The phrase is commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, but there is no reliable record of her having said it. The original French phrase refers not to cake but brioche, a bread enriched with butter and eggs. There were no actual famines during the reign of King Louis XVI.
About Let them eat cake in brief
The phrase is commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, but there is no reliable record of her having said it. The original French phrase refers not to cake but brioche, a bread enriched with butter and eggs, considered a luxury food at the time. The phrase 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. There were no actual famines during the reign of King Louis XVI and only two incidents of serious bread shortages, the first in April–May 1775, a few weeks before the king’s coronation on 11 June 1775.
The Queen’s English-language biographer wrote in 2002: was said 100 years before her by Marie-Thérèse, the wife of Louis XIV. It was a callous and ignorant statement and she, Marie Antoisette, was neither. It is quite certain that in seeing us so well despite our own misfortune, we are more obliged to treat people who work hard for their happiness. The King seems to understand this truth, but it seems to me that he does not understand the truth at all. Since she was not only too young to have said it, but living outside France as well as in Austria, she would not arrive at Versailles with the phrase completely unknown until 70.
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This page is based on the article Let them eat cake published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 24, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
