After their arrests in the previous episode, Marie Antoinette season 2, episode 6 wastes no time in putting Rohan and Jeanne on trial. Of course, Antoinette has to attend, albeit in secret.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for Marie Antoinette season 2, episode 6.
Antoinette and Louis continue to do things against the advice of their advisors. Yes, they want to prove that they are still good people, but the people of France aren’t seeing that. They continue to hear more and more disparaging things, especially against Antoinette.
Rohan puts Antoinette on blast in Marie Antoinette season 2, episode 6
On the advice of the lawyer that Chartres sent to him, Rohan decides to go with the story that Antoinette was the one who wrote him letters and met him in the garden. The more he blames the queen, the more Parliament listens to him.
As he mentions the meeting in the garden, Antoinette goes back to Versailles to deny ever meeting him. There must have been an impersonator, and she decides to tell everyone at Versailles about the woman she saw impersonating her in Paris. A search party is sent out for her, but has the damage already been done?
It seems it when Jeanne takes to the stand and blames everything on Rohan. She has chosen to side with Antoinette, but the lawyer for Rohan does remind everyone that Jeanne’s stories aren’t consistent. What’s also interesting is that Jeanne doubles down on being Henri’s ancestor, but is this something she believes or the story she needs to keep telling to avoid even more charges against her?
Villette learns the truth about Jeanne in Marie Antoinette
It turns out that Felicite was behind Villette returning to Paris. He is their side’s secret weapon, and she takes him to the Bastille, which is where Jeanne is currently being held. Sure enough, he’s angry and shocked to learn that Jeanne is still alive.
She tries to explain the situation, saying that she was really stabbed, but Villette knows that she lies a lot. The question is whether he will go with Jeanne’s lies to save the two of them or take both of them down to tell the truth.
In the end, he chooses the truth, sharing that Jeane stole the diamond necklace. It sentences Jeanne to a guilty plea, but does it help Rohan? That’s hard when Antoinette and Louis decide that they will go against Rohan again. They want to add in the charge of disparaging Antoinette’s name, which would be a capital offense. Again, the advisors are against it, but what the king wants, the king gets.
The lawyer is good, though. He argues that the Queen’s name was already disparaged before Rohan’s words. It’s not like people didn’t already think her frivolous. There has been enough against her already for Parliament to side with Rohan.
In the end, Rohan and Cagliostro are found not guilty — although Rohan is banished by Louis. While Villette and the woman impersonating the queen are guilty, they are only banished. I get a feeling that Villette doesn’t really care about that considering he wanted out of Paris in the first place.
As for Jeanne and her husband, who hasn’t been found but was tried anyway, they are found guilty of charity fraud and theft. Her husband is sentenced to a labor workforce once he is found. Jeanne is to be beaten, branded as a thief, and sentenced to imprisonment in a woman’s prison. Things aren’t turning out so well for her.
For Chartres, this is a victory. The people are rising up, but he doesn’t have the support of Parliament. Parliament will back Provance because he wants to keep the royal system intact.
The end of the episode is even more devastating for Antoinette and Louis. Antoinette has learned about her son’s illness, and she’s angry that Louis kept this from her. Sure, he wanted to protect her from this information, but she has a right to know. Is there any way to survive this? With just two episodes of the season left, it’s hard to say.
Marie Antoinette airs Sundays at 10/9c on PBS.
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