Monseigneur

Four liveried men to serve one lord his morning chocolate; Atwood counts them, and counts what they cost. Her tour of the old regime keeps snagging on the present: a court crawling with spies who watch each other, money draining away into show, taxes paid by everyone except the rich. Then she says the quiet part out loud: historical novels are never about their period. They are about the writer's own moment, and this episode is about ours. It ends at a chateau with a Marquis whose one conviction turns out to be a prophecy, and with a family name that pronounces itself into everyman.