34:
43:
163:. But it was not attributed to her until half a century later. 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
176:
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
304:
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. The myth had also been
236:
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
169:
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
240:
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.
295:
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. Since she was completely unknown to him at the time of writing, she could not have possibly been the "great princess" he mentioned.
196:
printed stories and articles vilifying her family and their courtiers with exaggerations, fictitious anecdotes, and outright lies. In the tempestuous political climate, it would have been a natural slander to put the famous words into the mouth of the widely scorned queen.
133:, whose first six books were written in 1765 and published in 1782. 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":
290:
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
211:
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
699:
Campion-Vincent, Véronique & Shojaei Kawan, Christine, "Marie-Antoinette et son célèbre dire : deux scénographies et deux siècles de désordres, trois niveaux de communication et trois modes accusatoires",
185:
were beginning to exert major influence in national politics. While the causes of France's economic woes extended far beyond the royal family's spending, anti-monarchist polemics demonized Marie
Antoinette as
98:, a bread enriched with butter and eggs, considered a luxury food. The quote is taken to reflect either the princess's frivolous disregard for the starving peasants or her poor understanding of their plight.
279:
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.
115:, and when Marie Antoinette was nine years old and had never been to France. The quote was only attributed to her decades after her death, and historians do not believe that she said it.
572:
Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d'une grande princesse à qui l'on disait que les paysans n'avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.
173:
Rousseau's first six books were written in 1765, when Marie
Antoinette was nine years of age, and published when she was 26, eight years after she became queen.
852:
Marie-Antoinette et son célèbre dire : deux scénographies et deux siècles de désordres, trois niveaux de communication et trois modes accusatoires
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significantly worsened France's dire financial straits. Her
Austrian birth and her sex also diminished her credibility further in a country where
137:
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."
94:, although there is no evidence that she ever uttered it, and it is now generally regarded as a journalistic cliché. The French phrase mentions
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901:
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The phrase was supposedly said by Marie Antoinette in 1789, during one of the famines in France during the reign of her husband,
260:. The 1775 shortages led to a series of riots that took place in northern, eastern and western France, known at the time as the
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The 'facts' he so frankly admits often emerge, in the light of modern scholarship, to be inaccurate, distorted or non-existent.
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Lanser, Susan S. (2003). "Eating Cake: The (Ab)uses of Marie-Antoinette". In Goodman, Dena; Kaiser, Thomas E. (eds.).
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and only two incidents of serious bread shortages, the first in April–May 1775, a few weeks before the king's
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was told that his people were starving because there was no rice, he said, "Why don't they eat porridge with
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Rousseau does not name the "great princess", and he may have invented the anecdote altogether, as the
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had his recollection affected by the quick spreading and distorting of Rousseau's original remark.
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Let Them Eat Cake: The Mythical Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution
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had no bread. "Let them eat cake" is often conventionally attributed to
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attributes the quote to one of Marie Antoinette's favourites, the
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The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette
190:, who had single-handedly ruined France's finances. These
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Campion-Vincent, VĂ©ronique and Shojaei Kawan, Christine,
733:(in French). Vol. 1. Nabu Press. 2012. p. 91.
66:(right), although there is no evidence that she said it.
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Tian Chi, quoted in Joshua A. Fogel, Peter Gue Zarrow,
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Rousseau (trans. Angela Scholar), Jean-Jacques (2000).
76:" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "
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This article is about the phrase. For other uses, see
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A second consideration is that there were no actual
268:). Letters from Marie Antoinette to her family in
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16:Quote traditionally attributed to Marie Antoinette
831:"S’il n’y a pas de pain on mangera de la brioche"
534:Marie Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen
200:The phrase was attributed to Marie Antoinette by
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643:This historical phenomenon is fully explored in
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856:Annales historiques de la Révolution française
702:Annales historiques de la Révolution française
256:, and the second in 1788, the year before the
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429:harvnb error: no target: CITEREFFraser2001 (
404:. University Press of America. p. 127.
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504:Marie-Antoinette: The Last Queen of France
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362:?" (何不食肉糜), showing his unfitness.
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142:Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
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823:In an earlier 1841 volume of
623:Marie Antoinette: The Journey
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398:Booth, Trudie Maria (2005).
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320:In his 1853 novel
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293:Confessions
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230:Louis XVIII
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130:Confessions
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866:Categories
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475:xviii, 160
437:Lever 2006
385:References
322:Ange Pitou
206:Les GuĂŞpes
183:chauvinism
179:xenophobia
706:full text
625:, p. 124.
538:Routledge
262:Flour War
250:Louis XVI
226:Louis XIV
805:, p. 173
797:, 1997,
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716:Fraser,
704:, 2002,
666:(2001).
467:(2002).
366:See also
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283:—
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270:Austria
246:famines
119:Origins
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
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