Article: "Let them eat cake": the mythical Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution.

One of the most universally believed facts" about the French Revolution is the famous line attributed to Marie Antoinette: If the people have no bread, then let them eat cake." No reputable biographer has traced the remark to her, nor has any historian identified anyone who heard her say it. it seems to have been something of an old chestnut among Bourbons, who attributed it to several queens and princesses, most often to the queen of Louis XV, Maria Theresa, in the seventeenth century.(1)

Why, then, has this "fact" endured? Wherein lies its power? Why is it conventional knowledge among those whose acquaintance, with the French Revolution is otherwise slight ...

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