'Marie Antoinette' Recap: Season 2 Episode 7

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 previous season.
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Antoinette gives birth to a daughter and is waylaid by postpartum depression. It doesn’t help that she has discovered that her husband and best friend have lied to her about the prospects of survival for her eldest son, the dauphin, who is now confined to a wheelchair. She is furious at both of them and hasn’t left Versailles in months – in part because her reputation is now so damaged in the eyes of the public that it might not be safe for her, thanks in large part to the trial over the theft of the diamond necklace.

Her reputation can always get worse: Jeanne’s husband Nicolas La Motte is blackmailing her from London, threatening to publish the secret love letters to Count Fersen he found amongst Jeanne’s things stolen from the queen’s rooms. Antoinette doesn’t care, but Fersen warns that the revelation of the letters could cast doubt on the parentage of her son who will be king, so he goes to London to confront La Motte.

Jeanne is ready to continue damaging the queen, too. Félicité visits her in prison, offering to help her escape if she will write her story for publication and further discredit the king and queen.

Then there’s the king’s own brother, who’s also working to destabilize Louis so that he can take the throne himself. He’s scheming with his wife Josephine to make Louis seem unfit to rule, but Josephine has begun despairing that she is not receiving replies from her lover, Marguerite, whose banishment from court inspired her hatred of Louis. She has lost her will to live.

But Provence is still actively working against his brother. Louis is ready to present Calonne’s proposal to tax the nobility and clergy to an Assembly of Notables who have to approve it. The notables have been handpicked, but Louis is nervous – his chief adviser and most loyal minister Vergennes has suddenly died, leaving him with one fewer friend.

Orléans might be expected to oppose Louis in the Assembly, but he finds the reforms refreshingly democratic. So it’s up to Provence to prevent passage, particularly on behalf of his allies in Parlement, who are led by Malherbe. The Assembly of Notables is basically ready to pass Louis’ reforms when Provence asks why the government needs the extra money. Someone chimes in and asks to see the budget.

Louis and Calonne are furious, because they have been hiding a massive debt from years before, racked up by Calonne’s predecessor Necker. Louis finally admits this to Provence, who tries to prevent the budget from being revealed lest the monarchy become so destabilized that there’s no throne for him to seize. But Calonne decides to reveal everything.

When Louis realizes what Calonne has done, he calls him a traitor and sends him out of the assembly before grabbing his budget papers from the various notables. Provence warns him that he looks deranged.

Antoinette is upset that Louis has once again lied to her but tells him that he has her support. He dismisses Calonne.

But he stops going to meetings and retreats into delusions. He tells Antoinette he can’t rule. So Antoinette asks the minister Breteuil to fill her in on government so that she can act in Louis’ stead. She is being blamed by the public for the debt, having been nicknamed “Madame Deficit.” She summons Malherbe and tells him that Louis will stop pushing for tax reform if Parlement approves a loan.

Malherbe has also met with Orléans, with the powerful Madame de Rohan, another enemy of the king, inserting herself into the meeting as well. But he agrees to Antoinette’s proposal, saying it will need to be debated in Parlement. During that process, Louis becomes impatient and rages against the legislators, insisting that he can do what he wants. Orléans takes advantage of the situation to denounce tyranny, and Parlement denies approval of the loan.

Louis once again banishes Orléans from Versailles, but it only makes Orléans more popular amongst the people. Orléans’ Palais Royal presses have been denigrating Louis and Antoinette while also praising him. They continue to damage the monarchs with the publication of Jeanne’s book after Félicité brings her a disguise, a waiting carriage, bribes for amenable guards, and a knife hidden in a bread loaf for one who isn’t. Jeanne flees to London, where she reunites with her husband, who has just been visited by Fersen.

When Fersen returns to Versailles, Antoinette tearfully sends him away. Now that she is running the country, she needs to be there for Louis and doesn’t have time for Fersen. She also switches up her inner circle. She tells Lamballe that she was right not to trust Jeanne in the trial; perhaps she has been right about a lot of things. Lamballe hesitantly tells her that Yolande saw Antoinette having a miscarriage years ago and left her bleeding on the ground so that she could install Calonne as financial controller.

Yolande tells Antoinette that Lamballe is lying, but Antoinette dismisses Yolande. She can stay at court, but not around Antoinette.

Antoinette reveals another piece of treachery at Versailles, telling Josephine that Provence was behind Louis’ banishment of her lover Marguerite. Josephine rips apart Provence’s rooms and finds letters from Marguerite to Josephine hidden away.

Antoinette also brings back Necker, the financial controller who hid the country’s debt, because he is popular. She insists that he resume his old role and fix things, despite his misgivings.

Things continue to get worse. Antoinette’s new daughter dies. A hailstorm ruins a crop during a year when the rural poor were already short of food; they begin moving towards Paris. Versailles has no money for aid for them, but suspects that Orléans has been buying up grain. However, any move against him will only increase his popularity. As does his dispersal of bread to hungry people, which greatly benefits him – and disgusts some of his friends, who think he is taking advantage of a crisis.

Necker tells Antoinette that the government needs to pass the tax reform after all. It can be done through the rarely called Estates General. Antoinette must convince Louis to convene it, despite it having been a century since it last met.