"Let them eat cake" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche",[1] said to have been spoken in the 18th century by "a great princess" upon being told that the peasants had no bread.
Although anti-monarchists never cited the anecdote during the French Revolution, it acquired great symbolic importance in subsequent historical accounts when pro-revolutionary commentators employed the phrase to denounce the upper classes of the Ancien Régime as oblivious and rapacious.
During her marriage to Louis XVI, her critics often cited her perceived frivolousness and very real extravagance as factors that significantly worsened France's dire financial straits.
[12][Note a] Objections to the legend of Marie Antoinette and the comment centre on arguments concerning the Queen's personality, internal evidence from members of the French royal family and the date of the saying's origin.
Fraser also points out in her biography that Marie Antoinette was a generous patron of charity and moved by the plight of the poor when it was brought to her attention, thus making the statement out of character for her.
A second consideration is that there were no actual famines during the reign of Louis XVI and only two incidents of serious bread shortages, the first in April–May 1775, a few weeks before the king's coronation on 11 June 1775, and the second in 1788, the year before the French Revolution.
The 1775 shortages led to a series of riots that took place in northern, eastern and western France, known at the time as the Flour War (guerre des farines).
Letters from Marie Antoinette to her family in Austria at this time reveal an attitude largely contrary to the spirit of Let them eat brioche:[14] 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.