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Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d'une grande princesse à qui l'on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : « Qu’ils mangent de la brioche. » |
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Finally I recalled the last resort of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: "Let them eat brioche." |
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It is now ſixteen or ſeventeen years ſince I ſaw the queen of France, then the dauphineſs, at Verſailles ; and ſurely never lighted on this orb, which ſhe hardly ſeemed to touch, a more delightful viſsion. I ſaw her juſt above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated ſphere ſhe juſt began to move in, glittering like the morning-ſtar, full of life, and ſplendor, and joy. Oh ! what a revolution ! and what an heart muſt I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall ! Little did I dream that, when ſhe added titles of veneration to thoſe of enthuſiaſtic, diſtant, reſpectful love,that ſhe should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote againſt diſgrace concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I ſhould have lived to ſee ſuch diſaſters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand ſwords muſt have leaped from their ſcabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with inſult.―But the age of chivalry is gone.―That of that of ſophiſters, œconomiſts, and calculators, has ſucceeded ; and the glory of Europe is extinguiſhed for ever.
—Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France — Burke's famous Purple Patch
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