'Marie Antoinette' Recap: Season 2 Episode 2

Marie Antoinette airs Sundays at 9:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream by WTTW Passport members. Recap the previous and following episodes and season.
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After losing a baby in a miscarriage, Marie Antoinette is convalescing and struggling to recover her strength. But she finds some excitement and purpose in the possibility of performing in a new play at Versailles.

The polymath Beaumarchais’s Marriage of Figaro has been banned by Louis, but Beaumarchais has made revisions and appeals to the king to put on a private performance. Antoinette convinces Louis to consider it. After all, Beaumarchais is short on funds after securing arms for Louis’ troops in America and Louis doesn’t want to pay him, but a performance at Versailles could lead to public performances.

The government is secretly in debt, but Louis’ new financial controller Calonne argues that they have to increase investments – and not just so he can pilfer some money to pay off the debts of his friend Yolande’s household. Parliament may not approve more loans, so Calonne advocates raising taxes on clergy and nobility, who barely pay anything. Louis refuses. 

Beaumarchais and his friends, including the duke of Chartres’ mistress Félicité, are also in favor of such levelling of the upper classes. They want to humiliate the king with an anti-nobility play.

Félicité is angling to set up Chartres as a rival to Louis who could take his place in a new constitutional monarchy and grant more liberties to the people. But Chartres is lazy, so she uses the visit of a popular charlatan to light a fire under him. The physician Cagliostro has been brought to Paris by the Cardinal Rohan, and Félicité convinces Chartres to host an evening with him at the Palais Royale. After a demonstration, Cagliostro has a “vision” of a new king in the room. Both Chartres and Provence sit up straighter.

The thief Jeanne is also hoping to take advantage of a pliable, powerful man. She wants to acquire a diamond necklace made by the jeweler Boehmer – the most expensive necklace in the world – and has a plan to convince a rich and foolish man at Versailles to buy it for the queen, then take it herself. While pretending to be a countess collecting donations for fallen women at Versailles, she has seen Rohan beseeching and being rebuffed by the queen, and decided that he is the perfect mark.

Her partner, Villette, wants to use the money they have received as “donations” to buy a farm, but Jeanne points out that all the good land is owned by the clergy and nobility, and they would never be able to escape vassalage. The only way to better their position is to become fabulously rich.

So she sends Villette to confession with Rohan to unroll a tale of trying to seduce the countess Jeanne is posing as in order to gain access to the queen, since the “countess” is friends with her. Antoinette’s convalescence has allowed Jeanne to spread such a rumor. The Princess de Lamballe confronts Jeanne, suspecting duplicity, but Jeanne – having observed a struggle between Yolande and Lamballe for access to the queen – plays on Lamballe’s insecurities and suggests that the queen simply hasn’t mentioned Jeanne to Lamballe because they are no longer close. Jeanne’s flouting of a perfume bottle given to the queen by Lamballe and pickpocketed by Jeanne seems to confirm her closeness to the queen – she says it was a gift.

Eager to gain access to Antoinette and intrigued by Villette’s “confession,” Rohan asks Jeanne for a private audience. She and Villette rent opulent lodging for him to visit, and she happily accepts his sizable donation – which will help her continue renting the rooms. She rebuffs an attempt at seduction and quickly turns Rohan out with a suggestion that she can help him more later.

Observing the interactions of the court can make one powerful, as Jeanne proves – as does Beaumarchais. When Louis approves a performance of The Marriage of Figaro at Versailles, Beaumarchais casts Antoinette as the servant due to marry Figaro (Saint-Georges) but accosted by a count who has a right to sleep with any servant before their wedding day. Beaumarchais casts the newly returned Fersen, Antoinette’s almost-lover, as the count.

Antoinette had tearfully decided that she must avoid Fersen – but now she can’t. She has to abandon a rehearsal of a seduction scene in order to get fresh air. Fersen follows her and beseeches her. She gives up her resistance and falls into his arms under a tree.

They are not unnoticed – Provence’s unhappy wife Josephine watches from afar. She has been cast in the play as well, but is struggling because she is constantly drunk. Beaumarchais assigns a woman named Marguerite to help her learn her lines, and Marguerite quickly indoctrinates her with notions of feminine equality – and seduces her to boot. When Provence tries to assert some authority, Josephine stands up to him.

Provence notices a loving look between Josephine and Marguerite during a rehearsal of Figaro and demands that Louis call the performance off, telling him that Fersen is in the play, too. Louis asks Yolande if he has to worry about Fersen interfering in his marriage, but Yolande tells him he has nothing to fear.

Meanwhile, Antoinette and Fersen have moved their affair indoors. She wants him to stay at court, but he has petitioned for a military position that will place him a few hours away. He doesn’t want to be in her debt, but will be close enough to visit that way.

Then Josephine reveals to Antoinette right before their performance that she knows about the affair. Josephine promises not to tell anyone, for now; women are entitled to their own private lives. Saint-Georges warns Antoinette that some people close to her have their own ambition and not her wellbeing at heart, but won’t say who. Antoinette pulls Fersen into a room and closes the door. Louis enters with flowers as they are holding each other and calls off the play.

Yolande advises Antoinette to show Louis that he has not lost her. So Antoinette goes to her husband and tells him it was silly to accept the role because it left her open to the perception of impropriety. It won’t happen again. Back in Louis’ good graces, she suggests that the king allow a public performance of Figaro so Beaumarchais can make some money. She and Louis spend the night together.

They attend the premiere of Figaro in Paris and are startled to learn that Beaumarchais changed the text to include a cutting speech against the nobility. Louis leaves and orders Beaumarchais arrested in the middle of the play, to loud boos. Félicité and Chartres look on happily.

Louis is furious at Antoinette and refuses her offers to help him fix things. As a mob gathers outside the prison of the Bastille cheering for Beaumarchais and calling Louis a despot, Louis goes for a hard solo horse ride. His horse returns riderless. Provence immediately tries to seize power as regent, but Louis eventually appears, limping. He has simply sprained an ankle.

The episode reveals to Antoinette her precarious position. She begins planning a way to have real power outside of Louis in order to protect herself.