If there is no bread, eat cakes. Famous people's catchphrases that they never said
”, which has become a symbol of the extreme detachment of the supreme absolutist power from the real problems of the common people. It has a confusing origin. According to the most common version, it belongs to Marie Antoinette, although the chronological comparison of the queen's biographical data does not correspond to either the date of the phrase's appearance or its content.
History of the phrase
This phrase first mentioned by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in "Confessions" (1766-1770). However, not quite in the form in which it is used to quote. According to Rousseau, this phrase was uttered by a young French princess, whom popular rumor, as well as many historians, later identified with Marie Antoinette (1755-1793):
How to do to have bread?<…>I would never buy it myself. So that an important gentleman, with a sword, goes to the baker to buy a piece of bread - how is it possible! At last I remembered what a way out one princess had come up with; when she was informed that the peasants had no bread, she replied: “Let them eat brioches”, and I began to buy brioches. But how many complexities to arrange it! Leaving the house alone with this intention, I sometimes ran around the whole city, passing at least thirty pastry shops, before entering any of them.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. "Confession".
Chronologically, the problem is that Marie Antoinette at that time (according to the records - 1769) was still an unmarried princess and lived in her native Austria. She arrived in France only in 1770. As mentioned above, Rousseau did not indicate a specific name in his work. Despite the current popularity of the phrase, it was practically not used during the Great French Revolution. [ ]
The attribution of the phrase is also indicated by the fact that Marie Antoinette herself was engaged in charity work and sympathized with the poor, and therefore this expression somewhat did not correspond to her character. At the same time, she loved a beautiful, extravagant life, which led to the depletion of the royal treasury, for which the queen received the nickname "Madame Deficit".
Some sources attribute the authorship of the aphorism to another French queen - Maria Theresa, who uttered it a hundred years before the wife of Louis XVI. In particular, Count of Provence speaks of this in his memoirs, not seen in the ranks of the zealous defenders of the honor of Marie Antoinette. Other memoirists of the 18th century name the daughters of Louis XV (Madame Sophia or Madame Victoria) as the authors.
There is also an opinion that this phrase is interpreted incorrectly, not knowing the trading traditions of those years. Traders were required by law to sell expensive pastries (in this case brioche) at the same cost as ordinary bread, if it was not enough. Many refused to do this because of the obvious losses, but the fact remains: if there was no bread, bakeries had to provide baking for sale for the same money. So the phrase that has become legendary may not at all be a symbol of the soulless cruelty of French absolutism [ ] .
Modern usage
This phrase is often used by modern media. Thus, during the economic crisis of 2008-2009, American radio stations played records in which they talked about advice to citizens on saving money, among which they called a trip to Hawaii once a year for 7 days instead of twice for three or four days; a call to fill up with gasoline at night, when it is denser, and so on. In response, radio listeners began to send angry responses that many Americans could not afford vacations in principle for a long time or that their car and even housing were taken from them for debts, calling the radio station's advice the modern equivalent of the phrase about "cakes".
In his notebooks, the Soviet writer L. Panteleev noted:
Details Views: 876 PersonalitiesMarie Antoinette was accused of authoring a mocking phrase:
- If people don't have bread, let them eat cake.
But the author of this phrase is the people themselves. In the Novgorod village they say:
- There will be no bread - we will eat gingerbread.
And further:
- What do we need bread - would be pies.
Again a mistake. It wasn't her. You probably remember that school lesson stories like it was yesterday. 1789 The French Revolution is in full swing. The Parisian poor revolt because the people have no bread, and Queen Marie Antoinette- insensitively indifferent, trying to joke or just out of natural stupidity - does not find anything better than to suggest that instead of bread they eat cakes.
Again a mistake. It wasn't her. You probably remember that school lesson stories like it was yesterday. 1789 The French Revolution is in full swing. The Parisian poor revolt because the people have no bread, and Queen Marie Antoinette- insensitively indifferent, trying to joke or just out of natural stupidity - does not find anything better than to suggest that instead of bread they eat cakes.
Problem number one is that they weren't cakes, they were brioches (the original French text is Qu'ils mangent de la brioche). According to Alan Davidson and his Oxford Culinary Guide, "Brioche in the 18th century was only a slightly enriched (with a modest amount of butter and eggs) bun, in fact not far removed from a good white bread". So the proposal of the queen can be considered an attempt to do a good deed: they say, if the people want bread, give them what is better.
And everything would be fine, only Marie Antoinette did not say anything like that. The phrase has been actively circulating in the press since 1760 - to illustrate the decomposition of the aristocracy. And Jean-Jacques Rousseau generally claimed to have heard it back in 1740.
The last of Marie Antoinette's biographers, Lady Anthony Fraser, attributes this statement to a completely different queen - Marie Theresa, wife of Louis XIV, the "Sun King", although in reality anyone could say it: the eighteenth century did not lack noble ladies . It is also possible that the famous phrase was generally coined for propaganda purposes.
Another story is also known, according to which it was Marie Antoinette who introduced France to croissants, allegedly brought from her native Vienna. Us this myth also seems unlikely, since the first mention of croissants in France dates back only to 1853.
Interestingly, around the same time, itinerant Austrian confectioners brought the puff pastry recipe to Denmark. Since then, the famous "Danish buns" are known in this country as wienerbrød ("Viennese bread").
In Vienna they are called Kopenhagener.
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That is, "Copenhagen" (German).
IN in social networks sparkling catchphrases are very popular, which are considered to be quotes of certain historical figures. But sometimes the authors of aphorisms are completely different people from other eras. This review presents famous phrases of people who have never said them.
1. "If they don't have bread, let them eat cake"
It is generally accepted that Marie Antoinette, as Queen of France, once asked why the Parisian poor were constantly rioting. The courtiers answered her that people had no bread. To which the queen said: "If they do not have bread, let them eat cakes." The result of this story is known to everyone: Marie Antoinette's head flew off her shoulders.
The phrase that was attributed to the queen, she never said. The author of the expression is French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his novel "Confessions" you can read: "Finally, I remembered what way out one princess came up with. When she was informed that the peasants had no bread, she replied: "Let them eat brioches." Brioshes are sweet buns, but this does not change the mocking nature of what was said.
When Rousseau created his novel, Marie Antoinette was still in her native Austria, but 20 years later, when the queen ruined the country with her extravagant antics, it was the French who attributed the expression about buns to her.
2. "Religion is the opium of the people"
In Ilf and Petrov's novel "12 Chairs", Ostap Bender asks Father Fyodor: "How much is opium for the people?" It is customary to think that main character quotes Lenin. However, the phrase, which became an aphorism, was first used by Karl Marx, formulating it as follows: "Religion is the opium of the people."
But Marx himself borrowed this idea from English writer and preacher Charles Kingsley. He wrote: "We use the Bible simply as a dose of opium to calm an overburdened beast of burden - to keep the poor in order."
3. “We don’t have irreplaceable people”
The authorship of this famous phrase is attributed to Joseph Stalin. However, it was first uttered by Joseph Le Bon, Commissioner of the French Revolutionary Convention, in 1793. He arrested the Vicomte de Giselin, who begged for his life, saying that his education and experience would still serve the Revolution. Commissioner Le Bon replied: "In the Republic irreplaceable people No!" This really turned out to be true, because soon he himself went to the guillotine.
4. "The Franco-Prussian War was won by a German schoolteacher"
This famous phrase attributed to the "iron" chancellor Otto von Bismarck, but he is not its author. These words were spoken by a professor of geography from Leipzig, Oscar Peschel. But he had in mind not the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871), but the Austro-Prussian war (1866). In one of the newspaper articles, the professor wrote: “... Public education plays a decisive role in the war... When the Prussians beat the Austrians, it was the victory of the Prussian teacher over the Austrian school teacher". It follows from this that the popular phrase is a hint that a more educated and cultured nation will surely defeat the enemy.
5. “If I fall asleep and wake up in a hundred years, and they ask me what is happening in Russia now, I will answer without hesitation: they drink and steal”
Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin became famous for his sparkling satire, which is still relevant to this day. However, the phrase, the authorship of which is attributed to him, he did not utter. For the first time, the expression "If I fall asleep and wake up in a hundred years, and they ask me what is happening in Russia now, I will answer without hesitation: they drink and steal" appeared in Mikhail Zoshchenko's collection of everyday short stories and historical anecdotes " blue book in 1935.
Mikhail Zoshchenko wrote amazing prose, despite the fact that
"No bread - let them eat cakes", - Marie Antoinette frivolously exclaimed, demonstrating complete ignorance of the need in which the people live. And she paid for it with her life.
However, the last queen of France did not utter the famous aphorism, this was attributed to her. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who mentioned the episode in his Confession, can safely be considered a participant in the information war of that time.
« Marie Antoinette with her hand resting on a globe” (detail), court painter Jean-Baptiste-André Gautier-Dagoty.
The French did not like the Austrian Marie Antoinette. Rude jokes were told about her and it was believed that the foreigner was indifferent to the local population, did not know about the starving peasants and kept the king under his heel. In particular, it was said that Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the forerunner of the French Revolution, had in mind when he wrote in his Confession (1776-1770) about a certain princess who, in response to the remark that the people do not have bread, threw indifferently: "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" ( Let them eat brioche).
brioche- This is bread made from expensive flour. The replacement for cakes occurred later and no longer in France, but when the aphorism spread around the world.
Researchers of the phrase come to the conclusion that Marie Antoinette could hardly be its author. If only because Rousseau made his entry a couple of years before 1770, when the Austrian princess came to Paris to get married and ascend the French throne.
In addition, Marie Antoinette herself was engaged in charity work and sympathized with the poor. So the expression was somewhat inconsistent with her character.
But, as you know, the weapon of information wars is not the truth at all, but a plausible lie.
In February 1917, someone skillfully spread a rumor about a catastrophic shortage of bread in Petrograd, which was not even in sight - interruptions were caused by a disruption in the freight traffic schedule due to snow drifts. Bread riots that arose from scratch led to the abdication of the king from the throne.
Because of the rumor about Yanukovych's golden toilet bowl, the gullible and stupid mob tore their own country to smithereens. But the toilet was never found.
The Americans confidently told the world about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the world ceases to object to smashing a foreign country to smithereens. And search again main reason intrusions are futile.
During the French Revolution, there were also many rumors. And one of them was to turn the people against the queen to behead the young beautiful woman was perceived as a fair retribution, and not as too cruel a punishment for sins, moreover, not committed. Not as a legalized murder, which, in fact, was this execution.
But in the case of the aphorism about dear brioche instead of cheap bread, everything is still worse and more indecent. For even if Marie Antoinette had said so, it would have testified, rather, to her concern for the hungry, and not at all to the carelessness of a depraved and far from the people queen. And that's why.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, unlike the insane crowd, could not help but know what the law of that time prescribed for French bakers sell brioches for the price of bread when it ended. And it was directed specifically against food riots, as bakers preferred to bake expensive brioches in order to make more profit.
There is no frivolity in the phrase "Qu‘ils mangent de la brioche" - it contains the bewilderment of a legally literate person who is well acquainted with the problem. Its real meaning can be formulated as follows: “Why don't people buy brioche when the bread runs out? No one should starve, because we have passed a special law to force clever bakers to bake enough bread.”
Unfortunately, no one is interested in the truth during a blood-stirring rebellion, whether it be the Great French Revolution, the Great October Revolution or the Maidan. The information wars of the 18th century differ little from modern ones.
Of course, I have listed far from all the information wars waged by
"If they don't have bread, let them eat cake!" . This phrase is believed to have once been uttered by the young French princess Marie Antoinette in response to the words of ministers that the French peasants had run out of bread and the country was on the verge of starvation. More precisely, the princess said "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche", which literally translated from French means "Let them eat brioche", i.e. sweet buns. Today, this phrase has become a symbol of the extreme detachment of the authorities from the real problems of the common people.
However, even the first small historical analysis revealed that for the first time these words were written down by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his historical book "Confessions" (1766-1770). According to Rousseau, it was spoken by a certain young French princess, whom popular rumor, as well as many historians, subsequently identified with Marie Antoinette.
Chronologically, the problem is that Marie Antoinette at that time (according to the records - 1769) was still an unmarried princess and lived in her native Austria. She arrived in France only in 1770. As mentioned above, Rousseau did not indicate a specific name in his work. Despite the current popularity of the phrase, it was practically not used during the Great French Revolution. Apparently, Rousseau himself came up with the apt phrase, since he and many other French people really wanted to believe that the Queen, who had become hated, actually uttered it. the masses before the revolution.
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In our time, the media often resort to this catchphrase when they want to emphasize the isolation of the authorities from real life ordinary citizens. Thus, during the economic crisis of 2008-2009, American radio stations played records that talked about advice to citizens on saving money, among which they called a trip to Hawaii once a year for 7 days instead of twice for three or four days; the call to refuel at night when it is denser and so on. In response, radio listeners began to send angry responses that many Americans could not afford a vacation in principle for a long time or that their car was taken from them for debts, calling the station's advice the modern equivalent of the phrase about "cakes".
Often they remember about “cakes” when they want to characterize Latin American TV shows in which the life of luxurious hacienda is filled with various love passions, despite the fact that the bulk of the population Latin American countries They don't even have a sewer at home.
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But we, dear gourmets, are interested in this whole story only insofar as brioche is really a royal “confectionery”. They, in their own way, are the embodiment of French cuisine and France in general. Brioshes are delicate (not without reason they are often confused with cakes), aristocratic and exquisite in taste.
So, brioche (French brioche) is a sweet bun made from brewer's yeast dough with butter. Its name comes either from the locality of Brie, or from the name of the confectioner Bri-Sha. In general, again solid riddles. It began to be made back in the eighteenth century in the Vendée (Normandy).
Traditionally made from 6 pieces of round-shaped dough, glued together before baking. The Parisian brioche (brioche a tete, with a head), which has become famous and popular with bohemia and aristocrats, is big ball dough, decorated on top with a small one. Often raisins and finely crushed chocolate are added to the brioche dough. However, there are also recipes for brioche stuffed with meat.
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But enough history, epithets and reasoning. It's time to roll up your sleeves and get down to business so that you, your friends and loved ones follow the advice of a French princess... no matter which princess, and taste this wonderful with a cup of tea or coffee pastry. Fortunately, there are a lot of brioche recipes on our website.
Brioche Recipes:
According to materials:
http://www.nazdar.ru/
http://ru.wikipedia.org/
