| | The original French would have been "''Qu'ils mangent de la brioche''" (''brioche'' being a rough form of cake made of flour, butter and eggs). Apparently, French law required bakers to sell loaves at fixed prices and fancy loaves had to be sold at the same price as basic breads. Given a flour shortage at the time, brioche would have been an affordable, and available, alternative. Conversely, Rousseau in his memoirs, Confessions says in Vol 6, "At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, 'Then let them eat pastry!'" However, Rousseau wrote this in early 1766, when Marie Antoinette was only 10 years old.<ref>http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/227600.html</ref> | | The original French would have been "''Qu'ils mangent de la brioche''" (''brioche'' being a rough form of cake made of flour, butter and eggs). Apparently, French law required bakers to sell loaves at fixed prices and fancy loaves had to be sold at the same price as basic breads. Given a flour shortage at the time, brioche would have been an affordable, and available, alternative. Conversely, Rousseau in his memoirs, Confessions says in Vol 6, "At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, 'Then let them eat pastry!'" However, Rousseau wrote this in early 1766, when Marie Antoinette was only 10 years old.<ref>http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/227600.html</ref> |