When informed that the lower classes of France were starving, their supply of moldy bread running out, Marie-Antoinette has been thought to have said four insensitive little words that would forever brand her as cruel and greedy: "Let them eat cake."
- from the book "Confessions," by Jean Jacques Rousseau
Marie-Antoinette was
falsly accused of making such comment in a publication two years before her reign as queen. The closest it ever got was
Marie Therese, wife of
Louis XIV, saying "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche,"
which means "Let them eat bread."
This correction is presented to tourists who visit the
Versailles as a fact agreed upon by historians. She also went around France helping the poor, by the way.
The misquote is an example of slanders made against her that shows how unpopular the woman from a different cultural background was, even before becoming a queen.
During the
French Revolution, Marie-Antoinette was beheaded on the
guillotine.
Not much was known about
economic depression back then, and the poor needed a scapegoat.
References: http://pages.about.com/versailles/marieantoinette.html
...and palace of Versailles tour.