"Let them eat cake" were some of the worst words NEVER said.
"Let them eat cake" were some of the worst words NEVER said.
The actual words she uttered were, in effect a royal permission/pardon from the sumptuary laws in France in effect at that particular point in time. The lower classes were prohibited, by law, from consuming a certain quality of bread, known as 'brioche'. The penalty for this could be quite severe, and carried the possibility of death.
There came a time when the stored bread of the commoners was rendered unfit for human consumption. Her edict was, that this being the case, that the old laws would be suspended, and that commoners could eat the brioche which was unspoiled, with no adverse legal consequences.
This, of course, made her enemies at the royal court, who turned around and twisted her decree of compassion into something quite sinister and diametrically opposed to what she intended.
That this long-ago 'spin job', propaganda at its very worst, still persists to this day is absolutely apalling...
the infowarrior