September 24, 2008 • 9 mins
Marie Antoinette was only ten when Rousseau published the famous 'let them eat cake' quote. Check out our HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about what this statement actually meant -- whether or not Marie actually said it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. You're and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined day as always by the
ever Mary Josh Clark Mayad, my writer. How is it going, Candace?
(00:22):
It's going very well because you've just taken a big
bite of something. It's cake. Um. You know they're throwing
a party in the conference room for Sarah Dowty's birthday.
You know that, right, We've got to get some of
those cake getters really good. It looks good anyway. So
I was just in there and somebody, I think it
was Katie Lambert says, let them meet cake, you know,
just kind of jokingly. So I say, as to Clambert,
(00:44):
I says, be careful because the last person who said
that had her head cut off. What do you think, Oh,
it's not true. Yea, it is. I mean it's kind
of a cute thing to say, and I'm sure people
laugh politely, but it's not true. I don't did get
a politely that was about it. Well, Katy knows better,
so she was humoring you. Well, no, I mean Marie
Antoinette said up and for saying it. They stormed the
(01:07):
best deal and cut her head off. Wrong and wrong
and wrong. Well, okay, filmy and miss I know everything
about the French Revolution, the frev as I like to
abbreviate it um. Marie Antoinette was actually about ten years
old when that phrase appeared in Jean jacqu Rousseau's confessions,
and supposedly he either turned the phrase himself or he
(01:29):
got it from Maria Raisa, who was married to King
Louis the fourteenth. And if she actually did say it,
which was just a rumor, she would have been saying,
not literally, let the meat cake like the vanilla clime
at the sugar flowers that you have, but brioche, which
is actually an egg based bread that sounds much worse
(01:49):
than the cake I have. You mean tasting, or I
would prefer, you know, the sugary kind. I like a
nice brioche at brunch, you know, at a birthday party.
Perhaps not anyway, the point being from an economical standpoint,
it was it was a pretty wise thing to say
what she was. Well, she was referring to this law
in France that dictated what prices bakers could saw their bread. Yes,
(02:14):
the French baker law anyway, you laugh, but it's true.
If I did laugh, you're right, I laugh at everything though. Anyway,
So the law was you had to sell your fans
your bread's like, you know, your brioche at the same
price as your cheaper flower and water loaves if that
supply ran out, if the cheaper ones ran out. Yes,
(02:36):
so the peasants got the good stuff at the same price, right,
that seems pretty fair. Yeah, so the peasants didn't go hungry.
So you know, the story behind the falls left them
cake thing was that the people in parish were starving
and hungry. Marie Antoinette posedly said, left the meat cake.
What really would have happened if Maria Theresa did say
it was she heard that the peasants were hungry and starving.
(02:57):
She said, well, if there is no bread, then let
them have briosh at the same cost. And there you
have it. A sweet little story, isn't it very sweet?
That's heartwarming? Okay, so that's fiction. Yeah. Wow, that's like
the one of the few things I know about Marie Antoinette.
But I do know that that's not the only scandal.
This woman was a very scandalous figure, right, I mean,
(03:19):
she was there when the French revolted overthrew the monarchy
and established their own system of government. Right, Yes, it
was in part because of her, wasn't it precisely? I
mean she like she had an affair with like a Swede, Right,
that's what I heard. Tell me, that's not fiction, that's
not fiction. Yes, that's true. That when you can you
can cling on too. It was. It wasn't exactly a
(03:41):
torrid rolling in the boudoir love affair. It was very
tender and genuine from what I understand. You're referring to
Count Axel von Person. He was a Swede and they
met at a ball in Paris and they kept up
communication over several years. He actually went away to help
(04:01):
fight in the American Revolution and was back and forth
between Sweden and France, and eventually he came back. And
by this time Louis had given Marie Antoinette her own
little place on the grounds of her side. It was
called Petit trian On. Yeah, I've heard the descriptions of
this place. That sounds beautiful. Yeah. Basically, go kim basing
grim buy an entire town um kind of sort of.
(04:24):
It was house originally built for I believe Madame du Pompadour.
And of course the idea was just a pleasure house.
It was a complete getaway. And Marie Antoinette was a
tomboy when she was growing up. She really liked hunting
and animals and the rough and tumble life, and so
she wanted to bring a little bit of that flavor
to your side. So she actually created her own provincial
(04:46):
village outside Petit trian On, complete with cows and sheep
one of my personal faith animals. Um. So she had
all these rustic looking buildings, but while some of them
actually operated, mo to them had other things inside, you know,
like other little getaways or extensions of the house. It
was almost like, I don't know, going to MGM and
(05:08):
seeing all these backdrops, but behind, you know, you realize
they're just a prop. Really, didn't she put on plays there?
I mean that kind of that would coincide with that. Yeah.
It was her own little fantasy world, and she had
a jewel box theater and when she gave these performances,
it was one of the only times that Louis would
come to train on It was her getaway, but he
would come by to see her perform and she would
(05:29):
play the part of dairymaids. And for someone who had
as much money and extravagant things as she did, she
certainly liked, you know, taking off the dog as her
personally expression. Guests, I guess what I'm putting on the dog?
Isn't that the expression for getting all fancy? I have
not heard that. Actually, well she took off the dog, okay, alright, Well, yeah,
(05:50):
I got the impression that she got homesick kind of
kind of frequently for Vienna, and like you said, her
tomboy upbringing her you know, childhood, that kind of thing.
So she did have the affair with the Swede then, yes, okay, fact.
So the reason I heard I've got I've got another one.
The reason I've heard that she had an affair with
the Swede was because her husband, Louis was impotent. Is
(06:17):
that is that fact? Your fiction? Um? Also a fact? Yes?
Actually it was Louis sixt Yes, I know this room,
the numerals, they're crazy. So two out of three ain't bad? No,
not bad at all. Um, Well, it's you know, kind
of bad from my aunt went out because we're laughing
in her bedroom life and it was pretty pitiful and Yeah,
it really was. And I'm not the only one to
(06:38):
think so. During her lifetime, there were pamphlets that sort
of amounted to what are you know tabloids today being
circulated around Paris, and the headlines just screamed, King can't
do it with queen. Well, royal couple fails to consummate marriage. Well, yeah,
you know, they they're big into producing airs, so I
can imagine that was pretty scan was how long did
(07:00):
this go on for? Because I mean they eventually did
have kids, right, yeah, seven years? Seven years that there
are plenty of pamphlets. Yeah, and the first kid was
a girl. Okay, Yeah, that didn't solve a whole lot,
but they did have a boy. Eventually they did go
on to have children. But you know, it's just so
funny because there were so many factors about their lives
that were really working against them in this. For one,
(07:23):
Louis was really interested in locks. That yeah, and the
big joke was that the king couldn't find where to
put his key and little jokes like this, and a
lot of pressure was on Marie Antoinette. You know, this
marriage was obviously a political marriage. It was designed to
night the Austrian Hapsburgs with the French Bourbons, and her
(07:44):
mother would write her letter saying, you need to be
kissing on him more and touching on him more, and
be warmer in the bedroom, and you need to be
taking better care of yourself to make yourself attractive to him,
and she just felt really awful. You know, she was
still really young at this time. They I think she
was fifteen when they got married. Well it's pretty young,
(08:04):
too young, almost too young, there you have it. But
um by the time they became monarch, because I think
she was in her twenties, very very early twenties. So
you have a lot of pressure. Well that is a
lot of pressure. So okay, so I'm two for three today,
which isn't bad. That's better than my usual over one.
So I appreciate you clearing that up. I'm going to
go talk to Clamber and tell her I was wrong. Okay, Yeah,
(08:26):
So thanks for this, And you want me to get
you some cake, just some champagne, just champagne, you got it.
I'm on glass number three, so I'll bring a couple
for us. And you know what, if you want to
dash back when you've got that other piece of cake,
I'll tell you one more interesting tidbit about her. So
we're back, and I promised you one more interesting to
tail about Marie Antoinette's and here goes. What is it?
(08:48):
Supposedly she was allowed a three point six million dollar
and today's dollars allowance for her wardrobe, and she always
surpassed that because she liked ordering gowns trend and silver
and gold and dripping with diamonds and emeralds and stuff.
I have a tuxedo that has um, you know, emeralds
all over it. But that's just one well, and that's
(09:10):
you know, that's practical. That's for the work party. We
need those here. Sure, I forgot it today. Luckily, I'm
wearing my ballgown. So if you want even more royal fodder,
you can read the top five Mariantoinette scandals on how
stuff works dot com. You've got to get some of
this cake. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(09:31):
is it how stuff works dot com. Let us know
what you think. Send an email to podcast at how
stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. You're and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined day as always by the
ever Mary Josh Clark Mayad, my writer. How is it going, Candace?
(00:22):
It's going very well because you've just taken a big
bite of something. It's cake. Um. You know they're throwing
a party in the conference room for Sarah Dowty's birthday.
You know that, right, We've got to get some of
those cake getters really good. It looks good anyway. So
I was just in there and somebody, I think it
was Katie Lambert says, let them meet cake, you know,
just kind of jokingly. So I say, as to Clambert,
(00:44):
I says, be careful because the last person who said
that had her head cut off. What do you think, Oh,
it's not true. Yea, it is. I mean it's kind
of a cute thing to say, and I'm sure people
laugh politely, but it's not true. I don't did get
a politely that was about it. Well, Katy knows better,
so she was humoring you. Well, no, I mean Marie
Antoinette said up and for saying it. They stormed the
(01:07):
best deal and cut her head off. Wrong and wrong
and wrong. Well, okay, filmy and miss I know everything
about the French Revolution, the frev as I like to
abbreviate it um. Marie Antoinette was actually about ten years
old when that phrase appeared in Jean jacqu Rousseau's confessions,
and supposedly he either turned the phrase himself or he
(01:29):
got it from Maria Raisa, who was married to King
Louis the fourteenth. And if she actually did say it,
which was just a rumor, she would have been saying,
not literally, let the meat cake like the vanilla clime
at the sugar flowers that you have, but brioche, which
is actually an egg based bread that sounds much worse
(01:49):
than the cake I have. You mean tasting, or I
would prefer, you know, the sugary kind. I like a
nice brioche at brunch, you know, at a birthday party.
Perhaps not anyway, the point being from an economical standpoint,
it was it was a pretty wise thing to say
what she was. Well, she was referring to this law
in France that dictated what prices bakers could saw their bread. Yes,
(02:14):
the French baker law anyway, you laugh, but it's true.
If I did laugh, you're right, I laugh at everything though. Anyway,
So the law was you had to sell your fans
your bread's like, you know, your brioche at the same
price as your cheaper flower and water loaves if that
supply ran out, if the cheaper ones ran out. Yes,
(02:36):
so the peasants got the good stuff at the same price, right,
that seems pretty fair. Yeah, so the peasants didn't go hungry.
So you know, the story behind the falls left them
cake thing was that the people in parish were starving
and hungry. Marie Antoinette posedly said, left the meat cake.
What really would have happened if Maria Theresa did say
it was she heard that the peasants were hungry and starving.
(02:57):
She said, well, if there is no bread, then let
them have briosh at the same cost. And there you
have it. A sweet little story, isn't it very sweet?
That's heartwarming? Okay, so that's fiction. Yeah. Wow, that's like
the one of the few things I know about Marie Antoinette.
But I do know that that's not the only scandal.
This woman was a very scandalous figure, right, I mean,
(03:19):
she was there when the French revolted overthrew the monarchy
and established their own system of government. Right, Yes, it
was in part because of her, wasn't it precisely? I
mean she like she had an affair with like a Swede, Right,
that's what I heard. Tell me, that's not fiction, that's
not fiction. Yes, that's true. That when you can you
can cling on too. It was. It wasn't exactly a
(03:41):
torrid rolling in the boudoir love affair. It was very
tender and genuine from what I understand. You're referring to
Count Axel von Person. He was a Swede and they
met at a ball in Paris and they kept up
communication over several years. He actually went away to help
(04:01):
fight in the American Revolution and was back and forth
between Sweden and France, and eventually he came back. And
by this time Louis had given Marie Antoinette her own
little place on the grounds of her side. It was
called Petit trian On. Yeah, I've heard the descriptions of
this place. That sounds beautiful. Yeah. Basically, go kim basing
grim buy an entire town um kind of sort of.
(04:24):
It was house originally built for I believe Madame du Pompadour.
And of course the idea was just a pleasure house.
It was a complete getaway. And Marie Antoinette was a
tomboy when she was growing up. She really liked hunting
and animals and the rough and tumble life, and so
she wanted to bring a little bit of that flavor
to your side. So she actually created her own provincial
(04:46):
village outside Petit trian On, complete with cows and sheep
one of my personal faith animals. Um. So she had
all these rustic looking buildings, but while some of them
actually operated, mo to them had other things inside, you know,
like other little getaways or extensions of the house. It
was almost like, I don't know, going to MGM and
(05:08):
seeing all these backdrops, but behind, you know, you realize
they're just a prop. Really, didn't she put on plays there?
I mean that kind of that would coincide with that. Yeah.
It was her own little fantasy world, and she had
a jewel box theater and when she gave these performances,
it was one of the only times that Louis would
come to train on It was her getaway, but he
would come by to see her perform and she would
(05:29):
play the part of dairymaids. And for someone who had
as much money and extravagant things as she did, she
certainly liked, you know, taking off the dog as her
personally expression. Guests, I guess what I'm putting on the dog?
Isn't that the expression for getting all fancy? I have
not heard that. Actually, well she took off the dog, okay, alright, Well, yeah,
(05:50):
I got the impression that she got homesick kind of
kind of frequently for Vienna, and like you said, her
tomboy upbringing her you know, childhood, that kind of thing.
So she did have the affair with the Swede then, yes, okay, fact.
So the reason I heard I've got I've got another one.
The reason I've heard that she had an affair with
the Swede was because her husband, Louis was impotent. Is
(06:17):
that is that fact? Your fiction? Um? Also a fact? Yes?
Actually it was Louis sixt Yes, I know this room,
the numerals, they're crazy. So two out of three ain't bad? No,
not bad at all. Um, Well, it's you know, kind
of bad from my aunt went out because we're laughing
in her bedroom life and it was pretty pitiful and Yeah,
it really was. And I'm not the only one to
(06:38):
think so. During her lifetime, there were pamphlets that sort
of amounted to what are you know tabloids today being
circulated around Paris, and the headlines just screamed, King can't
do it with queen. Well, royal couple fails to consummate marriage. Well, yeah,
you know, they they're big into producing airs, so I
can imagine that was pretty scan was how long did
(07:00):
this go on for? Because I mean they eventually did
have kids, right, yeah, seven years? Seven years that there
are plenty of pamphlets. Yeah, and the first kid was
a girl. Okay, Yeah, that didn't solve a whole lot,
but they did have a boy. Eventually they did go
on to have children. But you know, it's just so
funny because there were so many factors about their lives
that were really working against them in this. For one,
(07:23):
Louis was really interested in locks. That yeah, and the
big joke was that the king couldn't find where to
put his key and little jokes like this, and a
lot of pressure was on Marie Antoinette. You know, this
marriage was obviously a political marriage. It was designed to
night the Austrian Hapsburgs with the French Bourbons, and her
(07:44):
mother would write her letter saying, you need to be
kissing on him more and touching on him more, and
be warmer in the bedroom, and you need to be
taking better care of yourself to make yourself attractive to him,
and she just felt really awful. You know, she was
still really young at this time. They I think she
was fifteen when they got married. Well it's pretty young,
(08:04):
too young, almost too young, there you have it. But
um by the time they became monarch, because I think
she was in her twenties, very very early twenties. So
you have a lot of pressure. Well that is a
lot of pressure. So okay, so I'm two for three today,
which isn't bad. That's better than my usual over one.
So I appreciate you clearing that up. I'm going to
go talk to Clamber and tell her I was wrong. Okay, Yeah,
(08:26):
So thanks for this, And you want me to get
you some cake, just some champagne, just champagne, you got it.
I'm on glass number three, so I'll bring a couple
for us. And you know what, if you want to
dash back when you've got that other piece of cake,
I'll tell you one more interesting tidbit about her. So
we're back, and I promised you one more interesting to
tail about Marie Antoinette's and here goes. What is it?
(08:48):
Supposedly she was allowed a three point six million dollar
and today's dollars allowance for her wardrobe, and she always
surpassed that because she liked ordering gowns trend and silver
and gold and dripping with diamonds and emeralds and stuff.
I have a tuxedo that has um, you know, emeralds
all over it. But that's just one well, and that's
(09:10):
you know, that's practical. That's for the work party. We
need those here. Sure, I forgot it today. Luckily, I'm
wearing my ballgown. So if you want even more royal fodder,
you can read the top five Mariantoinette scandals on how
stuff works dot com. You've got to get some of
this cake. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(09:31):
is it how stuff works dot com. Let us know
what you think. Send an email to podcast at how
stuff works dot com
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