Versailles Season Two…. what can we expect to see?

It is still quite a while until we will finally see Season Two of Versailles on the screens, but there are some hints already about what we might see.

Until now, there are no set airing dates yet. We know from Canal+ that the show will air March 27  in France and Ovation confirmed it for fall 2017 for the US. BBC has confirmed that Versailles will air in the UK starting on April 21. Nothing more specific has been confirmed yet.

Thanks to IMDB we do know the titles of the episodes already. It will be ten episodes again with the lovely titles The Labyrinth, A Still Small Voice, Quis custodiet ipsos cusotdes, Miasma, War and Peace, The Sands of Time, A Night, Le nouveau régime, Seven Shadows and Of Blood and Stone for the last episode.

IMDB also confirms that we will see some new faces. Harry Hadden-Paton plays Gaston, Suzanne Clément plays Madame Agathe, we will see Catherine Walker as Madame Scarron, Mark Rendall as Thomas Beaumont, Camille Rutherford as Odile, Ned Dennehy as Père Etienne, Nathan Willcocks in the role of Luxembourg and Jessica Clark as Liselotte von der Pfalz, Conor Lovett will appear as a Dutch Minister, Phareelle Onoyan as Isabelle, Diana Stewart as Abbesse Sybille and Ace Bhatti as Sultan de Bijapur… and some more in smaller roles.

Canal+ has given us some small teasers in their programme preview as well, which give some small hints as to what we might see…

Judging by what is known and by what happened at the Sun King’s court, we will probably drift into very dark corners…. and you should stop to read this now, if you do not want possible spoilers.

“You are the cream of the French aristocracy but when I look at you I see corruption, darkness, temptation, greed, murder”

The court might get a little debauched and dark. Monsieur will marry again and it will happen pretty early in the season. Historical Monsieur married Élisabeth-Charlotte du Palatinat aka Liselotte von der Pfalz in 1671 and our show Monsieur will probably be not really happy that another wife is forced upon him. Madame Scarron will be, obviously, introduced. She is the widow of the poet Paul Scarron and acted as nanny for the children of Madame de Montespan and Louis. Madame de Montespan will play a pretty big role in this season as we dive into the affaire des poisons. We will see her rise and, depending on how far they go this season, fall. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have witnessed a conversation about her being placed in an arm chair. This is a thing of great symbolism, because only the Queen is allowed an arm chair in public. It sort of hints that Montespan has taken her place, not as Queen of France, but as Queen of Louis XIV. (The Twitter conversation circled around under which circumstances she would be allowed to sit in an arm chair and the answer is never, unless it is a private situation with no-one else around. It is hard to tell from the few seconds of footage whether it is a private situation or not. I will keep a close eye on it. In a other bit of footage, we also see Monsieur seated in an arm chair. The same applies to him, because Monsieur was allowed only a chair without arms. In his case it looks like it might be a public scene. Oui, I am obsessed with etiquette and seeing this made me a little curious.)

Another, possibly, symbolic scene can be seen on the picture that was released by Canal + along with a teaser. There are two versions of it. Version one shows Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan going upstairs, while Monsieur seems to go downstairs…

The special thing about this picture is that it reminds me very strongly of an anecdote involving Madame de Montespan and Louise de La Vallière. The story goes that both meet on a staircase, Louise de La Vallière going down stairs while la Montespan goes upstairs. The latter remarks to Louise ‘You are going down, I am going up.’ It’s not difficult to get that la Montespan was not merely referring to their locations on the stairs, but to the fact that she was rising in favour while Louise was falling. In context of Monsieur, this could mean that he either gets less important for Louis, that Montespan works against him or that he turns away from Louis…. version two of the picture makes the latter more likely…

In version two the Chevalier waits further down the stairs. Monsieur turns away from Louis and towards the Chevalier. Does that symbolise that he is fed up with Louis and instead of sticking with his brother, is ready to stand with the Chevalier? (Remember that one scene in the last season, where the Chevalier asks Monsieur where he stands with his brother….) My historical thinking mind is trying to put it into this context, but I could be completely wrong here.

Back to Madame Scarron. If we do get to see not only the rise but also the fall of Montespan, we will also see the rise of Madame de Scarron, which will change the court of the Sun King forever.

This teaser here is quite interesting. Starting with Fabien hunting someone, the next scene is Louis pushing la Montespan away from him. Someone his beheaded and someone else seems to be blinded. Fabien prevents Louis from eating something… probably after having found out that something was mixed into it… and the Moon darkens the Sun…. do you think what I think?

We might also see a war with the Dutch, it would fit into the time frame, and the one thing you all probably want to know is what will happen to Rohan? He won’t get away with it and chances are high that he will lose his head.

If you haven’t seen the other teasers yet, here they are:

Corruption, tentation, meurtre… #Versailles revient bientôt sur @canalplus @gblagden @vlavla @evan_m_williams pic.twitter.com/1vvyk3QUbg

— Versailles, la série (@VersaillesCANAL) February 5, 2017

La Création Originale de CANAL+ en 2017… 👌
Pas encore abonné ? Découvrez nos offres sans engagement ➡️ https://t.co/8jmvIGWbb0 pic.twitter.com/TPniP73WwQ

— CANAL+ Séries (@CanalplusSeries) January 24, 2017

Notre #CréationOriginale n'a pas fini de vous étonner… Découvrez notre line-up 2017 ! https://t.co/0bOyIBONyg pic.twitter.com/TXzlcpHxya

— CANAL+ (@canalplus) January 22, 2017

I will make sure to update this post, once I know more. Stay tuned.