Did Marie-Antoinette Say “Let Them Eat Cake”?
Revolutionaries used it as propaganda instead.
During the French Revolution, the revolutionaries associated the famous quote “Let them eat cake” with the then queen of France, Marie-Antoinette. The queen responded, “Let them eat cake,” when she was told the peasants were starving and there was no bread in the country.
The case was that the cakes were more expensive than the pieces of bread. The revolutionaries presented this as an example of the queen’s obliviousness to the pathetic conditions of her subjects.
They also presented her as a dumb-headed and lavish lady who didn’t know if cakes were more expensive than pieces of bread or she had little regard for the daily lives of ordinary people.
Even she was beheaded and killed by revolutionaries, history points to other reasons for her killing. She was not French, as she was the princess of Austria and married the prince of France, heir to the throne. Thus, she became the queen of France.
The revolutionaries hated her because she was foreign and thought that her lavish and extravagant lifestyle had brought economic woes to France. She was held responsible for the financial downfall of France just before the revolution.
During the revolutionary years, xenophobic feelings ran high in the French politics that consumed her too.
Otherwise, she was an honorable lady who loved her subjects and wanted to improve their situations, but it was too late. Reading about her character through her biographer, she was compassionate about her people and couldn’t have said such things.
But the question remains still, did she really say: “Let them eat cake”?
The origin of the phrase “Let them eat cake”
Historians have even argued that the queen said nothing like that. Now another question arises that who said those words, and how were they attributed to Marie-Antoinette?
Historians and folklore scholars have found similar kinds of tales in other cultures, too. Surprisingly, they have collected a 16th-century German story that refers to a similar situation where a noblewoman thinks why the poor eat Krosem (sweet bread) instead of starving?
Essentially, these tales are used with minor variations in cultures across the world to show the rulers or upper-class indifference towards the lives of ordinary people. These stories reveal how aristocrats are blinded by their privileges and are oblivious to the toils of the ordinary person.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher, is considered the first person who has used the similar French phrase “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” in his book Confessions written in 1767. He narrated a similar story and attributed the exact version of the words with a “great princess.”
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.”— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
Although Marie-Antoinette was a princess, she was a child when Rousseau wrote that story. Since Rousseau was the driving force of the revolutionaries, they supposedly picked up this phrase. They labeled it against Marie-Antoinette to use it as propaganda to stir opposition to the monarchy.
Marie-Antoinette was ten years old when Rousseau wrote that phrase. She was also not in France. She was Austrian and married King Louis XVI at the age of 14 in 1770. She became the queen of France when Louis-Auguste ascended the French throne as King Louis XVI.
A similar story is associated with the Spanish princess Marie-Thérèse who was the wife of King Louis XIV in 1660. Historians also believe that Rousseau meant the Spanish princess Marie-Thérèse when he said “the great princess” in his book. However, Rousseau didn’t mention the name of the princess.
Nonetheless, historians and researchers have not found such claims in the pamphlets and newspapers of those times. They also have found no evidence in materials published by revolutionaries that mention it.
Although historians have found a source that connects the story with the queen, the source was published 50 years after the French Revolutions. The French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr said in an 1843 issue of the Les Guêpes, a journal, claimed that the quote was found in a book published in 1760. This also proves that the revolutionaries falsely attributed the quote to queen Marie-Antoinette.
According to Lady Antonia Fraser, the biographer of Queen Marie-Antoinette, the quote is antithetical to the character of the queen. Lady Antonia refers to the queen as the most intelligent and compassionate person who loved her subjects. The queen even donated generously to the poor to uplift their conditions. Despite her privileged and lavish lifestyle, she was sympathetic towards the miserly and poor people of France.
The Book of Jin, a 7th-century chronicle of the Jin Dynasty, China, has also noted a similar story. The book narrates the story of Emperor Hui (259–307) of the Jin Dynasty that, one day, someone informed him that his people were starving because there was no rice in the country. He replied that “Why don’t they eat porridge with (ground) meat?”
Another similar version of the story is told in folklore in South Asian countries. I have also heard a similar story from my grandfather, who said that his grandfather told him that story. So, I believe this story has been coming down to us through folklore, and grandparents told it to their grandchildren, and the story goes on in all the cultures.
