I’ve heard that phrase my whole life and only looked it up now because of your comment. For anyone else that’s curious:
“Let them eat cake” is the traditional translation of the French phrase “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”,[1] said to have been spoken in the 18th century by “a great princess” upon being told that the peasants had no bread.
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The quote is taken to reflect either the princess’s frivolous disregard for the starving peasants or her poor understanding of their plight.
I had a history teacher who claimed that French bakers at the time called the layers of dough that were left on the bottom of the ovens and had to be scraped off periodically “cake” and that is what Marie Antoinette was referring to when she said “let them eat cake.” So it was just as heartless, but maybe less comically out of touch.
And brioche is more like a rich egg bread than what I would recognize as cake.
