Re “Let them eat cake”—interesting; I’d long understood that while she had said it, it was (and remains) totally taken out of context, and was a matter of not grasping the situation rather than dismissive contempt.
One of the explanations I heard was that the guilds controlled the baking and selling of bread and had a stranglehold on bread deliveries but that independent bakers were free to bake and sell cake outside of guild control.
So this version of the story has her as being politically astute in suggesting an end-run around the bread baking guilds.