'Marie Antoinette' Recap: Season 2 Episode 3

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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The playwright Beaumarchais is released after three weeks of captivity in the Bastille for his subversive play, The Marriage of Figaro, but his benefactor the Duke of Chartres is no longer so interested in the liberty that Beaumarchais champions – and no longer the Duke of Chartres. The duke’s father, the Duke of Orléans, has died, making Chartres the new Duke of Orléans.

And Orléans has been welcomed back to Versailles after his banishment. Why reform the monarchy if he is once again close to it? He has just inherited the largest fortune in France and with it more power, so Louis wants him at court where he can keep an eye on him. Marie Antoinette resents his return, and rebuffs any attempt to speak to her.

Worried for the safety of herself and her children lest something should happen to Louis, Antoinette wants to buy a manor where she can set up her own court, since everything she currently “owns” actually belongs to the state and could be taken away from her. She has settled on Saint-Cloud – but it’s expensive.

But Antoinette is pregnant again, and wants a home of her own for her children. She’s not sure whether the child is Louis’ or Fersen’s, so she has told Fersen to stay away from court. Yolande assures her she can convince Louis it is his.

So Antoinette reveals the pregnancy when she asks Louis for money to buy Saint-Cloud. He is shocked, and privately wonders if the child is his. He brusquely sends Antoinette to his financial controller Calonne to ask for the money.

Louis’ government is deeply in debt, not that anyone knows, so Calonne refuses Antoinette. But she has learned that he is filching funds from the Treasury to pay off Yolande’s lover’s debt, and uses that information to convince him. He warns her that the move will be unpopular, then later tells Yolande that she must find a new benefactor. But Louis’ advisor Vergennes objects to Antoinette buying Saint-Cloud. For one, married women can’t own property – and who would it go to when she dies?

Meanwhile, Calonne and Louis have secured more money from Parliament – but they still need funds to fill the gap. They get a loan from a bank that they hope will be discreet, but expect the news to eventually leak.

Jeanne is finding it relatively easy to access money through her fake charity for fallen women. She has given out bouquets of Antoinette’s favorite rose to all the courtiers at Versailles who have donated, as a purported thanks from the queen. The amount of roses makes Lamballe suspicious that Jeanne is an impostor: she must have a fortune in donations. And the number makes Cardinal Rohan want to donate more, so that he can receive a less impersonal thank you from the queen.

Jeanne’s companion Villette has forged Antoinette’s seal, allowing her to write letters to Rohan as the queen. But when Jeanne is invited to dinner with Rohan and finds the charlatan Cagliostro there too, Cagliostro sees through her – just as she sees through his tricks. He does manage to guess that she has lost some children. He warns her that he’s protective of his benefactor, Rohan, but that they can be friendly for now, knowing either of them could expose the other. He also warns her that Lamballe suspects her – she has asked Cagliostro to divine whether Jeanne is a fraud.

So Jeanne invites Lamballe for tea and admits that she is a fraud: she lied about being close to the queen. Playing on Lamballe’s insecurity over her own relationship to Antoinette, she ingratiates herself to the princess.

Nevertheless, Lamballe decides to consult the court genealogist to see if Jeanne really is descended from England’s King Henry II. She tells other courtiers afterward that Jeanne is who she says she is – she can trace her family to Henry’s bastard son.

She’s not the only one consulting the genealogist; Yolande has visited to check Fersen’s family tree on behalf of Louis. His only son has a disease of the spine common in his family, and will die within a few years. Louis has not told Antoinette yet, commanding the doctor to lie to her, but he has confided in Yolande, who assures him she will help his son cope with the pain. Thinking of Antoinette’s pregnancy, Louis wonders whether the Fersens are generally healthy. Via the genealogist, Yolande discovers that they seem to be. In this intimate moment, Yolande and Louis nearly kiss.

Feeling guilty, Louis agrees to let Antoinette buy Saint-Cloud, and resigns himself to possibly having a son that is not his, but will at least be healthy, as his heir.

When Antoinette visits Saint-Cloud for the first time, she is startled to find Orléans there with his son. He spent much of his childhood there. He wants to be friends with Antoinette again, but she tells him she will never forgive him. So he reveals that he has evidence from Beaumarchais and a chambermaid that the child she is carrying is Fersen’s, not Louis’ – and receives a slap. He tells her that he can persuade the public, if not Louis, that the child is hers through printing presses – but he wants an assurance that his son can marry her daughter. Antoinette tells him that her daughter will make her own choice of husband.

Orléans goes to the presses anyway, and has cartoons printed lambasting Antoinette for her lavish expenditure on Saint-Cloud. When Antoinette arrives for her first stay at the estate, she finds carriages burning in front of it, lit on fire by an associate of Orléans.

Orléans’ mistress, Félicité, is annoyed that he is giving up his pursuit of liberty and governmental reform due to his obsession by Antoinette. She has surmised that Cagliostro is a Freemason and asks for his help in spurring revolution, offering to pay him.

Antoinette is also thinking of her legacy. She has commissioned the painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun to paint her portrait, even though it is supposed to be done by a member of the academy; so Antoinette forces the academy to admit Le Brun.

Antoinette wants to tell Louis that her child might be Fersen’s, lest Orléans does – but Yolande warns her not to. Antoinette gives birth to a son, and no one says anything.

Meanwhile, Rohan has bought Jeanne a bejeweled bracelet on behalf of the queen, with whom he thinks he is corresponding. He notes to her that the jeweler Boehmer is planning to break up his diamond necklace because no one will buy it, given its expense. Jeanne springs into action and sends a letter to Rohan from Antoinette asking him to buy the necklace for the queen – she can’t risk the public knowing that she bought it herself, but she wants it.

While Jeanne waits for a reply, a man she has sent for to help with the necklace finally arrives. It’s her husband, Nicolas La Motte – and he implies that he thought she died in Belize, taking money from him while faking her death.

Rohan’s response arrives. He will buy the necklace for Antoinette – but he wants to meet with her first to discuss the details.