the royal family, he should have known that well enough to spot the ruse immediately.
Historical Domain Character: Cardinal de Rohan's character and his involvement in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace are all historically accurate.
Horrible Judge of Character: It's ridiculously easy for him to be deceived by Jeanne's lies. He blindly believes her when she claims to be a close friend of Marie Antoinette and doesn't suspect anything even though Marie Antoinette shows nothing but repulsion for him in person, in sharp contrast to what he reads in her "love letters" that he gets from Jeanne.
Unwitting Pawn: Rohan agrees to be the guarantor in the purchase of an incredibly expensive diamond necklace because Jeanne told him it was a gift for Marie Antoinette. Unbeknownst to him, Jeanne runs off with the necklace and sells the diamonds to the black market. When the affair goes to trial, Rohan discovers the queen still hates him, has never written him letters and didn't want the necklace in the first place.

Nicole D'Olivia

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nicole_d_oliva.png

Voiced by: Minori Matsushima

A prostitute who helped Jeanne in her heist at Rohan's expense.

Disabled in the Adaptation: She's blind in the anime, while in the manga her eyesight is fine.
Historical Domain Character: Nicole D'Olivia was a real prostitute who impersonated Marie Antoinette in front of Cardinal de Rohan, under the instructions of Jeanne de Saint-Rémy de Valois.
Identical Stranger: She's identical in appearance to Marie Antoinette. Even Oscar and other people who know the queen well have trouble telling them apart.
Morality Pet: Onscreen in the anime, we see Jeanne treat her with more compassion than she could give Rosalie. Although Jeanne tries to stab her, Nicole's innocence warms her into handing Nicole money to flee. Even at Jeanne's trial, she's momentarily furious when Nicole testifies against her but then humbles quickly and looks at Nicole with understanding.
Unwitting Pawn: She had no idea why Jeanne had asked her to dress with expensive clothes, give a rose to a fat cardinal and telling him a few loving words, only that she would be paid fifteen thousand livres and she needed the money. Accentuated in the anime, where she's blind and considers Jeanne her benefactor, and, when she identifies her at the trial, has no idea she's testifying against her in a trial.

Characters / The Rose of Versailles

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