This article is about the phrase. Let them eat cake” is commonly, although queen cake, attributed to Marie Antoinette.
While the phrase is commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, it is prior to the French Revolution, meaning that it is impossible for the quote to have originated from Marie, and she most likely never said it, either. 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. At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: “Then let them eat brioches. Rousseau does not name the “great princess”, and he may have invented the anecdote, as the Confessions is not considered entirely factual. The phrase was supposedly said by Marie Antoinette in 1789, during one of the famines in France during the reign of her husband, King Louis XVI. But it was not attributed to her until half a century later.
Rousseau’s first six books were written in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was nine years of age, and published when she was 26, 8 years after she became queen. The increasing unpopularity of Marie Antoinette in the final years before the outbreak of the French Revolution also likely influenced many to attribute the phrase to her. During her marriage to Louis XVI, her critics often cited her perceived frivolousness and very real extravagance as factors that significantly worsened France’s dire financial straits. The phrase was attributed to Marie Antoinette by Alphonse Karr in Les Guêpes of March 1843. 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. Fraser also points out in her biography that Marie Antoinette was a generous patron of charity and moved by the plight of the poor when it was brought to her attention, thus making the statement out of character for her. This makes it even more unlikely that Marie Antoinette ever said the phrase.
May 1775, a few weeks before the king’s coronation on 11 June 1775, and the second in 1788, the year before the French Revolution. It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness. The King seems to understand this truth. Another problem with the dates surrounding the attribution is that when the phrase first appeared, Marie Antoinette was not only too young to have said it, but living outside France as well. Although published in 1782, Rousseau’s Confessions were finished thirteen years prior in 1769. Marie Antoinette, only fourteen years old at the time, would not arrive at Versailles from Austria until 1770.
Another hypothesis is that after the revolution, the phrase, which was initially attributed to a great variety of princesses of the French royal family, eventually stuck on Marie Antoinette because she was in effect the last and best-remembered “great princess” of Versailles. In his 1853 novel Ange Pitou, Alexandre Dumas attributes the quote to one of Marie Antoinette’s favourites, the Duchess of Polignac. 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 has been used repeatedly in cynical repudiation and harassment against journalists who likewise find themselves out of work or are perceived as being out of touch or lacking in journalistic integrity. Marie-Antoinette: The Last Queen of France. Marie Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen. Lady Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. This historical phenomenon is fully explored in Hunt, Lynn, ed.
The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette. Tian Chi, quoted in Joshua A. From Coal To Code: A New Path For Laid-Off Miners In Kentucky”. 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”. 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. Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives.
In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions. WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find. In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Marie-Antoinette, the queen of France during the French Revolution.