Since I did comment on the first season, I thought you might like a follow up. Like the first, the second isn't must watch tv, but does some interesting things along with the mundane and the bewildering in terms of how the use history. Reminder: this series is a French/British coproduction made by the same company that produced the three season series Versailles (aka the one on Louis XIV and courtiers which has the distinction of being the very first historical take that makes Philippe the Gay, Monsieur, into a (gay) hearthrob and the best thing about which is that he, the Chevalier and Liselotte (due to him and the Chevalier being nicer than in rl and Liselotte being without her rl loathing af the later) ending up as a golden trio. Marie Antoinette season 1 basically made Dubarry into the Marquise de Merteuil (from Dangerous Liasons) though MA wisened up before going full Cecile, had Joseph do marriage counselling instead of sex counselling (the sex counselling is done by a prostitute - I joked at the time clearly the French part of the production would not stand for a German/Austrian Emperor having to explain sex to the King of France), i.e. he makes MA and Louis talk to each other by locking himself up with the two of them once a day and not letting them out until they talked, and made Louis' two brothers into one brother (Provence, the later Louis XVIII) while giving part of the adapted out brother Artois (aka future Charles X, clearly not existing in this verse)'s stuff to cousin Chartres, aka future Duke of Orleans and future Philippe Ègalité. (To wit, the part where he at first befriends and flirts with MA but then reveals his true scheming colours.) The series in its first season also included both of MA's most famous female friends/favourites, the Duchesse de Lamballe and Gabrielle Polignac, here called Yolande, with MA first favouring one and then the other, and briefly Axel Fersen, making his usual first appearance when young MA visits Paris in disguise. The first season ended with MA and Louis reconciled and having produced their first son.
The second season covers the (ruinous for French finances) support of the Americans in their war for Independence, the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, the first production of the Marriage of Figaro (Beaumarchais, who was introduced in the first season and then suddenly disappeared from the scene, actually gets stuff to do here) and things going ever quicker wrong for the royals at an ever increasing pace until Louis calls the General Estates and the Bastille is about to be stormed in the finale. As in s1, a great many historical characters are played by far better looking actors (Louis and his brother Provence, and now Cardinal Rohan being the most obvious examples),but that's par the course. The series is reasonably good with shades of grey; the sole boo-hiss figure is Chartres, now the current Duc d'Orleans, aka the future Philippe Égalité, who almost never gets a good press in Marie Antoinette fiction, which usually goes with her own conviction he was behind everything. (Though he usually in other versions just acts from ambition, here from ambition and scorned love resentment since she didn't let herself be seduced by him in the last season.)
(Historical sidenote: From what I remember from non fiction books, while the Duke certainly enjoyed trolling his royal cousin and very deliberately used the legal status his Paris residence, the Palais Royal, had, to have anti MA and Louis pamphlets printed there, plus he was a huge Anglophile, but it's hard to see how he could have seriously plotted to get on the throne via crowd control. For starters, Louis had two living brothers and two sons, then one son, all coming before Orleans in the succession. And in 1789, most of the reform-minded people, including Robespierre, didn't want to abolish the monarchy, they wanted a constitutional monarchy a la GB. What made and makes good old Philippe Égalité loathed in so circles is a) that he voted for cousin Louis XVI''s death in the National Assembly - and since the Assembly was pretty evenly split, that, that definitely was fatal -, and that later, when he was heading towards the guillontine himself, he tried to save himself by claiming his real father had been a carriage driver, not the late Duc D'Orleans. Brave, he was not. But most likely not an evil mastermind, either.)
Anyway, other than Chartres/Orleans, everyone else comes across as more dimensional, including surprisingly Provence who though in the first half of the season still busy scheming so Louis has a nervous breakdown and he'll be appointed Regent discovers mid season a) he actually has some hidden affection for his brother, and b), more importantly to him, this all has gone way beyond palace intrigue and is heading towards destroying the monarchy, and if he doesn't change tactics and seriously supports Louis and MA now, there won't be a Crown left for him to inherit. Another shade of grey character is the show's version of Polignac. While Lamballe seriously loves MA, Polignac starts out using her for ambition, catches feelings (for MA and Louis both, as the later ahistorically comes to confide in her as well, non-romantically so), and feels increasingly torn between ambition and affection, but still at key points chooses her own benefit. (Whereas Lamballe despite feeling sort of dumped or at least in second place for Polignac proves her true love by staying at MA's side when things get tough. Which will condemm her to a terrible fate come the French Revolution.) Lamballe is also in some episodes taken in by the enterprising Jeanne de la Motte, conwoman of the decade, but MA forgives her for that, drawing a parallel between her own relationship with Polignac and Lamballe's with Jeanne.
BTW: MA and her female favourites get to have intense romantic friendships but stop just this side of subtext becoming text. (Not because this series doesn't do same sex relationships; Provence's wife Josephine is characterised as a lesbian in requited love with lady-in-waiting Marguerite, for example.) But those relationships come across as within the series universe believable and well drawn. Meanwhile, MA's relationship with Fersen does not. It really feels like the scriptwriters treating MA/Fersen as an obligation they need to get through and keep to the absolute minimum. Which is a problem because simultanously we're meant to believe that MA despite having established a good partnership with Louis as the result of season 1, aware she has plenty of enemies at court and that she's now becoming unpopular among the people, is risking everything by having an affair with Fersen.
It's not like Fersen is written as a bad guy, don't get me wrong. But the show, in marked contrast to how it treats MA/Louis as well as MA/Polignac and MA/Lamballe, doesn't give them getting-to-know you type of scenes, it has them fall for each other on sight, and later they only get "we can't, we shouldn't"/but they do anyway" type of dialogue. Off screen, Fersen is in dialogue referred to doing supportive and brave things, but not on screen. Perhaps if the actor were one of those who can exude sexual chemistry, you'd buy it, but he's not. It's like the show does not want anyone to actually ship them because they don't want to take away from the show's central relationship, which is MA/Louis.
Speaking of whom: since the scriptwriters clearly are aware of the various historians and biographers pointing out that in previous regimes, the mistresses along with the evil advisors are getting blamed for the King's mistakes, and since Louis is a faithful husband, that option isn't there, which means MA gets blamed instead, they have Polignac point this out to Louis and offer to be his mistress in order to function as a lightning rod for the populace, and he declines. Where other takes on this tale have post Joseph's visit no more sexual problems between MA and Louis and leave it at that, this series not unreasonably postulates that while Louis now knows how to do it and does, he's not actually very into sex, full stop, despite adoring his wife, and she in turn likes him and supports him but is not in love, and the simply functional sex does not help making her so, either.
The show also milks the deaths of MA's and Louis' first son and of the youngest daughter Sophie for full tragedy, but goes with Fersen as the biodad of the later two children. This is presented as something Louis realizes and after some emotional struggle not just accepts but welcomes because he anachonistically had a doctor pointing out to him that their eldest son's fragile health might be due to all the Bourbon inbreeding, not to mention the Habsburgs. (Whereas Fersen: new genes! you can see Louis think.)
The series is reasonably good in getting across why the French economy is in such a bad state (with all the money spent to support the Yankee Tax Dodgers being a major factor, in addition to all the inherited debt from Grandpa Louis XV and some terrible weather and failed crop), but can't resist adding to it by Orleans actually secretly hording grain (as MA and the King are accused of doing) in order to make himself more popular and them less so. Like I said, Orleans is the one genuinely boo-hiss villain on this show.
Jeanne de la Motte, by contrast, is not. Nor is she a misunderstood heroine. In sharp contrast to the movie starring Hilary Swank where she's a woobie whose story about being a Valois are true and who has a childhood trauma of seeing royal troops kill her dad and burn their chateau down - not only did this not happen, but even real Jeanne de la Motte, who invented a lot, did not claim this -, this series thankfully doesn't shy away from making her simply a gifted 18th century conwoman out for herself. She doesn't want to bring the monarchy down or has anything to avenge, she just wants to have a piece of the cake, as much as she can get, and Rohan is a great mark because he's just that arrogant and dumb and egotastic. Most of the time, you cheer for her pulling this off. The show even lets her trashy memoirs be someone else's idea at first (to wit, the idea of the Duc d'Orleans mistress to trash MA some more), with Jeanne going along with it because hey, it pays, she needs the support the lady promises to get out of prison and out of France, and it's not like the Queen has made her a better offer. She's cheerfully amoral, and probably the most vital character of season 2.
(Rohan: no notes. I think he's the rare character who is basically the same in any take on this story, at least I have yet to meet a version that doesn't go for "'he had it coming".)
The trial session after the necklace affair is very anachronistically anglofied - I mean, I'm no expert on 18th century legislation beyond what Voltaire wrote in the Calas affair, but I recognise a US style courtroom in costume when I see one - , and the show adds a second charge to make it clear to the non historically knowledgeable audience why the outcome was such a disaster for MA personally and the monarchy in general, but I can handwave that since it did get across quite how much of a PR disaster this was and how it contribute to the overall damage the French monarchy took in the 1780s.
Notably missing: any future famous revolutionaries. Even in the scene where Louis is opening the Estates General in the season 2 finale and later in the one where the representatives of the Third Estate try to corner him, the men we see look middle aged (and none of them ugly enough to be Mirabeau, who was middle aged but also a noble and thus not part of the Third Estate representatives anyway), nor do they get introduced by name. I don't know whether the show stops here or will have a third season, so perhaps they didn't want to cast notable actors yet if they don't get a third season. (I could see the point of stopping here. It's more or less what Sofia Coppola did in Marie Antoinette the movie. Once Versailles is stormed, and the royals have to move to Paris, it's another era. (And also this show as its predecessor lives from its Versailles location. It's far harder to find locations that look like Revolutionary Paris did.)
All in all, I'd say my prefered cinematic or tv take on the Marie Antoinette (barely) pre revolutionary side of things remains the film version of Farewell to the Queen, which is told from the pov of the Queen's reader, is the only one to get across how incredibly crowded and cramped Versailles was (as our heroine the reader constantly has to use the secret passages the servants do to get anywhere), manages to get across a lot even with its glimpsed side characters like the Marquis who lives to see the King once a day in the mirror gallery and above all manages to show MA herself as neither martyr nor foolish idiot. In that movie, which deals with exactly the same era like the last few episodes of season 2, her reader has a crush on her the way you have on a film star today, which is a pretty good equivalent to how an Ancien Regime royal was seen, and MA does something which manages to be very selfish and very selfless at the same time when she is worried about Polignac, sure her beloved (in that movie, definitely not just a platonic favourite) is in serious danger, and sends her away despite knowing she might never see her again and thus lose her love for good. (Poor Lamballe and Fersen do not exist in this movie.) But the way MA saves Polignac is by asking her reader to change clothes with her, and that she takes her reader's loyalty for granted and evidently sees this woman's life as expendable, as opposed to Polignac's, is the "very selfish" part of the equation and makes a point about the system without any exposition needed.
Thank you for this write-up! I really need to brush up on my French Revolution. Hopefully I'll still have time after I finish the current draft of Peter Keith.
It really feels like the scriptwriters treating MA/Fersen as an obligation they need to get through and keep to the absolute minimum.
I see they have not been reading their Zweig! He would teach them how to ship those two. ;)
Point taken about them wanting MA/Louis as their OTP, though.
(Rohan: no notes. I think he's the rare character who is basically the same in any take on this story, at least I have yet to meet a version that doesn't go for "'he had it coming".
Hahaha.
MA does something which manages to be very selfish and very selfless at the same time when she is worried about Polignac, sure her beloved (in that movie, definitely not just a platonic favourite) is in serious danger, and sends her away despite knowing she might never see her again and thus lose her love for good. (Poor Lamballe and Fersen do not exist in this movie.) But the way MA saves Polignac is by asking her reader to change clothes with her, and that she takes her reader's loyalty for granted and evidently sees this woman's life as expendable, as opposed to Polignac's, is the "very selfish" part of the equation and makes a point about the system without any exposition needed.
Wow, yes, that's very three-dimensional.
Sorry for the brevity, real life plus Peter Keith are calling!
As in s1, a great many historical characters are played by far better looking actors (Louis and his brother Provence, and now Cardinal Rohan being the most obvious examples)
I laughed at this. I suppose indeed that no one would watch true-to-real-life-attractiveness actors...
What made and makes good old Philippe Égalité loathed in so circles is a) that he voted for cousin Louis XVI''s death in the National Assembly - and since the Assembly was pretty evenly split, that, that definitely was fatal -, and that later, when he was heading towards the guillontine himself, he tried to save himself by claiming his real father had been a carriage driver, not the late Duc D'Orleans. Brave, he was not. But most likely not an evil mastermind, either.)
Oh -- I think I must have known this once but I didn't remember at all. Gosh. Yeah, that would do it. I suppose it's probably more fun to imagine some evil mastermind is behind everything, though.
Whereas Lamballe despite feeling sort of dumped or at least in second place for Polignac proves her true love by staying at MA's side when things get tough. Which will condemm her to a terrible fate come the French Revolution.)
Her I remember. Poor Lamballe :(
BTW: MA and her female favourites get to have intense romantic friendships
Excellent!
Meanwhile, MA's relationship with Fersen does not. It really feels like the scriptwriters treating MA/Fersen as an obligation they need to get through and keep to the absolute minimum. Which is a problem because simultanously we're meant to believe that MA despite having established a good partnership with Louis as the result of season 1, aware she has plenty of enemies at court and that she's now becoming unpopular among the people, is risking everything by having an affair with Fersen.
Hee. So the scriptwriters ship MA/Louis and this ship is getting in the way! :)
She doesn't want to bring the monarchy down or has anything to avenge, she just wants to have a piece of the cake, as much as she can get, and Rohan is a great mark because he's just that arrogant and dumb and egotastic. Most of the time, you cheer for her pulling this off.
This all sounds fantastic!
but I can handwave that since it did get across quite how much of a PR disaster this was and how it contribute to the overall damage the French monarchy took in the 1780s.
Right, that sounds like a reasonable way of getting the deeper point across even if it means sacrificing some surface accuracy.
(Poor Lamballe and Fersen do not exist in this movie.)
I laughed :P
But the way MA saves Polignac is by asking her reader to change clothes with her, and that she takes her reader's loyalty for granted and evidently sees this woman's life as expendable, as opposed to Polignac's, is the "very selfish" part of the equation and makes a point about the system without any exposition needed.
Oh -- I think I must have known this once but I didn't remember at all. Gosh. Yeah, that would do it. I suppose it's probably more fun to imagine some evil mastermind is behind everything, though.
Yes, but that's just not how Revolutions work. BTW, in Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety, which is the French Revolution from the pov of the revolutionaries, with the three main characters being Robespierre, Danton and Desmoulins, you have these early scenes where Chloderos de Laclos (as in, the author of Les Liasons Dangereuses, who was in rl works for the Duc d'Orleans, hangs out with some of the revolutionaries before they are revolutionaries with the idea that his guy will get more popular (he was definitely the most popular member of the royal family in pre revolutionary France) while the cousins at Versailles get trashed, but again, he can't even imagine a revolution, he thinks this is all so Louis will be forced to make Cousin Philippe his PM (different title), so to speak.
The tv series can't resist the historical in-joke of letting Cagliostro prophecy that no son of Louis and MA will end up on the throne of France but a prince of the blood from the Orleans line will, and future Philippe Égalité thinks that means him and is gleeful, but of course it means his son (introduced early in s2 as a kid), Louis Philippe, who will in fact be the last French king, full stop. (Since Louis Philippe did live through the original French Revolution, he high tails it out of France practically the moment the February 1848 revolution starts. Been there, Dad lost his head, thanks but no thanks. Anyway, because Cousin Chartres/Orleans sided with the Revolutionaries until he lost his own head, and Louis Philippe got to the throne by a revolution himself - the 1830 one which deposed Louis XVI's last brother, Artois aka Charles X, Lafayette's frenemy from school, - hardcore French monarchists argue that IF there were a King in France again, it would have to be from the Spanish Bourbon line, since the Orleans line discredited itself twice over.
Hee. So the scriptwriters ship MA/Louis and this ship is getting in the way! :)
LOL yes. I mean, they don't treat Fersen as badly as the writers of the Borgias tv series treated Lucrezia's second husband for gtting in the way of Cesare/Lucrezia, because at least poor Fersen is not vilified, but I recognize the same "away with the canon love interest getting in the way of my ship!" impulse. I mean, "canon", since we still don't know whether or not MA and Fersen ever had sex. But they certainly had an intense relationship, he was devoted above and beyond and there when it counted. Why they didn't write him simply as her devoted platonic knight if they didn't want him to get any shippers, I don't know. (Unless it's to characterize Louis as extra noble and devoted, since in the tv show he accepts Fersen after some struggle for the sake of MA's happiness and better genetics for the younger kids.)
She doesn't want to bring the monarchy down or has anything to avenge, she just wants to have a piece of the cake, as much as she can get, and Rohan is a great mark because he's just that arrogant and dumb and egotastic. Most of the time, you cheer for her pulling this off.
This all sounds fantastic!
It was definitely my favourite thing about s2. I don't know why anyone would feel they have to woobify Jeanne or give her backstory trauma or an actual revolutionary agenda. The 18th century was full of charismatic inventive grifters and conpeople (see also: Casanova, and the alchemy boys Cagliostro & St. Germain), and she was probably the most succesful publically known female one.
Incidentally, having read Feuchtwanger's novel, you might appreciate that it has Beaumarchais add Figaro's monologue very last minute - Act V, Scene 2 - in Mozart's opera, he just sings about "oh, these women", believing Susanna actually is now willing to have sex with the count, in the play, that's just his starting point, with this passage being the one that got censorship in a huff, for Figaro continues: Non, monsieur le comte, vous ne l'aurez pas. vous ne l'aurez pas. Parce que vous êtes un grand seigneur, vous vous croyez un grand génie ! noblesse, fortune, un rang, des places, tout cela rend si fier ! Qu'avez-vous fait pour tant de biens ? vous vous êtes donné la peine de naître, et rien de plus : du reste, homme assez ordinaire ! tandis que moi, morbleu, perdu dans la foule obscure, il m'a fallu déployer plus de science et de calculs pour subsister seulement, qu'on n'en a mis depuis cent ans à gouverner toutes les Espagnes; et vous voulez jouter ! On vient. C’est elle. Ce n'est personne.
And in the show, the play as known by MA when she decides to amateur stage it doesn't have that monologue yet, but because of the withdrawal/permission/withdrawal of permission etc for the general performance, Beaumarchais is either pissed off enough or out of patience or reckless enough to add it, and so Louis and MA are present at the professional premiere and when Figaro says "what makes you better than me, other than birth? You are simply an avarage man" etc, the camera keeps cutting to Louis who is the only one who gets the full implication, and he leaves, angry and horrified, which reminded me that Feuchtwanger had Louis also be one of the few among the nobility who instinctively understand this is about more than an amusing farce and can sense the long term consequences.
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timeasmymeasure
Marie Antoinette (TV Series, Second Season)
Date: 2025-06-03 01:53 pm (UTC)The second season covers the (ruinous for French finances) support of the Americans in their war for Independence, the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, the first production of the Marriage of Figaro (Beaumarchais, who was introduced in the first season and then suddenly disappeared from the scene, actually gets stuff to do here) and things going ever quicker wrong for the royals at an ever increasing pace until Louis calls the General Estates and the Bastille is about to be stormed in the finale. As in s1, a great many historical characters are played by far better looking actors (Louis and his brother Provence, and now Cardinal Rohan being the most obvious examples),but that's par the course. The series is reasonably good with shades of grey; the sole boo-hiss figure is Chartres, now the current Duc d'Orleans, aka the future Philippe Égalité, who almost never gets a good press in Marie Antoinette fiction, which usually goes with her own conviction he was behind everything. (Though he usually in other versions just acts from ambition, here from ambition and scorned love resentment since she didn't let herself be seduced by him in the last season.)
(Historical sidenote: From what I remember from non fiction books, while the Duke certainly enjoyed trolling his royal cousin and very deliberately used the legal status his Paris residence, the Palais Royal, had, to have anti MA and Louis pamphlets printed there, plus he was a huge Anglophile, but it's hard to see how he could have seriously plotted to get on the throne via crowd control. For starters, Louis had two living brothers and two sons, then one son, all coming before Orleans in the succession. And in 1789, most of the reform-minded people, including Robespierre, didn't want to abolish the monarchy, they wanted a constitutional monarchy a la GB. What made and makes good old Philippe Égalité loathed in so circles is a) that he voted for cousin Louis XVI''s death in the National Assembly - and since the Assembly was pretty evenly split, that, that definitely was fatal -, and that later, when he was heading towards the guillontine himself, he tried to save himself by claiming his real father had been a carriage driver, not the late Duc D'Orleans. Brave, he was not. But most likely not an evil mastermind, either.)
Anyway, other than Chartres/Orleans, everyone else comes across as more dimensional, including surprisingly Provence who though in the first half of the season still busy scheming so Louis has a nervous breakdown and he'll be appointed Regent discovers mid season a) he actually has some hidden affection for his brother, and b), more importantly to him, this all has gone way beyond palace intrigue and is heading towards destroying the monarchy, and if he doesn't change tactics and seriously supports Louis and MA now, there won't be a Crown left for him to inherit. Another shade of grey character is the show's version of Polignac. While Lamballe seriously loves MA, Polignac starts out using her for ambition, catches feelings (for MA and Louis both, as the later ahistorically comes to confide in her as well, non-romantically so), and feels increasingly torn between ambition and affection, but still at key points chooses her own benefit. (Whereas Lamballe despite feeling sort of dumped or at least in second place for Polignac proves her true love by staying at MA's side when things get tough. Which will condemm her to a terrible fate come the French Revolution.) Lamballe is also in some episodes taken in by the enterprising Jeanne de la Motte, conwoman of the decade, but MA forgives her for that, drawing a parallel between her own relationship with Polignac and Lamballe's with Jeanne.
BTW: MA and her female favourites get to have intense romantic friendships but stop just this side of subtext becoming text. (Not because this series doesn't do same sex relationships; Provence's wife Josephine is characterised as a lesbian in requited love with lady-in-waiting Marguerite, for example.) But those relationships come across as within the series universe believable and well drawn. Meanwhile, MA's relationship with Fersen does not. It really feels like the scriptwriters treating MA/Fersen as an obligation they need to get through and keep to the absolute minimum. Which is a problem because simultanously we're meant to believe that MA despite having established a good partnership with Louis as the result of season 1, aware she has plenty of enemies at court and that she's now becoming unpopular among the people, is risking everything by having an affair with Fersen.
It's not like Fersen is written as a bad guy, don't get me wrong. But the show, in marked contrast to how it treats MA/Louis as well as MA/Polignac and MA/Lamballe, doesn't give them getting-to-know you type of scenes, it has them fall for each other on sight, and later they only get "we can't, we shouldn't"/but they do anyway" type of dialogue. Off screen, Fersen is in dialogue referred to doing supportive and brave things, but not on screen. Perhaps if the actor were one of those who can exude sexual chemistry, you'd buy it, but he's not. It's like the show does not want anyone to actually ship them because they don't want to take away from the show's central relationship, which is MA/Louis.
Speaking of whom: since the scriptwriters clearly are aware of the various historians and biographers pointing out that in previous regimes, the mistresses along with the evil advisors are getting blamed for the King's mistakes, and since Louis is a faithful husband, that option isn't there, which means MA gets blamed instead, they have Polignac point this out to Louis and offer to be his mistress in order to function as a lightning rod for the populace, and he declines. Where other takes on this tale have post Joseph's visit no more sexual problems between MA and Louis and leave it at that, this series not unreasonably postulates that while Louis now knows how to do it and does, he's not actually very into sex, full stop, despite adoring his wife, and she in turn likes him and supports him but is not in love, and the simply functional sex does not help making her so, either.
The show also milks the deaths of MA's and Louis' first son and of the youngest daughter Sophie for full tragedy, but goes with Fersen as the biodad of the later two children. This is presented as something Louis realizes and after some emotional struggle not just accepts but welcomes because he anachonistically had a doctor pointing out to him that their eldest son's fragile health might be due to all the Bourbon inbreeding, not to mention the Habsburgs. (Whereas Fersen: new genes! you can see Louis think.)
The series is reasonably good in getting across why the French economy is in such a bad state (with all the money spent to support the Yankee Tax Dodgers being a major factor, in addition to all the inherited debt from Grandpa Louis XV and some terrible weather and failed crop), but can't resist adding to it by Orleans actually secretly hording grain (as MA and the King are accused of doing) in order to make himself more popular and them less so. Like I said, Orleans is the one genuinely boo-hiss villain on this show.
Jeanne de la Motte, by contrast, is not. Nor is she a misunderstood heroine. In sharp contrast to the movie starring Hilary Swank where she's a woobie whose story about being a Valois are true and who has a childhood trauma of seeing royal troops kill her dad and burn their chateau down - not only did this not happen, but even real Jeanne de la Motte, who invented a lot, did not claim this -, this series thankfully doesn't shy away from making her simply a gifted 18th century conwoman out for herself. She doesn't want to bring the monarchy down or has anything to avenge, she just wants to have a piece of the cake, as much as she can get, and Rohan is a great mark because he's just that arrogant and dumb and egotastic. Most of the time, you cheer for her pulling this off. The show even lets her trashy memoirs be someone else's idea at first (to wit, the idea of the Duc d'Orleans mistress to trash MA some more), with Jeanne going along with it because hey, it pays, she needs the support the lady promises to get out of prison and out of France, and it's not like the Queen has made her a better offer. She's cheerfully amoral, and probably the most vital character of season 2.
(Rohan: no notes. I think he's the rare character who is basically the same in any take on this story, at least I have yet to meet a version that doesn't go for "'he had it coming".)
The trial session after the necklace affair is very anachronistically anglofied - I mean, I'm no expert on 18th century legislation beyond what Voltaire wrote in the Calas affair, but I recognise a US style courtroom in costume when I see one - , and the show adds a second charge to make it clear to the non historically knowledgeable audience why the outcome was such a disaster for MA personally and the monarchy in general, but I can handwave that since it did get across quite how much of a PR disaster this was and how it contribute to the overall damage the French monarchy took in the 1780s.
Notably missing: any future famous revolutionaries. Even in the scene where Louis is opening the Estates General in the season 2 finale and later in the one where the representatives of the Third Estate try to corner him, the men we see look middle aged (and none of them ugly enough to be Mirabeau, who was middle aged but also a noble and thus not part of the Third Estate representatives anyway), nor do they get introduced by name. I don't know whether the show stops here or will have a third season, so perhaps they didn't want to cast notable actors yet if they don't get a third season. (I could see the point of stopping here. It's more or less what Sofia Coppola did in Marie Antoinette the movie. Once Versailles is stormed, and the royals have to move to Paris, it's another era. (And also this show as its predecessor lives from its Versailles location. It's far harder to find locations that look like Revolutionary Paris did.)
All in all, I'd say my prefered cinematic or tv take on the Marie Antoinette (barely) pre revolutionary side of things remains the film version of Farewell to the Queen, which is told from the pov of the Queen's reader, is the only one to get across how incredibly crowded and cramped Versailles was (as our heroine the reader constantly has to use the secret passages the servants do to get anywhere), manages to get across a lot even with its glimpsed side characters like the Marquis who lives to see the King once a day in the mirror gallery and above all manages to show MA herself as neither martyr nor foolish idiot. In that movie, which deals with exactly the same era like the last few episodes of season 2, her reader has a crush on her the way you have on a film star today, which is a pretty good equivalent to how an Ancien Regime royal was seen, and MA does something which manages to be very selfish and very selfless at the same time when she is worried about Polignac, sure her beloved (in that movie, definitely not just a platonic favourite) is in serious danger, and sends her away despite knowing she might never see her again and thus lose her love for good. (Poor Lamballe and Fersen do not exist in this movie.) But the way MA saves Polignac is by asking her reader to change clothes with her, and that she takes her reader's loyalty for granted and evidently sees this woman's life as expendable, as opposed to Polignac's, is the "very selfish" part of the equation and makes a point about the system without any exposition needed.
Re: Marie Antoinette (TV Series, Second Season)
Date: 2025-06-07 11:02 pm (UTC)It really feels like the scriptwriters treating MA/Fersen as an obligation they need to get through and keep to the absolute minimum.
I see they have not been reading their Zweig! He would teach them how to ship those two. ;)
Point taken about them wanting MA/Louis as their OTP, though.
(Rohan: no notes. I think he's the rare character who is basically the same in any take on this story, at least I have yet to meet a version that doesn't go for "'he had it coming".
Hahaha.
MA does something which manages to be very selfish and very selfless at the same time when she is worried about Polignac, sure her beloved (in that movie, definitely not just a platonic favourite) is in serious danger, and sends her away despite knowing she might never see her again and thus lose her love for good. (Poor Lamballe and Fersen do not exist in this movie.) But the way MA saves Polignac is by asking her reader to change clothes with her, and that she takes her reader's loyalty for granted and evidently sees this woman's life as expendable, as opposed to Polignac's, is the "very selfish" part of the equation and makes a point about the system without any exposition needed.
Wow, yes, that's very three-dimensional.
Sorry for the brevity, real life plus Peter Keith are calling!
Re: Marie Antoinette (TV Series, Second Season)
Date: 2025-06-09 12:59 am (UTC)I laughed at this. I suppose indeed that no one would watch true-to-real-life-attractiveness actors...
What made and makes good old Philippe Égalité loathed in so circles is a) that he voted for cousin Louis XVI''s death in the National Assembly - and since the Assembly was pretty evenly split, that, that definitely was fatal -, and that later, when he was heading towards the guillontine himself, he tried to save himself by claiming his real father had been a carriage driver, not the late Duc D'Orleans. Brave, he was not. But most likely not an evil mastermind, either.)
Oh -- I think I must have known this once but I didn't remember at all. Gosh. Yeah, that would do it.
I suppose it's probably more fun to imagine some evil mastermind is behind everything, though.
Whereas Lamballe despite feeling sort of dumped or at least in second place for Polignac proves her true love by staying at MA's side when things get tough. Which will condemm her to a terrible fate come the French Revolution.)
Her I remember. Poor Lamballe :(
BTW: MA and her female favourites get to have intense romantic friendships
Excellent!
Meanwhile, MA's relationship with Fersen does not. It really feels like the scriptwriters treating MA/Fersen as an obligation they need to get through and keep to the absolute minimum. Which is a problem because simultanously we're meant to believe that MA despite having established a good partnership with Louis as the result of season 1, aware she has plenty of enemies at court and that she's now becoming unpopular among the people, is risking everything by having an affair with Fersen.
Hee. So the scriptwriters ship MA/Louis and this ship is getting in the way! :)
She doesn't want to bring the monarchy down or has anything to avenge, she just wants to have a piece of the cake, as much as she can get, and Rohan is a great mark because he's just that arrogant and dumb and egotastic. Most of the time, you cheer for her pulling this off.
This all sounds fantastic!
but I can handwave that since it did get across quite how much of a PR disaster this was and how it contribute to the overall damage the French monarchy took in the 1780s.
Right, that sounds like a reasonable way of getting the deeper point across even if it means sacrificing some surface accuracy.
(Poor Lamballe and Fersen do not exist in this movie.)
I laughed :P
But the way MA saves Polignac is by asking her reader to change clothes with her, and that she takes her reader's loyalty for granted and evidently sees this woman's life as expendable, as opposed to Polignac's, is the "very selfish" part of the equation and makes a point about the system without any exposition needed.
Oh gosh, that's really something, yeah.
Re: Marie Antoinette (TV Series, Second Season)
Date: 2025-06-09 09:40 am (UTC)Oh -- I think I must have known this once but I didn't remember at all. Gosh. Yeah, that would do it.
I suppose it's probably more fun to imagine some evil mastermind is behind everything, though.
Yes, but that's just not how Revolutions work. BTW, in Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety, which is the French Revolution from the pov of the revolutionaries, with the three main characters being Robespierre, Danton and Desmoulins, you have these early scenes where Chloderos de Laclos (as in, the author of Les Liasons Dangereuses, who was in rl works for the Duc d'Orleans, hangs out with some of the revolutionaries before they are revolutionaries with the idea that his guy will get more popular (he was definitely the most popular member of the royal family in pre revolutionary France) while the cousins at Versailles get trashed, but again, he can't even imagine a revolution, he thinks this is all so Louis will be forced to make Cousin Philippe his PM (different title), so to speak.
The tv series can't resist the historical in-joke of letting Cagliostro prophecy that no son of Louis and MA will end up on the throne of France but a prince of the blood from the Orleans line will, and future Philippe Égalité thinks that means him and is gleeful, but of course it means his son (introduced early in s2 as a kid), Louis Philippe, who will in fact be the last French king, full stop. (Since Louis Philippe did live through the original French Revolution, he high tails it out of France practically the moment the February 1848 revolution starts. Been there, Dad lost his head, thanks but no thanks. Anyway, because Cousin Chartres/Orleans sided with the Revolutionaries until he lost his own head, and Louis Philippe got to the throne by a revolution himself - the 1830 one which deposed Louis XVI's last brother, Artois aka Charles X, Lafayette's frenemy from school, - hardcore French monarchists argue that IF there were a King in France again, it would have to be from the Spanish Bourbon line, since the Orleans line discredited itself twice over.
Hee. So the scriptwriters ship MA/Louis and this ship is getting in the way! :)
LOL yes. I mean, they don't treat Fersen as badly as the writers of the Borgias tv series treated Lucrezia's second husband for gtting in the way of Cesare/Lucrezia, because at least poor Fersen is not vilified, but I recognize the same "away with the canon love interest getting in the way of my ship!" impulse. I mean, "canon", since we still don't know whether or not MA and Fersen ever had sex. But they certainly had an intense relationship, he was devoted above and beyond and there when it counted. Why they didn't write him simply as her devoted platonic knight if they didn't want him to get any shippers, I don't know. (Unless it's to characterize Louis as extra noble and devoted, since in the tv show he accepts Fersen after some struggle for the sake of MA's happiness and better genetics for the younger kids.)
She doesn't want to bring the monarchy down or has anything to avenge, she just wants to have a piece of the cake, as much as she can get, and Rohan is a great mark because he's just that arrogant and dumb and egotastic. Most of the time, you cheer for her pulling this off.
This all sounds fantastic!
It was definitely my favourite thing about s2. I don't know why anyone would feel they have to woobify Jeanne or give her backstory trauma or an actual revolutionary agenda. The 18th century was full of charismatic inventive grifters and conpeople (see also: Casanova, and the alchemy boys Cagliostro & St. Germain), and she was probably the most succesful publically known female one.
Incidentally, having read Feuchtwanger's novel, you might appreciate that it has Beaumarchais add Figaro's monologue very last minute - Act V, Scene 2 - in Mozart's opera, he just sings about "oh, these women", believing Susanna actually is now willing to have sex with the count, in the play, that's just his starting point, with this passage being the one that got censorship in a huff, for Figaro continues: Non, monsieur le comte, vous ne l'aurez pas. vous ne l'aurez pas. Parce que vous êtes un grand seigneur, vous vous croyez un grand génie ! noblesse, fortune, un rang, des places, tout cela rend si fier ! Qu'avez-vous fait pour tant de biens ? vous vous êtes donné la peine de naître, et rien de plus : du reste, homme assez ordinaire ! tandis que moi, morbleu, perdu dans la foule obscure, il m'a fallu déployer plus de science et de calculs pour subsister seulement, qu'on n'en a mis depuis cent ans à gouverner toutes les Espagnes; et vous voulez jouter ! On vient. C’est elle. Ce n'est personne.
And in the show, the play as known by MA when she decides to amateur stage it doesn't have that monologue yet, but because of the withdrawal/permission/withdrawal of permission etc for the general performance, Beaumarchais is either pissed off enough or out of patience or reckless enough to add it, and so Louis and MA are present at the professional premiere and when Figaro says "what makes you better than me, other than birth? You are simply an avarage man" etc, the camera keeps cutting to Louis who is the only one who gets the full implication, and he leaves, angry and horrified, which reminded me that Feuchtwanger had Louis also be one of the few among the nobility who instinctively understand this is about more than an amusing farce and can sense the long term consequences.