'Marie Antoinette' Recap: Episode 4

Marie Antoinette airs Sundays at 9:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. WTTW Passport members can stream the whole show. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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It has been some time since France has had a queen, but suddenly there are two women ready to claim that title. The king collapses at court and takes to bed, where Madame du Barry refuses to allow his doctor to use leeches on him and denies entry even to the king’s family. But the king insists on seeing Louis-Auguste, who will succeed him on the throne. Are you prepared? he asks his grandson. The heir responds that he is not.

Marie Antoinette later reassures her terrified husband that he can be king, with her help as his queen. He thanks her for being herself, and they ride together to a pond, where they kiss. The young couple is finally becoming more comfortable together; Louis-Auguste had even asked to visit Antoinette that evening, before the king’s collapse disrupted everything.

The possibility of the king’s death has also thrown into relief du Barry’s precarious position as his disliked mistress. While he is recovering—he is wheeled in a chair to see the court, and puts on a show of vitality—he is weakened. He tells du Barry he might be able to do something to protect her after he dies.

He announces his plan to his family at lunch: he has proposed to du Barry, and she has accepted. She will be his queen, and will come first after his death.

“How can the king of France marry his whore?” Provence asks with a snarl. But the king can do what he wants. Accept du Barry as queen, he tells his objecting daughters, or retire from court.

With the king’s recovery, attention can once again be turned towards Louis-Auguste and Antoinette’s first official visit to Paris. Antoinette worries the Parisians will hate her because she’s Austrian, and her mistress of the house, Madame de Noailles, does nothing to dispel that fear as she prepares the young princess.

Antoinette hates the gown offered her by Noailles, so she and Lamballe corner Madame Bertin, a couturier who is visiting to design du Barry’s wedding dress. Bertin refuses Antoinette’s simpering request to design her Paris debut look.

But Antoinette is persistent. She sketches possible designs, falling asleep on the ground amongst them. Louis-Auguste is disappointed to find her sleeping—he had come to visit her after a meeting with the king and his personal secretary Beaumarchais in which the king had interrupted Louis-Auguste’s excited examination of Beaumarchais’ clock to directly ask why the future king won’t sleep with his wife.

Antoinette approaches Bertin with her designs, arguing that she is the future and du Barry is the past. Du Barry obviously disagrees; she condescendingly offers Antoinette the services of Bertin’s apprentice. But at Antoinette’s next public dressing, Bertin swans in and Antoinette follows her into a private room, closing the door with glee at Noailles’ shocked expression.

Bertin comes up with a feathery white gown for Antoinette, who debuts it to everyone’s admiration as she boards a carriage to Paris with her husband. A torch-lit throng waits to see the Dauphin and Dauphine, to Antoinette’s horror. But when she and Louis-Auguste step out onto a balcony, the crowd cheers. She is delighted by the approval, and she and her husband kiss in front of them all.

Cousin Chartres shows the couple around the Parisian court, and eyes Antoinette lustily. But she has caught another eye that is more appealing to her: that of the Swedish Count Axel von Fersen. She dances with him, to Chartres’ disapproval. Louis-Auguste fortifies himself with champagne and steps in to dance with his wife instead.

Antoinette and Louis-Auguste’s triumphant return to Versailles is ruined by scheming. Provence and his wife Josephine have been shunted off to uncomfortable upstairs apartments; their previous chambers have been seized by the future queen du Barry to become her dressing room. Josephine is presently compliant in her marriage, but she is ready to assert herself after the death of the king. She and her husband detest each other. She is the one who comes up with a plan to raise their status, as she struggles to sleep in their new, lumpy bed: they will announce that she is pregnant with an heir.

The announcement wrecks Antoinette, and spurs Louis-Auguste to once again ask if he can visit her that night. They finally attempt to have sex, but neither knows what they are doing and their supremely awkward effort fails.

Things don’t improve afterwards: they receive news that the king has once again fallen ill. Du Barry locks the doors to his apartment, but cannot prevent the family and doctor from seeing him this time. The king has smallpox; everyone is quickly sent away.

Louis-Auguste desperately wants to tell his grandfather something, however. Antoinette tells her panicked husband that she can do it for him; she has already had smallpox.

She brings his message to the suffering king: Louis-Auguste is ready to wear the crown. That relaxes the king, who asks Antoinette to look after his “sweet boy.” She tells him she will, but doesn’t respond when he asks her to be kind to du Barry.

His mistress—the wedding has not happened yet—leaves the king’s bedside as he receives the last rite from a priest who announces to the court that the king wants to repent for living in sin with a “fallen woman” such as du Barry.

When the king dies, the court comes to Louis-Auguste and bows before him. He grabs Antoinette’s hand, then hugs her.

One of his first acts is to exile du Barry, upon Antoinette’s urging. Antoinette personally goes to du Barry, who tells her they have more in common than she thinks: they’re just two women trying to survive in a vicious world. You didn’t make it any easier, Antoinette replies. Du Barry is packed off to a convent.

Louis-Auguste is crowned King Louis XVI of France. His wife watches him from a balcony as the crown is placed precariously on his head. He looks up at her, and the whole court turns towards the new queen. Louis smiles at her. She looks conflicted.