Who really said "let them eat cake"?

Answer 1

Marie Antoinette

Answer 2

It is attributed to Marie Antoinette.

While Marie Antoinette was certainly enough of a bubblehead to have said the phrase in question, there is no evidence that she actually did so, and in any case she did not originate it. The peasants-have-no-bread story was in common currency at least since the 1760s as an illustration of the decadence of the aristocracy. The political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions it in his Confessions in connection with an incident that occurred in 1740. (He stole wine while working as a tutor in Lyons and then had problems trying to scrounge up something to eat along with it.) He concludes thusly: "Finally I remembered the way out suggested by a great princess when told that the peasants had no bread: 'Well, let them eat cake.'"

Now, J.-J. may have been embroidering this yarn with a line he had really heard many years later. But even so, at the time he was writing--early 1766--Marie Antoinette was only ten years old and still four years away from her marriage to the future Louis XVI. Writer Alphonse Karr in 1843 claimed that the line originated with a certain Duchess of Tuscany in 1760 or earlier, and that it was attributed to Marie Antoinette in 1789 by radical agitators who were trying to turn the populace against her.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_334.html

Answer 3

Marie Antoinette

Answer 4

Marie Antoinette

Answer 5

When informed that the people of France were experiencing a famine and starving, an unknowing Marie Antionette is famously quoted with saying "let them eat cake".

She was young and raised in a shelter wealth ridden palace and did not understand at all.

Answer 6

Apparently, there is some doubt whether Marie Antoinette ever actually said that. It was spread around by anti-royalists that she did, to stir up discontent before the French Revolution--but there is no definite record of her saying that. (Supposedly, she was told that poor people did not even have bread to eat; she replied, then let them eat cake. You can see how that would upset people.)

Answer 7

Marie Antoinette

Answer 8

Marie Antoinette...when told the people of France had no bread to eat, she replied, "Let them eat cake". This uncaring attitude from the ruling elite eventually culminated in the French revolution where she and her husband Louis lost their heads!

Answer 9

Marie Antoinette of France. She was told her people were starving and did not have bread to eat. She was oblivious of the plight of her people and rendered her famous quote. She did not understand that no bread meant nothing to eat...including cake.

Answer 10

We were just talking about this a couple hours ago...It was Marie Antoinette...While others were starving and hungry she was living in luxury...so when told about these starving people she said "Well If they're starving, let them eat cake." =]