Pilots: Marie Antoinette Never Said Let Them Eat Cake

Marie Antoinette never said it.

In Confessions, Book VI, written around 1765 and printed in 1782, Rousseau recalls a “great princess” saying “qu’ils mangent de la brioche.” Brioche is enriched bread; cake is the English rendering. Marie Antoinette was nine and in Vienna in 1765, and did not reach France until 1770. Nobody put the line in her mouth in print until after her death; in 1843 Alphonse Karr pointed out that the story was older than she was. It stuck to the queen whose crowd came to Versailles for bread on 5 October 1789. Her own letter to her mother after the 1775 coronation says the opposite: “It is certain that when people who are suffering treat us so well, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness.”

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