Let them eat cake

For other uses, see [[:the phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette]].

"Let them eat cake" is the traditional but incorrect translation of the French phrase "qu'ils mangent de la brioche." Brioche is actually a type of egg bread enriched with a large proportion of butter, rather than any type of dessert or confection. While commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, the oldest source that anyone has found is The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. English biographer and author of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, Antonia Fraser, states:

"[Let them eat cake] was said 100 years before her by Marie-Therese, the wife of Louis XIV. It was a callous and ignorant statement and she [Marie Antoinette] was neither."

Others have pointed out that there is no record of these words ever having been spoken, but rather that in his autobiographical work, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote the following in Book 6:

"At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, "Then let them eat brioche!" Rousseau does not name the "princess" and since he frequently made things up, this story is also probably his own invention."

Fraser, however, provides no source or any other reason for believing in this attribution either. The quote, as attributed to Antoinette, was claimed to have been uttered during one of the famines that occurred in France during the reign of her and her husband, Louis XVI. Upon being alerted that her people were suffering due to widespread bread shortages, she is said to have replied, "Then let them eat brioche." This type of callousness on the part of the monarchy is often referred to when studying the possible factors that may have led to the French Revolution.

On the contrary, Marie Antoinette arrived at Versailles from Austria in 1770, three years after Rousseau had written the passage above; so if there ever actually was a "great princess", it is certain that it was not Marie Antoinette.

One factor that is important to understand when studying how this phrase came to be attributed to Marie Antoinette is the increasing unpopularity of the monarchy as the eve of the French Revolution approached. From the beginning of his reign, Louis XVI was seen as ineffective, uninformed and naive, while Marie Antoinette's frivolity and extravagance were seen as factors that only worsened France's impending economic recession. In fact, the public was so convinced that it was Antoinette who had single-handedly ruined France's finances that they gave her the nickname "Madame Déficit." In addition, Libelles often printed stories and articles that attacked the royals. They often included exaggerations, fictitious events and complete lies. Therefore, with such strong sentiments of dissatisfaction and anger towards the king and queen, it is quite possible that a discontented individual fabricated the scenario in which Marie Antoinette used the now infamous phrase.