Thought you all might like to know – the actual history of the phrase “let them eat cake.” It has a connection to today’s politics of which few are aware.

“Let them eat brioche” – it was never “cake” – is most likely a call to enforce laws requiring bakeries to sell fancy breads (including brioche) at the same prices as plain bread, thus destroying incentives to make profits as well as declicious breakfast breads. The law was intended to help the poor, not hurt them.

This is not unlike current laws fixing the price of milk, butter, eggs and almost every variety of grain in the US and across Europe. In fact, all brioche ingredients are subsidized (here as well as in France) and most of those for cake as well. So, the next time you hear someone decrying the poor’s ability to “eat cake,” you can put them to rights about the actual history of the phrase.