Even if you aren’t very familiar with French history, you almost definitely know who Marie Antoinette was. The last Queen of France before the French Revolution was a controversial public figure, best known for her iconic quote, “Let them eat cake,” which, actually, is probably not even something she really said. It’s no wonder that people remain curious about Marie Antoinette’s life - one look at Versailles, and you have to wonder what someone who lived there did every day. Marie Antoinette is an enduring historical figure, and one whose story is uniquely connected to food, perhaps due to the (falsely attributed) "let them eat cake" quote. There are also rumors of her having a sweet tooth and being known to overeat with little consideration. Then there's the iconic, Sofia Coppola-directed film rendition of Antoinette's life, "Marie Antoinette," which is full of lavish cakes, macarons, and other iconic desserts from the venerable bakery Ladurée - an appetite that seems to cling to her legacy. But what did French royalty actually eat during her time? Despite her fame and history, we don't know have many concrete details about the last queen of France, including what she ate every day.
Dispelling the Myth of "Let Them Eat Cake"
According to legend, when Marie-Antoinette was told that the people had no bread to eat, she callously remarked, “Let them eat cake!” But did she actually say that famous phrase? “Let them eat cake” is the most famous quote attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the queen of France during the French Revolution. As the story goes, it was the queen’s response upon being told that her starving peasant subjects had no bread. Because cake is more expensive than bread, the anecdote has been cited as an example of Marie-Antoinette’s obliviousness to the conditions and daily lives of ordinary people. But did she ever actually utter those words? Probably not. For one thing, the original French phrase that Marie-Antoinette is supposed to have said-“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”-doesn’t exactly translate as “Let them eat cake.” It translates as, well, “Let them eat brioche.” Of course, since brioche is a rich bread made with eggs and butter, almost as luxurious as cake, it doesn’t really change the point of the story. But the queen wouldn’t have been referring to the sort of dessert that English speakers often imagine. More important, though, there is absolutely no historical evidence that Marie-Antoinette ever said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” or anything like it. So where did the quote come from, and how did it become associated with Marie-Antoinette? As it happens, folklore scholars have found similar tales in other parts of the world, although the details differ from one version to another. In a tale collected in 16th-century Germany, for instance, a noblewoman wonders why the hungry poor don’t simply eat Krosem (a sweet bread). Essentially, stories of rulers or aristocrats oblivious to their privileges are popular and widespread legends.
The first person to put the specific phrase “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” into print may have been the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Book VI of Rousseau’s Confessions (written about 1767), he relates a version of the story, attributing the quote to “a great princess.” Although Marie-Antoinette was a princess at the time, she was still a child, so it is unlikely that she was the princess Rousseau had in mind. Since Rousseau’s writings inspired the revolutionaries, it has sometimes been supposed that they picked up on this quote, falsely credited it to Marie-Antoinette, and spread it as propaganda, as a way to rouse opposition to the monarchy. However, contemporary researchers are skeptical of such claims, having found no evidence of the quote in newspapers, pamphlets, and other materials published by the revolutionaries. Amazingly, the earliest known source connecting the quote with the queen was published more than 50 years after the French Revolution. In an 1843 issue of the journal Les Guêpes, the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr reported having found the quote in a “book dated 1760,” which he said proved that the rumor about Marie-Antoinette was false. Rumor? Like so many of us, he was probably just repeating something he had heard.
Marie Antoinette's Actual Diet
Marie Antoinette ruled as queen of France from 1774 until 1792, when the monarchy was overthrown during the French Revolution. At the height of her rule, Antoinette basked in unimaginable wealth and luxury, which included food. As queen, she had access to the finest ingredients and spoils the world had to offer. Though it can be hard to pin down the queen's exact diet, there are some verifiable accounts in the memoirs of Antoinette's chambermaids and ladies-in-waiting. One lady-in-waiting, Madame Campan, noted that the queen didn't eat very much at all and preferred privacy during mealtimes. Campan's memoirs recall the queen starting the day with a breakfast of hot chocolate and pastries or bread, and then only consuming water and small portions of poultry throughout the rest of the day.
Author Karen Wheeler wrote about Marie Antoinette’s diet in the book The Marie Antoinette Diet: Eat Cake and Still Lose Weight. In there, she wrote that the Queen loved to start her day with a pastry with coffee or rich hot chocolate. Her First Chambermaid, Madame Campan, said, “The only things of which she was particularly fond were her morning coffee and a sort of bread to which she had grown accustomed during her childhood in Vienna.” This “sort of bread” is actually croissants, which originated in Vienna, not France. Marie Antoinette might be one of the most well-known historical figures of all time. Historical records are usually pretty sparse, even for famous people, but in the case of Marie Antoinette, we really lucked out. While it’s true that Marie Antoinette loved gambling and shopping, she had relatively simple food preferences. She definitely had a sweet tooth, though, and satisfied that craving every morning. The queen loved to start her day with a piping hot mug of hot chocolate! Although this might not strike you as being particularly breakfast-y, this was a staple at the time. And, in fact, it’s still something that a lot of French people enjoy in the morning. When I was studying abroad in France, my host mother would make me a bowl of hot chocolate every morning to dip my croissants in.
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It’s not particularly surprising to hear that Marie Antoinette enjoyed her main meal during the middle of the day, at lunch - after all, that seems like a very European way to eat. Wheeler also wrote that Marie Antoinette snacked throughout the day on foods that many people would consider meals, or at least side dishes. This included things like cheese, macaroni, and vegetables cooked in cream. In her book, Wheeler discusses how Marie Antionette managed to keep a slim figure, despite her affinity for sweets. Wheeler believes that’s partly due to the Queen’s light dinner. According to reports, Marie Antoinette did not actually like the extravagant foods that were served during public meals. She mostly liked her simple broth with vegetables, as well as boiled or roasted white meat (especially chicken or fowl), cooked vegetables, and simple soups. If you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s movie Marie Antoinette, then you would have the impression that the Queen spent much of her time drinking expensive champagne. Actually, reports say that she did not drink alcohol very much at all, if ever. She preferred lemonade or special water, imported from Ville d’Avray.
A Royal Sweet Tooth: Chocolate and More
If it wasn’t already obvious, the Queen absolutely loved sweets - and not just for breakfast, when she often ate sweet pastries. Wheeler said that she was known for her obsession with treats like petit fours, crystallized fruits, and wafers. The Queen was a huge fan of chocolate (who isn’t?), and according to reports, she had her own chocolatier at Versailles to supply her with exactly what she wanted. She particularly loved liquid chocolate, which she drank with whipped cream and sometimes orange blossom. Chocolate was a delicacy during her time and a staple ingredient in the Versailles palace. When she married Louis XVI, Antoinette even brought her very own chocolatier from Austria to invent delicious chocolate dishes scented with almonds, orange blossoms, and anything else the queen desired. One such recipe mixed chocolate pastilles with medicine as a clever way to make daily doses taste better. One chocolate recipe that did survive is the famous Versailles hot chocolate, which the queen was said to enjoy daily at breakfast. Chocolate was already popular at the palace - over a century before Marie's arrival at the French Court, Louis XIV was himself a chocolate lover, and Louis XV was known for an obsession with drinkable hot chocolate, specifically. The exact recipe has been preserved and sounds genuinely delicious. Simply melt equal parts chocolate and water in a double boiler. Once the chocolate is melted, reduce the heat and add in one egg yolk, gently stirring until it’s all incorporated. The hot chocolate recipe that was served at Versailles was a little different from the powdered mixes that we might use today.
She supposedly loved oranges, and luckily, there was an orangerie (an orange grove) in Versailles, which you can still visit today. When Marie Antoinette lived there, the oranges were used to make orange blossom water. Supposedly, the Queen liked to drink it for nerves - and used it as a beauty product.
Royal Dining as a Public Spectacle
Some of this negative image may be linked to the tradition of the "Royal Tables," where the king and queen would eat ornate dinners before an audience as a way to display their wealth that also humanized them in front of the court. Antoinette famously disliked this practice, which was only undertaken once a week during her husband's reign rather than as a nightly cadence by his predecessors. Typical dinners for French royals at the time began with starter dishes and soups, then move on to opulent platters of roasted meats like boar and rabbit with stewed vegetables and ornate pastries.
This was part of the practice known as The Grand-Couvert, in which the public could view the king (and sometimes the queen and their children) eating dinner. And though Marie Antoinette was known to dislike this practice, she still participated in it at times as a part of royal protocol. But the daily meals of royalty weren't the only display of food as a symbol of wealth.
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The Reality of Versailles and the Queen’s Appetite
So why did Marie Antoinette, even though she was not the progenitor of most of the opulent habits of Versailles, become an icon for the palace's excessive eating? That falsely attributed "let them eat cake" quote certainly didn't help matters. This quote has come to be synonymous with her overall reputation for overindulgence and disregard for the growing poverty within the French populous. But Marie Antoinette's tendency towards sweets and off-season produce wouldn't be so notable if not for the dire circumstances of the French people during her reign. Even as Marie Antoinette lived a plush and well-fed life, with meals serving as displays of wealth, the French people were facing severe economic hardship and famine, resulting in mass starvation. This contrast fostered a growing disfavor with a monarchy that was severely out of touch with its population's needs. To top this, there were also bread shortages that led up to the French Revolution in 1789, which made the fake cake quote all the more cutting. I am sure that the smell of Versailles and it’s lack of plumbing would have made a fantastic appetite suppressant, while the fact that she would have to do EVERYTHING in the eye of others would have also kept one’s self in check.
Ruling from 1643 through 1715, Louis XIV was, in fact, responsible for many of France's royal traditions. For one, he was the sovereign responsible for moving the French court to Versailles, a palace outside of Paris that served as the center of French royalty. Because of its long list of royal residents, Versailles became the center of French royal culture. To accommodate the high-status residents, the Sun King enlisted the help of Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie to develop a kitchen garden for the palace. Quintinie was a gardener whose techniques revolutionized food production in Versailles. His gardening methods allowed for harvests of many fruits and vegetables, even in rare months, through hotbeds that utilized compost to stimulate off-season growth. Of course, this effort required a good amount of labor. During the rule of King Louis XIV, the garden kept 30 full-time workers on staff, and seasonal workers were often required. Louis XIV's garden continued to produce large amounts of food for royals, even after his reign. By the time King Louis XVI came to the throne in 1774, Versailles was the unrivaled center of royal French culture.
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