What is "let them eat cake"?
According to legend, Marie Antoinette said this when she was told that the French peasantry were starving with no bread to eat. She was queen of France on the eve of the French Revolution when the French nobility were enjoying the best of luxuries and the common people had nothing. The quote represents how clueless and indifferent the French aristocracy was to the plight of the common people at the time. (Doesn't really matter if she said it or not.)
"Let them eat cake."?
1. Supposedly, French noblewoman Marie Antoinette. 2. The peasants were rebelling, partly because the nobles took everything of value for themselves. They were starving. Marie was told that the peasants had no bread, and she reportedly made her famous remark. 3. It means that she was so out of touch with the lives of the people that since she saw no poverty, she couldn't conceive that there was any, despite the opulence of her own life. She believed that her live of privilege came at no cost.
How was "Let them eat cake" an insult?
It wasn't an insult. In France, there used to be a law that if you went to buy bread and the baker didn't have any, he had to sell you brioche (which is translated "cake", although really it's more like "higher-quality bread") at the same price as the bread you came to buy. So, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that when Marie Antoinette heard "the peasants have no bread," she said "let them eat the brioche." He wasn't saying that she was being insulting - just that she was being a moron. The problem wasn't that the bakery had run out of bread. The problem was that the peasants had no money to buy bread with. He was using it as an example of how the royalty was so out of touch with reality they didn't even truly understand what poverty *was*. But, Jean-Jacques Rousseau made the whole thing up. There's no historical record of Marie Antoinette ever making that mistake. And, the quote was part of what sent her off to the guillotine. So, Rousseau kind of libeled her in about the most harmful way possible, honestly.
Who said let them eat cake?
I copied this from Wikipedia: I recall reading the same in the past.The phrase is commonly misattributed to Marie Antoinette"Let them eat cake" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche", supposedly spoken by "a great princess" upon learning that the peasants had no bread. Since brioche was a luxury bread enriched with butter and eggs, the quote would reflect the princess's disregard for the peasants, or her poor understanding of their situation.While the phrase is commonly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette,[1]there is no record of her having said it. It appears in book six of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, his autobiography (whose first six books were written in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was nine years of age, and published in 1782). The context of Rousseau's account was his desire to have some bread to accompany some wine he had stolen; however, feeling he was too elegantly dressed to go into an ordinary bakery, he recalled the words of a "great princess":Rousseau does not name the "great princess" and he may have invented the anecdote, as Confessions cannot be read as strictly factual.[3]
What does "Let them eat cake" mean?
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. Marie Antoinette was convicted of treason and executed in 1793, months after her husband, King Louis XVI, had suffered the same fate.
Let them eat cake meaning?
Three things: First things first, she did not say 'Let them eat cake", the french word for cake is gateau. The citation given is "S’ils n’ont pas de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche." It means 'If they do not have bread, let them eat brioche." Brioche is a type of pastry, not a cake. I assume the quote refers to more fancy (meaning sugary) type of brioche. Secondly, the citation is from Jean Jacques Rousseau, which means that the citation given above is fictitious or at the very least, should be taken with a grain of salt. Lastly, the quote was meant to emphasize that the queen was totally oblivious to the situation in France. The lower class were heavily taxed and by the revolution, they could not afford bread anymore (bread is usually cheap, when the price of bread rises, that is when you know you have a problem. Rome and Soviet Russia also experienced such problems). Unable to afford one of the mos basic needs, the French peasants revolted. Marie-Antoinette would them have said that if they can't eat bread, why don't they just eat brioches, as if it was cheaper or a substitute for food for that matter. Now it is to note that the queen was not exactly popular. Some revolutionaries had read the Enlightenment philosophical work and surprise surprise Jean Jacques Rousseau was a Enlightenment Era philosopher, so the quote was borrowed so it could be attributed to an unpopular queen in order to demonize the aristocracy.
What is the modern "let them eat cake" phrase?
There is doubt whether or not Queen Marie Antoinette actually said those words, but it was “the sort of thing a person like like might say”, so was generally accepted as a quote by the french revolutionaries.A couple of examples from UK politics. First, when British Prime Minister James “Sunny Jim” Callaghan returned from overseas, his dismissal of reporters’ questions about “The Crisis” was summed up in the newspaper headlines as “Crisis? What Crisis?”. It is like an apocryphal cross between “Let them eat cake” and Admiral Nelson’s “I see no ships” (or “ “I really do not see the signal.” when ordered to retreat).A more recent one - a Conservative Peer, Lady Jenkin, dismissed stories of poor people needing food banks by saying that “ Poor people do not know how to cook”, before helpfully adding “ I had a large bowl of porridge today, which cost 4p. A large bowl of sugary cereals will cost you 25p.”So, “Let them eat porridge”, or very close.Tory peer forced to eat her words after claiming poor people can’t cook
What is the meaning to "let them eat cake"?
"Let them eat cake" is a misquote from Marie Antoinette... she never said it, but don't let that stand in the way of a good story!According to the myth, Marie Antoinette, rich, royal and wanting for nothing, was told "but the people have no bread!" (eg, they are starving) and the response was "then let them eat cake"... eg, well, if you are out of bread, eat something else.... but the reason the quote was popular was because it was an illustration of how detached and clueless the ruling class was from the suffering, poverty and deprivation of the people. During the French Revolution, that was exactly how the people felt their monarchy behaved."Let them eat cake" thus means "the person making that statement is a snob who hasn't got a clue about real life". It's kind of like when a famous for being famous hotel heiress said, when told that some staff had not been paid, said "well, they are gonna have to dip into their trust funds!"Edit: In French, the quote refers not to “cake” but to brioche. Brioche was then and is now a fine baked item. The term “cake” is meant in the English speaking sense of a sweet baked item. It’s not meant in the terms of the crust for dogs… that translation is not put forth in any of the accounts I could find. It’s also inconsistent with the intention of the false quote, where insensitivity to poverty was illustrated. For MA to be accused of saying let them eat crusts wouldn’t have raised indignance as much as her making a statement about eating cake that showed a complete lack of awareness of the state of her people.
Why is "let them eat cake" offensive?
Alright, so it seems to be one of two things here, and instead of cake and bread let's make this about meat. If the peasants say "we have no ground beef!" then Marie could say one of two things: Option 1 Marie: "Let them eat Filet Mignon!" (a very high quality meat product) Option 2 Marie: "Let them eat Pink Slime!" (a very low quality meat product) Option 1 makes her look completely out of touch as she does not understand that filet mignon is much more expensive than ground beef, but since she is a noble she is never bothered by matters of money. Option 2 would make more sense to me, as she is now showing that she simply doesn't care about the quality of their food. She could have just as easily said "let them eat dirt" to show her contempt. Would you say the phrase "let them eat cake" is like Option 1 or like Option 2?