Let them Eat Cake!

While this popular statement is always credited to Marie Antoinette the fact of the matter is, she didn’t say it at all!  Well what did she say to be accused of telling the starving populous to eat cake?  Why nothing other then being the target of a angry public in a unstable time in France’s history.   Marie Antoinette was known to spend her fair share of money, and some.  But what the public didn’t take in count was her passionless marriage for the first 7 years she was married to ole King Lois.   Where the lack of her husbands intimate attention left emptiness, Marie Antoinette consumed with clothes, jewels and gambling.    These were readily available to her, and honestly at her young age, not many would have said no.

Despite the public’s dislike for the Queen from Austria, Marie Antoinette had participated in many charitable deeds in her short lifespan.  Along with her husband, Marie Antoinette was a lifelong patron of Maison Philanthrophique, which was established by Louis XVI to help the old, blind and widowed.  Marie Antoinette also started a home for unwed mothers and adopted 3 children and raised them as her very own.  She oversaw the upbringing and education of several other children and provided for their families.

While times were tough, Marie Antoinette cut her spending spending habits to provide more for the people of France.  The family sold items such as flatware to buy grain for the starving public, it is also said the family ate barley bread which was cheaper in order to conserve funds.

Now where did the saying “Let them eat cake!” come from if Marie Antoinette didn’t utter them?  Well there is a great wiki article on this very subject.   The statement first appears in the autobiographical  The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau where Rousseau says:

« 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. J’achetai de la brioche. »

“Finally I recalled the worst-recourse of a great princess to whom one said that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: “Let them eat brioche…”

Now, who this great princess is, Rousseau never divulges to his reader. Moreover, Rousseau was also known to tell half truths to embellish his life tales.

Now while Let them Eat Cake! was one of the factors that lead to Marie Antoinette death, we can now safely say these words were never uttered from her lips.   She was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, a Queen from Austria that the French public didn’t seem to truly appreciate.   While writing and learning were not her strong points, she was a gentle soul with a kind heart who was sent as a young Archduchess of Austria to marry a Prince of France in order to smooth relations between the two countries.   But one thing is for certain, she will remain a prominent fixture in history and inspiration for many for a long time to come.