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Disinformation is not a new phenomenon ...
The one thing most people (think they ...) know about Marie Antoinette (other than her death via the guillotine) is her insulting comment that the poor should "eat cake." This comment is twisted via mistranslation, originated prior to the queen's allegedly having uttered it, and wasn't even attributed to her until the late 19th century.
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/let-the-eat-cake.html
The one thing most people (think they ...) know about Marie Antoinette (other than her death via the guillotine) is her insulting comment that the poor should "eat cake." This comment is twisted via mistranslation, originated prior to the queen's allegedly having uttered it, and wasn't even attributed to her until the late 19th century.
Did Marie Antoinette really say 'Let them eat cake'?
No, it was part of a concerted and sexist effort by revolutionaries to undermine the queen.
The quick answer to this question is a simple "no." Marie Antoinette, the last pre-revolutionary queen of France, did not say "Let them eat cake" ... The better question, perhaps, is: Why do we think she said it?
For background, the quote has been slightly exaggerated in its translation from French to English. Originally, Marie Antoinette was alleged to have said, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche," or "Let them eat brioche." ...
But the "brioche" quote is problematic, too, because there's no reliable evidence that the queen ever said it. "Marie Antoinette never uttered these words or anything else along these lines," said Denise Maior-Barron, an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University in California, whose research examines contemporary portrayals of Marie Antoinette's character. ...
France has endured no shortage of revolutions. The first, in 1789, ended very badly for Marie Antoinette and her husband, Louis XVI. The following century then saw the country flip flop between monarchies and republics, with each side fighting a propaganda war in addition to armed skirmishes. It was during one of these later revolutions, long after Marie Antoinette's execution, that the misquote first came to pass.
"It did not come to be misattributed to Marie Antoinette during the 18th century, but during the Third French Republic starting in 1870, when a careful program of reconstructing the historical past took place," Maior-Barron told Live Science. ...
In fact, the "brioche" quote wasn't even original, and even had a history of being used against noble women. The philosopher and writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose work later influenced the revolution, may have been the first person to pen the phrase in 1767. "'Let them eat brioche' is initially found in one of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novels, in which he attributed this line to one of his fictitious characters belonging to the 18th-century French aristocracy," Maior-Barron said. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/let-the-eat-cake.html