So, my dad was over at my house the other day celebrating my daughters' birthdays (yes, twins). We were talking about the birthday cake and he inevitably blurted out Marie Antoinette's famous line, "Let them eat cake!" That, in turn, led to a discussion on the phrase "Let them eat cake!"
Now, both of us understood the general context of what this phrase meant. We both took it as a negative slur that was uttered by a rich person regarding poor people. But neither of us ever really knew the details of the story behind it. Since I have seen the phrase "Let them eat cake!" written here many times, I thought I'd share the story with you. Who knows, maybe some of you are like my dad and I. You understand it but you don't understand it at the same time.
More below...
So, my father thought the story went something like this...
In those days, maybe cake was cheaper to make than bread and so when the peasants couldn't afford bread, Marie Atoinette said, "Let them eat cake!" It's not much of a slur but it is a tad insensitive. Certainly not enough to warrant the reputation this phrase has gotten over the years. Furthermore, I didn't see how this would be possible. To me, cake would have to cost more than bread did. Therefore, cake would be even harder to get than bread, if you were poor.
I had a different take on the saying...
I had thought that Marie Antoinette was making fun of the peasants for celebrating a minor political victory of some kind. Like saying, "Let them eat cake!" was the same as saying, "Let them celebrate their stupid little victory. It matters not."
But that didn't quite fit the context I've always heard it in.
After talking about it for a few minutes, we also came up with another possibility. Perhaps it was about a rich person that was so out of touch with the peasants that she assumed they would have cake when there was no bread. It would be the modern day equivalent of a person that doesn't have health insurance being told to "Just go to the ER." or something along those lines. No bread? Why not eat cake? It sounded like a typical, "out-of-touch-rich-person" kind of response.
Anyway, curiousity got the best of me and so I looked up the story behind "Let them eat cake!"...
Well, after looking it up on several websites, it is clear that the meaning is still up for debate. However, there seems to be almost uniform consensus that Marie Antoinette never actually uttered these words but is mistakenly credited with saying them.
There were many variations on the phrase itself and what it really means. Here are a few...
From wisegeek.com...
According to historical legend, Marie Antoinette's cry of, "Let them eat cake!" was the straw that broke the camel's back during the French Revolution. The story goes that Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, was informed that her subjects were starving because they had no bread. She was so pampered and out of touch with the reality of life for the poor that she responded, "Let them eat cake," which is what she would have done if she were out of bread.
Also from wisegeek...
...but it may have been a rally against the exploitation of the poor, rather than a flippant comment revealing the speaker's ignorance. In 18th century France, bakers were required by law to sell brioche and other fancy breads at the same price as regular bread if the latter was out of stock. Therefore, "let them eat cake" may have meant "do not let the poor starve if plain bread is not available."
One variation on the story (sorry, no link) defined "cake" as a flour/water mixture used in washing clothes. Therefore, "cake" was something not meant for human consumption. So "Let them eat cake" was the same as saying "Let them die!"
I think that most people use the saying in the "out-of-touch-rich-person" kind of way. This was also how the majority of websites that I visited defined it. But, its meaning certainly isn't written in stone.
So, for all this confusion over these four simple words, where did this phrase actually come from?
From phrases.org.uk...
As to the origin of the expression, two notable contemporaries of Marie-Antoinette - Louis XVIII and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, attribute the phrase to a source other than her. In Louis XVIII's memoir Relation d'un voyage a Bruxelles et d Coblentz, 1791, he states that the phrase 'Que ne mangent-ils de la croûte de pâté?' (Why don't they eat pastry?) was used by Marie-Thérèse (1638-83), the wife of Louis XIV. That account was published almost a century after Marie-Thérèse's death though, so it must be treated with some caution.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 12-volume autobiographical work Confessions, was written in 1770. In Book 6, which was written around 1767, he recalls:
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 pastry!"
Marie-Antoinette arrived at Versailles from her native Austria in 1770, two or three years after Rousseau had written the above passage. Whoever the 'great princess' was - possibly Marie-Thérèse, it wasn't Marie-Antoinette.
Her reputation as an indulgent socialite is difficult to shake, but it appears to be unwarranted and is a reminder that history is written by the victors. She was known to have said "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". Nevertheless, the French revolutionaries thought even less of her than we do today and she was guillotined to death in 1793 for the crime of treason.
Perhaps Marie Antoinette wasn't so bad after all. Perhaps we'll never really know the true meaning of the phrase. Perhaps this diary only makes things more confusing. I'll leave such questions and responses up to all of you.
In other words, ...let them throw pie!
UPDATED...
Excellent comment here from Corwin Weber...
As I understand it..... (0+ / 0-)
....the phrase is a mistranslation that she never actually said anyway.
"Let them eat cake" is the English mistranslation, the actual phrase would have been "Let them eat brioche." Brioche is a French sweetened yeast bread, French law at the time was that if the bakeries ran out of regular bread, they had to sell brioche at the same price. This makes the quote still a bit clueless and insensitive, (that she didn't realize that the reason people had no bread was that they couldn't afford it, not that there wasn't any in the stores) but still understandable. (She was deliberately isolated. Let's face it, the French loathed her. They weren't happy about getting a German princess as their queen.)
In addition, she never actually said it in the first place. The quote was jokingly attributed to her by one of her torturers. It stuck.
She's actually a pretty tragic figure if you read the history. Plucked out of her home and sent to a hostile nation to be its queen.... the people loathed her and everything she was... to the point where when she came to France, she was stopped at the border by a party of French women, stripped, and redressed in French clothing.... forbidden to speak German.... etc. Not exactly the happiest life you can imagine. I mean, even to this day she's not even remembered by her given name. (Maria Antionia Josepha Johanna rather than the French version, Marie Antionette.)