" Let them eat cakes " is a traditional translation of the French phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche ", which should be pronounced by "a great princess" after knowing that the farmer is not have bread. Since the brioche is a fortified bread enriched with butter and eggs, the quote will reflect the princess's displeasure with the peasants, or his poor understanding of their situation.
Although this phrase is often associated with Queen Marie Antoinette, there is no record that she has said it. It appears in the sixth book of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Confessions , his autobiography (whose first six books were written in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was nine years old, and published in 1782). The context of Rousseau's account was his desire to have bread to accompany the wine he stole; However, feeling he was too dressed elegantly to go to a regular bakery, he recalled the words of a "great princess":
Finally I remembered the last attempt of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied, "Then let them eat brioches."
Rousseau did not name the "great princess" and he may have found the anecdote, because Confessions can not be read as a fact.
Video Let them eat cake
Attribution
The quote, as attributed to Marie Antoinette, is claimed to have been pronounced during one of the famine that occurred in France during the reign of her husband, Louis XVI. After being told that people were suffering from widespread bread shortages, the Queen was said to have replied, "Then let them eat brioche." Although this anecdote was never quoted by the opponents of the monarchy during the French Revolution, this anecdote gained great symbolic significance in later histories as pro-revolutionary historians sought to demonstrate the ignorance and selfishness of the upper classes of France at the time. As one queen biographer wrote, it is a very useful phrase to quote because "the staple food of the French peasantry and the working class is bread, absorbing 50 percent of their income, compared with 5 percent of the fuel; the whole bread topics are the result of the national interest of obsession. "
However, there is no evidence that Queen Marie Antoinette ever uttered this sentence. It was first attributed to him by Alphonse Karr at Les GuÃÆ'ªpes in March 1843. Other objections to the legend of Marie Antoinette and the cake/brioche commentary center on arguments about the queen's personality, internal evidence from members of the French royal family and date of origin the saying goes. For example, the English biographer Ratu, Antonia Fraser, wrote in 2002:
[Let them eat the cake] it is said 100 years before he was by Marie-ThÃÆ'Ã… © rÃÆ'¨se, wife of Louis XIV. It was an unfeeling and stupid statement and he, Marie Antoinette, did not.
Attribution also has little credibility. Fraser cites as a justification for alternative attribution for Louis XIV's wife memoir Louis XVIII, who was only fourteen when Rousseau Confessions was written and his own memoirs were published later. He did not mention Marie Antoinette in his account, but declared that the adage was an old legend, and that within the family always believed that the saying belonged to a Spanish princess who married Louis XIV in the 1660s. Thus, Louis XVIII is as likely as any other because his memory is affected by the rapid spread and distortion of Rousseau's original speech.
Fraser points out in his biography that Marie Antoinette is a generous benefactor of philanthropy and is moved by the plight of the poor when it is brought to his attention, thus making the statement incompatible with his character. This does not allow Marie Antoinette to ever say this.
The second point is that there was no real hunger during the reign of King Louis XVI and only two serious incidents of bread shortage occurred, first, in April-May 1775, a few weeks before the coronation of the king (11 June 1775), and again in 1788, years before the French Revolution. The shortage of 1775 led to a series of unrest, known as the Flour War, la guerre des farines , a name given at the time of the occurrence, occurring in the north, east and west of France. Letter from Marie Antoinette to her family in Austria at the moment expresses a very different attitude to mentally Let them eat cake .
It is certain that in seeing people who treat us well even though they are unfortunate, we are more obliged to work hard for their happiness. The king seems to understand this truth.
There are further problems with attribution dates, where Marie Antoinette is not only too young but also outside France when it is written. Although only published in 1782, Rousseau Confessions was completed in 1769. Marie Antoinette, 14 years old, did not arrive at Versailles from Austria until 1770. She was unknown at the time of writing her work so she could not be a "big princess "mentioned by Rousseau.
While investigating how this phrase is associated with Marie Antoinette, it is important to understand the increasing unpopularity of the Queen in the last years before the breakup of the French Revolution. During his marriage to Louis XVI, his perceived doubts and his very real luxuries were often referred to as factors that only exacerbated France's financial difficulties. Austrian birth and sex are also a major factor in a country where xenophobia and chauvinism begin to play a major part in national politics. In fact, many anti-monarchists are so convinced (though incorrectly) that Marie Antoinette has destroyed France's own finances dubbed Madame DÃ © f ficit . In addition, the anti-royal print tales of libellistes are printed and articles that attack the royal family and their servants with exaggerations, fictitious events, and lies. Therefore, with the strong sentiments of discontent and anger against the King and Queen, it is quite possible that a disgruntled individual makes a scenario and puts the words into the mouth of Marie Antoinette.
Another hypothesis is that after the revolution, the phrase was attributed to princesses of the French royal family, and that the legend attached to Marie Antoinette because she was, in effect, the last "great princess" of Versailles. The myth, for example, was previously associated with two Louis XV daughters: Madame Sophie and Madame Victoire.
In his novel Maps Let them eat cake
Similar phrases
The Book of the Jin , a 7th century Chinese Jin Dynasty, reported that when Emperor Hui (259-307) of the Western Jin was told that his people were starving because there was no rice, he said, "Why they do not eat meat (ground)? " (?????), as part of showing how incompetent he is.
References
Bibliography
- Barker, Nancy N., Let Them Eat The Cake: The Mythical Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution , Historian, Summer 1993, 55: 4: 709.
- Campion-Vincent, VÃÆ' © ronique and Shojaei Comrade, Christine, Marie-Antoinette and son cÃÆ'Ã… © lÃÆ'¨bre direÃ,: deux scÃÆ' Â © nography and deux siÃÆ'¨cles de dÃÆ' Â © sordres, trois niveaux de communication et mode trois accusatoires , Annales historiques de la RÃÆ' Â © volution franÃÆ'§aise , 2002, p.Ã, 327
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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