<P> At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: "Then let them eat brioches ." </P> <P> Rousseau does not name the "great princess" and he may have invented the anecdote, as Confessions cannot be read as strictly factual . </P> <P> The quotation, as attributed to Marie Antoinette, was claimed to have been uttered during one of the famines that occurred in France during the reign of her husband, Louis XVI . Upon being alerted that the people were suffering due to widespread bread shortages, the Queen is said to have replied, "Then let them eat brioche ." Although this anecdote was never cited by opponents of the monarchy at the time of the French Revolution, it did acquire great symbolic importance in subsequent histories when pro-revolutionary historians sought to demonstrate the obliviousness and selfishness of the French upper classes at that time . As one biographer of the Queen notes, it was a particularly useful phrase to cite because "the staple food of the French peasantry and the working class was bread, absorbing 50 percent of their income, as opposed to 5 percent on fuel; the whole topic of bread was therefore the result of obsessional national interest ." </P> <P> However, there is no evidence that Queen Marie Antoinette ever uttered this phrase . It was first attributed to her by Alphonse Karr in Les Guêpes of March 1843 . Other objections to the legend of Marie Antoinette and the cake / brioche comment centre on arguments concerning the queen's personality, internal evidence from members of the French royal family and the date of the saying's origin . For example, the Queen's English - language biographer, Antonia Fraser, wrote in 2002: </P>

Where did the term let them eat cake come from