LET THEM EAT CAKE! We've all heard it. But who really SAID it?

Fun Fact of the Day: Let Them Eat Cake!

        Marie Antoinette. Perhaps the most famous thing she ever did was lose her head. The most famous thing she ever said? "qu'ils mangent de la brioche", loose translation? "Let them eat cake." in response to the peasants complaining there wasn't enough bread to go around. But as it turns out, it was the most famous thing she NEVER said.

        It would have been out of character for a woman like Marie Antoinette, known for her compassion and kind-hearted nature, to say such a callous thing. After all, there are witness accounts of her helping a gored man, feeding the emaciated destitute, and even taking in an orphaned child! So why would historians say she uttered this phrase?

         France was on the verge of revolution and Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI (16th) had no shortage of enemies. Why not propagandize the woman? After all, its hard to hate an orphan loving homeless helping queen, but not so hard if you paint her cruel and insensitive to the needs of the people. The myth has been debunked by many historians now, the phrase was said, but most likely, not by her.

        The quote is actually attributed the Jean-Jacques Rousseau's treatise "Confessions" in the 18th century. Another working theory is that it may have been the wife of King Louis the XIV (14th), Maria Theresa, who actually did have it in her heart to say these words about the starving.

        However it is more believable that the phrase had nothing to do with either woman and is in fact straight from Jean-Jacques. The reason you ask? Confessions, as unreliable as an autobiography as it was, was written in 1765. Marie Antoinette would have been a mere 9 years of age. That would be pretty incredible for an adolescent? In the book the context of the anecdote was he wanted bread with his stolen wine, it had no political or social implications whatsoever.

        The phrase, spoken originally in French (obviously), also doesn't mean, let them eat cake, it actually means, "Let them eat an expensive, eggy-based luxury bread." called brioche, but admit it, "Let them eat cake." just sounds way better.