Did Marie-Antoinette really say “let them eat cake”?
"Let them eat cake" is the most famous quote attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the queen of France during the French Revolution. As the story goes, it was the queen's response upon being told that her starving peasant subjects had no bread.
Did Marie Anoinette really say let them eat cake?
Upon being informed that the citizens of France had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette, Queen-consort of Louis XVI of France, exclaimed "let them eat cake", or "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche". This cemented her position as a vain, airheaded woman who didn't care for the common people of France, or understand their position, and is why she was executed in the French Revolution .
Who said let them eat cake?
let them eat cake, or sushi or vegan sausage rolls.” Two hours later my office is almost free of the superheroes and politicos, and in their place 10 average Kiwis are sitting and standing about looking exceptionally average. "Right," I say ...
Did Marie Antoinette say let them eat cake?
“Let them eat cake” is the most famous quote attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the queen of France during the French Revolution. As the story goes, it was the queen’s response upon being told that her starving peasant subjects had no bread.
Who said "Let them eat cake"?
The phrase is commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette. " Let them eat cake " is the traditional translation of the French phrase " Qu'ils mangent de la brioche ", said to have been spoken in the 17th or 18th century by "a great princess" upon being told that the peasants had no bread. The French phrase mentions brioche, ...
Why was the phrase "bread" used in the French Revolution?
Although anti-monarchists never cited the anecdote during the French Revolution, it acquired great symbolic importance in subsequent historical accounts when pro-revolutionary commentators employed the phrase to denounce the upper classes of the Ancien Régime as oblivious and rapacious. As one biographer of the Queen notes, it was a particularly powerful phrase because "the staple food of the French peasantry and the working class was bread, absorbing 50 percent of their income, as opposed to 5 percent on fuel; the whole topic of bread was therefore the result of obsessional national interest."
What was the Flour War?
The 1775 shortages led to a series of riots that took place in northern, eastern and western France, known at the time as the Flour War ( guerre des farines ). Letters from Marie Antoinette to her family in Austria at this time reveal an attitude largely contrary to the spirit of Let them eat brioche:
Why was the phrase "anecdote" important?
Although anti-monarchists never cited the anecdote during the French Revolution, it acquired great symbolic importance in subsequent historical accounts when pro-revolutionary commentators employed the phrase to denounce the upper classes of the Ancien Régime as oblivious and rapacious.
Who said Marie Antoinette was the ignorant princess?
Objections to the legend of Marie Antoinette and the comment centre on arguments concerning the Queen's personality, internal evidence from members of the French royal family and the date of the saying's origin. According to Antonia Fraser, the notorious story of the ignorant princess was first said 100 years before Marie Antoinette in relation to Marie-Thérèse, the wife of Louis XIV, citing the memoirs of Louis XVIII, who was only fourteen when Rousseau's Confessions were written and whose own memoirs were published much later. Louis XVIII does not mention Marie Antoinette in his account, but says that the story was an old legend and that the family always believed that Maria Theresa had originated the phrase. However, Louis XVIII is as likely as others to have had his recollection affected by the quick spreading and distorting of Rousseau's original remark.
Who said "No one understands my ills nor the terror that fills my breast"?
3. “No one understands my ills, nor the terror that fills my breast, who does not know the heart of a mother.”. A heartbroken Marie Antoinette spoke these words in 1789, at her beloved son Louis Joseph’s demise of tuberculosis.
How long did Marie Antoinette's quote last?
However, the ill-worded quote stuck on Marie Antoinette’s image for over 200 years. It was not until 1823, when the memoirs of Comte de Provence was published that the truth came out.
Who said "Let them eat cake"?
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. “Let them eat cake” is the most famous quote attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the queen of France during the French Revolution. As the story goes, it was the queen’s response upon being told that her starving peasant subjects had no bread.
What is the story of the poor who don't eat Krosem?
Essentially, stories of rulers or aristocrats oblivious to their privileges are popular and widespread legends.
What does Marie-Antoinette say about brioche?
For one thing, the original French phrase that Marie-Antoinette is supposed to have said—“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” —doesn’t exactly translate as “Let them eat cake.”. It translates as, well, “Let them eat brioche.”. Of course, since brioche is a rich bread made with eggs and butter, almost as luxurious as cake, ...
Is brioche cake or cake?
Of course, since brioche is a rich bread made with eggs and butter, almost as luxurious as cake, it doesn’t really change the point of the story. But the queen wouldn’t have been referring to the sort of dessert that English speakers often imagine.
Why did Marie Antoinette say let them eat cake?
At some point in 1789, after being told that the French population was facing a bread shortage, because of the poor crop harvest and the rodents, and as a result, was starving, Marie Antoinette replied with “let them eat cake!”. Cake, obviously being a more expensive item than bread just went on to show how out of touch she was with her subjects.
Who said the French eat the crust of the pâté?
But keeping that aside, this quote has been circulating since before 1789 and was told in a slightly different form about Marie-Thérèse , the Spanish princess who married King Louis XIV in 1660. She allegedly said that the French people eat la croûte de pâté” (or the crust of the pâté).
What does Marie Antoinette mean by "queils mangent de la brioche"?
Marie Antoinette is said to have said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” which literally translates to let them eat Brioche.
Who said Marie Antoinette was a sensible woman?
Lady Antonia Fraser, the author of a biography of the French queen, believes the quote would have been highly uncharacteristic of Marie-Antoinette. She states Marie Antoinette was a sensible woman who despite her lavish lifestyle showed sensitivity to her subjects.
Why did Marie Antoinette say "no bread"?
The phrase is commonly misattributed to Marie Antoinette during one of France's famines in the 18th century, though in reality it is ascribed to an unnamed princess in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions in 1765, supposedly in response to being told that the peasants had no bread to eat.
Who is the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma?
Pollan is the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, an irritatingly excellent book. How the upper crust eats: food as a status symbol. It's claimed that when Marie Antoinette was told that her starving subjects were too poor to buy bread, she said, " Let them eat cake .".
Overview
"Let them eat cake" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche", said to have been spoken in the 17th or 18th century by "a great princess" upon being told that the peasants had no bread. The French phrase mentions brioche, a bread enriched with butter and eggs, considered a luxury food. The quote is taken to reflect either the princess's frivolous disrega…
Origins
The phrase appears in book six of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, whose first six books were written in 1765 and published in 1782. In the book, Rousseau recounts an episode in which he was seeking bread to accompany some wine he had stolen. Feeling too elegantly dressed to go into an ordinary bakery, he recalled the words of a "great princess":
At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had …
Similar phrases
The Book of Jin, a 7th-century chronicle of the Chinese Jin Dynasty, reports that when Emperor Hui (259–307) of Western Jin was told that his people were starving because there was no rice, he said, "Why don't they eat porridge with (ground) meat?" (何不食肉糜), showing his unfitness.
In 2016, after an ill-received series of articles were published which suggested that out-of-work Kentucky coalminers should "learn to code" in order to support their families, the same phrase h…
See also
• Noblesse oblige
Notes
a.^ In an earlier 1841 volume of Les Guêpes, a slightly different version of the famous phrase was quoted: "S’il n’y a pas de pain on mangera de la brioche".
Bibliography
• Barker, Nancy N., Let Them Eat Cake: The Mythical Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution, Historian, Summer 1993, 55:4:709.
• Campion-Vincent, Véronique and Shojaei Kawan, Christine, Marie-Antoinette et son célèbre dire : deux scénographies et deux siècles de désordres, trois niveaux de communication et trois modes accusatoires, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 2002, p. 327