Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - "Let Them Eat Cake"

Starting point is 00:00:00 Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France prior to the French Revolution. She and her husband Louis XVIth were executed by guillotine during the reign of terror which soon followed. Over the years, she has been vilified as a woman who was out of touch with the common folk and was famously reported to have said that if the French people couldn't eat bread, then let them eat cake. But was she really that bad, and did she really tell her subjects to eat cake? Learn more about Marie Antoinette, and if in fact she recommended cake eating, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

Starting point is 00:00:54 It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. I don't think Marie Antoinette can really be neatly put into the box of either victim or villain. There were things she did that certainly cannot be justified, but at the same time, she was almost certainly treated unjustly. Originally named Maria Antonia, she was born into a life of extreme privilege as the youngest daughter of the Empress Maria Teresa and Emperor Francis I of Austria in 1755. She was raised in the Hofberg and Schoenberg palaces, along with her older sister of three years, Carolina. She was tutored in all of the subjects expected of a young duchess.

Starting point is 00:01:40 reportedly she was not very good at writing and couldn't converse well in Italian or French. However, she excelled at music. She could play the harp, harpsichord, and flute, and was also considered an excellent singer and dancer. She had a very strained relationship with her mother, who never showed her any affection. She always claimed that she feared her mother more than loved her. As far as Empress Maria Teresa was concerned, her daughters were there to be married off and used as political pawns with other royal houses of Europe. And that is exactly what happened to young Marie in 1779 when at the age of 14 she was placed into an arranged marriage with the French Dauphin Louis Auguste. In FYI, Dauphin is just the French term for the crown prince or next in line to the French throne. Her wedding wasn't even a real wedding.

Starting point is 00:02:26 She was married by proxy. And if you aren't familiar with a marriage by proxy, it's when one or both of the parties aren't present for the wedding ceremony. If both parties aren't present, it's known as a double proxy wedding. And just another FYI, proxy marriages are actually still legal in some U.S. states, and a double proxy marriage is still legal in Montana. Four years later, King Louis XVIth of France died, and the young Louis ascended to the French throne as Louis XVIth. And the 18-year-old, now known in French as Marie Antoinette, became queen.

Starting point is 00:02:59 While she was queen, she wasn't held in very high esteem by the royal court, because she hadn't done the one thing that queens are supposed to do, produce an heir. She finally had a daughter named Marie-Therese after eight years of marriage, and then they proceeded to have three more children, including two boys. At first, Marie was popular with the common people. She managed to sway the French people with her first public appearance in Paris in 1773. However, she wasn't nearly as popular with the royal court and the French elite. The fact that she was Austrian rubbed many people the wrong way.

Starting point is 00:03:30 She also became the victim of rumors and petty jealousies with several women at court. Eventually, her popularity amongst the French people waned. While France was in the middle of an economic crisis, she continued to spend lavishly on clothing, parties, and gambling, even though the common people were suffering. In 1775, riots broke out around the country in an event known as the Flower War over the sharp rise in wheat, flour, and bread prices. People began to put the blame for the problems of France on her personally. France supposedly couldn't pay its debts because of her extravagant spending. She was also perceived to support Austria over France.

Starting point is 00:04:07 To be fair, her spending was out of control, and her mother even commented on it to her in private letters. Over time, she eventually became more involved in politics. She was eventually implicated in a scandal known as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. She was accused of defrauding the Royal Jewelers for a Diamond Necklace she had commissioned. It was yet another thing that led to the disillusionment of the French people with the monarchy. And now I'm really jumping ahead here and leaving a lot out, but in 1791, her and her husband were arrested and the monarchy was abolished in 1792. And on January 15, 1793, the king was executed by guillotine. In October of that year, Marie was put on trial. Most of the

Starting point is 00:04:45 things that she was charged with were rather outrageous and was mostly a show trial with the outcome predetermined before it began. She was only given one day to put together a defense. She was accused of a host of crimes, including rather ludicrous ones, such as engaging in incest with her son. Unsurprisingly, she was found guilty of depleting the National Treasury by giving money to Austria, conspiracy against the state's security, and high treason. She was sentenced to death. On October 16, 1793, she was beheaded in a public execution, wearing a plain white dress with her hair shorn. Marie Antoinette is a fascinating character, and probably worth a more full treatment at some point in the future. But in this episode, I want to focus

Starting point is 00:05:26 on the famous words attributed to her. Let them eat cake. Supposedly, in 1789, during a famine that had ravaged France, she was told that the poor couldn't afford to eat bread, and in response, she said, well, then let them eat cake. It's a story that demonstrates

Starting point is 00:05:43 just how out of touch she supposedly was with the common people. But is it true? Did she actually say that? The short answer is, no, there is no evidence that she ever said it or anything like it. To be sure, the reason why she is attributed to having said it is because it seems like something that she probably would have said.

Starting point is 00:06:03 Nonetheless, there was nothing during the entire life of Marie Antoinette where she was even accused of having said this. The first recorded case of her being attributed with having said this was by the novelist Alphonse Carr in 1843, almost 50 years after she was executed. So, if she didn't say it, who did? The earliest version of Let Them Eat Cake actually comes from the 7th century Jin Dynasty in China. Supposedly, the Emperor of Wei was told that there was no rice for peasants to eat, and in response he said, quote, Why don't they eat porridge with ground meat?

Starting point is 00:06:39 This complete lack of empathy and understanding showed him to be an unfit emperor. Now, it's highly unlikely that a statement by a 7th century Chinese emperor made its way to 18th century France. The origin of the quote almost certainly comes from an 18th century book by the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. In 1782, he published his book Confessions. And in it, there is a passage that is strikingly similar to what is attributed to Marie Antoinette. He wrote about a time when he felt he was too well dressed to go into an ordinary neighborhood bakery. He said, quote,

Starting point is 00:07:14 Finally, I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the presents had no bread. And who responded, let them eat brioche, end quote. There are several things about this quote that need to be unpacked. The first of which is that while it was published in 1782, it was written in 1665, when Marie was only nine years old and hadn't even been to France or met her future husband. So the great princess he was referring to could not have been Marie Antoinette. Moreover, the famine in 1789, which supposedly marked her making the statement, never occurred.

Starting point is 00:07:50 The closest thing would have been the riots during the flower war, which was more about rising prices than mass starvation. Second, he referred to brioche and not cake. This might sound like a minor point, but it does add some subtlety to the quote. Cake is nothing like bread. While they're both made out of flour and wheat, they're very different things. Brioch, however, is very similar to bread. It's pretty much made the exact same way bread is,

Starting point is 00:08:15 except it contains more eggs and butter. This makes it much richer and flakier than, regular bread. The difference between bread and brioche is much smaller than the difference between bread and cake. And if anything, it would make whoever originally said it even more detached from regular people. That being said, if Marie Antoinette didn't say it, who did? Who was the great princess that Rousseau was referring to? One possibility was Maria Teresa of Spain, who was the Queen of France about 100 years before Marie Antoinette. Other possibilities include Louis XIV's who could be Princess Sophie or Princess Victoire.

Starting point is 00:08:51 There is yet another possibility as well. There was no great princess. It was just something Rousseau made up to embellish his story. Regardless of who actually said it, it is something that is probably going to be stuck with Marie Antoinette for the rest of time. Was she the greatest queen? No. Was she unjustly executed?

Starting point is 00:09:11 I'd say yes. But regardless of what you think of Marie Antoinette, You can be certain that she never told her subjects to eat cake. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thornton and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who is supporting the show over at patreon.com. I have show merchandise available there, including hoodies, t-shirts, and stickers.

Starting point is 00:09:40 Plus, it really just helps me get this show out every single day, including, of course, weekends and holidays. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boost to, You too can have it read on the show. This is the biggest house I've ever seen. It's the Palace of Versailles, home of Marie Antoinette. You know, she was mostly famous for one thing. Cake! I love cakes, a lot.

Starting point is 00:10:05 Marie Antoinette sure likes cake, Mr. Peabody. Indeed, she does. Marie was a woman with a prodigious appetite for all things covered with frosting. But her expensive tastes made her the target of much criticism.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - "Let Them Eat Cake"

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.