Marie-Antoinette: what part of her life is covered in the Canal+ series?

Following the success of the series Versailles on Canal+, the encrypted channel has decided to continue its exploration of the history of the French monarchy in a new fiction. Deborah Davis was commissioned to write an eight-episode series centered on Marie Antoinette, the former Queen of France who was beheaded during the French Revolution, just like her husband King Louis XVI. Worn by Emilia Schüle, Louis Cunningham, James Purefoy, Jack Archer, Gaia Weiss, Jasmine Blackborrow, Marthe Keller, Crystal Shepherd-Cross, Caroline Piette, Oscar Lesage and Nathan Willcocks, this fiction will be launched on the Canal+ antenna on Monday October 31, 2022, from 9:05 p.m.

In fact, the series will focus on the life of Marie-Antoinette, played on screen by Emilia Schüle, before the French Revolution. The first episode, which was screened at the opening of the La Rochelle Fiction Festival on Tuesday September 13, 2022, will begin when Marie-Antoinette, only 14 years old, is in a bridal chamber. The scene takes place just after her marriage to the Dauphin of the Kingdom of France, the future King Louis XVI, performed by Louis Cunningham. Through a flashback, viewers will be able to discover how the young Austrian from Vienna was prepared by her mother, Maria Theresa of Austria, to marry the future king of France.

Marie-Antoinette: 23 million euros budget for the new Canal + series

Afterwards, the series will focus on the daily life of Marie-Antoinette in the Palace of Versailles. Destined to offer an heir to the crown of France, she will have to rub shoulders, in addition to her husband, with the daughters of King Louis XV, the Princess of Lamballe, played by Jasmine Blackborow, but also the intriguing Madame du Barry, played by Gaia Weiss. In this series, Deborah Davis wanted to show viewers how Marie Antoinette found herself trapped in Versailles after her arranged marriage to the future King Louis XVI, intended to strengthen ties between the French and Austrian monarchies. “It is as much a portrait of a modern, misunderstood young woman as it is of a dysfunctional family.“, underlined the creator of the series.

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