Let them eat cake vs. Let them eat cake

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, it also helps if one remembers that the idea of journalistic impartiality was only invented by the start of the 20'th century. (And then promptly twisted into an even bigger aberration, but I digress.) Before that, libel if you could get away with it, was just _normal_. Piling up every single infamy you can upon one's opponents was just normal.

A trivial example is the accusation of child sacrifice against Carthage by the Romans, which persists in spite of any lack of actual evidence that the any child skeleton found was actually killed as opposed to, say, the high infant mortality at the time. While we can't actually rule it out with certainty, there's a good case to be made for its being just propaganda. Especially since the accusation only starts appearing when Rome becomes a bitter enemy of Carthage, but nobody seems to mention it before, when Rome was trading and even making mutual defense treaties with Carthage.

But it's not just an ancient thing, it's something that would still be par for the course as late as most of the 19'th century.

Europe even had a long tradition of pamphlets and invented quotes signed in the name of one's opponents, to show how dumb or immoral they are. Probably the most infamous example are the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, which shows the technique pretty darned well: it's not written from a "they're trying to do this and that" perspective but as "we're the elders of Zion and _we_ will do this and that." It still works for certain kinds of people even after being debunked repeatedly, and in an age where access to information was scarce, it worked even better and on more people.

But back to the topic of Marie Antoinette and "let them eat cake", it helps if you understand that there was a _massive_ campaign of libel against her at the time. Not just "let them eat cake", but basically every single imaginable infamy and sexual sin were piled upon her by her opponents every day.

Probably her only real "sin" that mattered was her influence upon the king, which got in the way of other parties who would have liked to have that influence themselves. I doubt that they actually cared about whether she actually screwed the Count of X, or even (as in a libel that would even be used in her trial) with her son. But she displaced them as the ones the king listened to, and worse yet it was a woman wielding that power, a mortal sin by itself in many minds at that mysoginistic time.

And her being a foreigner also made her a lot easier to attack. You just had to paint an "us vs them" situation to the common Joe (or Jacques) where she's with "them". Whatever you charged her with, you only had to add that she's an Austrian, and for all the average idiot knew, maybe that's what Austrians do.

"Let them eat cake" just fits in that campaign of libel perfectly. There are no excuses to be made, like "maybe it meant a different kind of bread", because it's a libel that was supposed to be inexcusable. It's just the kind of thing that was supposed to get the average Joe shaking a fist.

 

[Mirrorglass]

As attributed to Marie Antoinette, yes, it is clear that it was just libel. But if we assume it was in fact said by someone else prior to here (like Maria Theresa, as some evidence suggests) then there may be some value in looking for different meanings, as it seems unbelievable that any queen could be quite stupid enough to make this statement unironically.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Just about any woman ruler or woman with any kinds of power has been the subject of nasty libel campaigns. Maria Theresa included. But either way, I'm not aware of any serious attribution of that quote to her. Except in as much as some people seem to treat Marie Antoinette and Maria Theresa (and occasionally Catherine of Russia too) interchangeably.

Rousseau mentions it as just "a french princess", but doesn't actually name her, or give any more context. Neither of the two Marys was french princess. According to another source, it was an old anecdote, first attributed to the foreigner wife of Louis XIV in the 1600's. I.e., more than a century before either of the two Marys.

More importantly, just like for Marie Antoinette, there was no actual major famine during Maria Theresa's reign in which they could say such a thing. The closest that even existed during Maria Theresa's lifetime was the 1770–1771 famine in Czech lands and the 1771–1772 famine in southern Germany. But the problem is that after 1765 Maria Theresa had practically completely retired from public life or affairs, and did little more than to mourn her son. And was practically disabled after the 1767 smallpox episode anyway. Most of her role at that point was as a scapegoat for her other son Joseph, who blamed her for every unpopular government decision or failure even if it wasn't hers.

And just as with Mary Antoinette, there is a massive clash with the rest of what we know of her personality.

Maria Theresa for example was the first to tax the nobles (who had been previously exempt) but never raised the taxes on the peasants. And in a law she co-signed in 1771 she actually reduced the burdens of the serfs and regulated a minimum pay for their work. It just doesn't fit the image of the spoiled princess who'd say "let them eat cake."

She actually introduced the idea of human rights to the empire, in the Codex Theresianus. (Though she actually disagreed with some stuff in there, like the abolition of torture, but signed it anyway.) She actually somewhat reduced the power of the church, although she was a devout catholic. She created (mandatory) schools for all children, of both sexes, starting at the age of six. It didn't quite catch as well as hoped, but it was a massive step forward. Also, for the first time she permitted non-catholics to attend universities and introduced secular subjects in those universities. (Previously they were a bit more like glorified religious seminars.) She actually introduced a ruling council and although they nominaly had only advisory powers, she let them overrule her quite a few times, a big step forward compared to the other absolute monarchies around. Etc.

Really, it's just not the image of the kind of person who'd say "let them eat cake", except maybe as a (bad) joke.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Just about any woman ruler or woman with any kinds of power has been the subject of nasty libel campaigns. Maria Theresa included. But either way, I'm not aware of any serious attribution of that quote to her. Except in as much as some people seem to treat Marie Antoinette and Maria Theresa (and occasionally Catherine of Russia too) interchangeably.

Rousseau mentions it as just "a french princess", but doesn't actually name her, or give any more context. Neither of the two Marys was french princess. According to another source, it was an old anecdote, first attributed to the foreigner wife of Louis XIV in the 1600's. I.e., more than a century before either of the two Marys.

More importantly, just like for Marie Antoinette, there was no actual major famine during Maria Theresa's reign in which they could say such a thing. The closest that even existed during Maria Theresa's lifetime was the 1770–1771 famine in Czech lands and the 1771–1772 famine in southern Germany. But the problem is that after 1765 Maria Theresa had practically completely retired from public life or affairs, and did little more than to mourn her son. And was practically disabled after the 1767 smallpox episode anyway. Most of her role at that point was as a scapegoat for her other son Joseph, who blamed her for every unpopular government decision or failure even if it wasn't hers.

And just as with Mary Antoinette, there is a massive clash with the rest of what we know of her personality.

Maria Theresa for example was the first to tax the nobles (who had been previously exempt) but never raised the taxes on the peasants. And in a law she co-signed in 1771 she actually reduced the burdens of the serfs and regulated a minimum pay for their work. It just doesn't fit the image of the spoiled princess who'd say "let them eat cake."

She actually introduced the idea of human rights to the empire, in the Codex Theresianus. (Though she actually disagreed with some stuff in there, like the abolition of torture, but signed it anyway.) She actually somewhat reduced the power of the church, although she was a devout catholic. She created (mandatory) schools for all children, of both sexes, starting at the age of six. It didn't quite catch as well as hoped, but it was a massive step forward. Also, for the first time she permitted non-catholics to attend universities and introduced secular subjects in those universities. (Previously they were a bit more like glorified religious seminars.) She actually introduced a ruling council and although they nominaly had only advisory powers, she let them overrule her quite a few times, a big step forward compared to the other absolute monarchies around. Etc.

Really, it's just not the image of the kind of person who'd say "let them eat cake", except maybe as a (bad) joke.

Actually, I was referring to a different Maria Theresa. Wasn't aware of the more recent one.

ETA: Namely the very wife of Louis XIV you mentioned.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Teh oops. I had no idea about the earlier one.

 

[Ikarus]

Well, it also helps[...] Joe shaking a fist.

Thanks!

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, pretty seriously. In an age where over half of a burgher's income went on food, i.e. (marginally) more than everything else _combined_, and famines were a deadly threat, it was quite literally the kind of thing that was almost guaranteed to cause shaking fists and bleating against the queen. Any similarly constructed libel about anything else than food, say, "let them wear silk", wouldn't have nearly the same impact. But "let them eat cake" hit the average Jacques where it hurt.

It's precisely that kind of fine-tuning that makes me wonder if anyone actually ever said it, Marie Therese of Spain included.