Marie Antoinette
Let them eat cake.Collection: Birthday
It is an amazing feature in the French character that they will let themselves be led away so easily by bad counsels and yet return again so quickly. It is certain that as these people have, out of their misery, treated us so well, we are the more bound to work for their happiness.Collection: Happiness
Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?Collection: Courage
I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.Collection: Alone
I pity my brother Ferdinand, knowing by my own feelings how sad a thing it is to live apart from one's family.Collection: Sad
Your Majesty may rest assured about my conduct towards the Comtesse de Provence; I will certainly try and gain her friendship and confidence, without going too far.Collection: Friendship
In a month's time, I shall be able to give your Majesty news of the Comtesse de Provence, for the marriage is fixed for May 14th; they had prepared many fetes for this marriage, but now they are economising in them for want of money.Collection: Marriage
I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all.
There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
It is true I am rather taken up with dress; but as to feathers, every one wears them, and it would seem extraordinary if I did not.
The king is full of kindnesses toward me, and I love him tenderly. But it is pitiable to see his weakness for Madame du Barri, who is the silliest and most impertinent creature that it is possible to conceive.
You can be assured that I need no one's guidance in anything concerning propriety.
My tastes are not those of the king, who has none, except for hunting and mechanic's labour.
No one understands my ills, nor the terror that fills my breast, who does not know the heart of a mother.
No harm will come to me. The Assembly is prepared to treat us leniently.
We made our entrance into Paris. As for honors, we received all that we could possibly imagine; but they, though very well in their way, were not what touched me most. What was really affecting was the tenderness and earnestness of the poor people, who, in spite of the taxes with which they are overwhelmed, were transported with joy at seeing us.
I should be very sorry if the Germans disapproved of me.
My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them. The king will not have the same weaknesses as his grandfather. I hope that he will have no favorites; but I am afraid that he is too mild and too easy. You may depend upon it that I will not draw the king into any great expenses.
My mother sees things but from the distance; she does not weigh them in regard to my position, and she judges me too harshly. But she is my mother, who loves me dearly; and when she speaks, I can only bow my head.
The king and the dauphin both like to see me on horseback. I only say this because all the world perceives it, and especially while we were absent from Versailles, they were delighted to see me in my riding habit.
You have doubtless heard, my dear mother, the misfortune of Madame de Chartres, whose child is born dead. But I would rather have even that, terrible as it is, than be as I am without hope of any children.
I feel more and more, every day of my life, how much my dear mamma has done for my establishment. I was the youngest of all her daughters, and she has treated me as if I were the eldest, so that my whole soul is filled with the most tender gratitude.
It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country; I have more reason than anyone to feel, every day of my life, the value of the blood which flows in my veins, and it is only from prudence that at times I abstain from showing how proud I am of it.
I have begun the 'History of England' by Mr. Hume. It seems to me very interesting, though it is necessary to recollect that it is a Protestant who has written it.
The King of Prussia is innately a bad neighbor, but the English will also always be bad neighbors to France, and the sea has never prevented them from doing her great mischief.
If the people have no bread, let them eat cake.Collection: Cake
it is the nature of human beings, and especially of the mediocre ones, to wish to change everything. They desire it all the more because they know popularity will accrue rather to those who disturb than to those who maintain order.Collection: Change
I wasn’t raised, I was built.Collection: Raised
Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness.Collection: Would Be
We had a beautiful dream and that was all. The interest of my son is the only guide I have, and whatever happiness I could achieve by being free of this place I cannot consent to separate my self from him. I could not have any pleasure in the world if I abandoned my children. I do not even have any regrets.Collection: Beautiful
I am terrified of being bored.Collection: Bored
And I will make thee beds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies.Collection: Love
Marie Antoinette. Her last words were,"Pardon me sir. I did not mean to do it,"to a man whose foot she stepped on before she was executed by the guillotineCollection: Mean
I had friends. The idea of being forever separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my latest moment I thought of them.Collection: Ideas
Tribulation first makes one realize what one is.Collection: Firsts
Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me.Collection: Failing
No, do not love me, it is better to give me death!Collection: Giving
Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. Let them eat cake. On being told that her people had no bread. Attributed to Marie-Antoinette, but remark is much older. Rousseau refers in his Confessions, 1740, to a similar remark, as a well-known saying. Others attribute the remark to the wife of Louis XIV.Collection: Cake
one's enjoyment is doubled when one can share it with a friend - and where can one find a more affectionate, a more intimate friend than in one's own family?Collection: Family
The ministers and the Jacobins are making the king declare war tomorrow on Austria. The ministers are hoping that this move will frighten the Austrians and that within three weeks we will be negotiating (God forbid that this should happen). May we at last be avenged for all the outrages we have suffered from this country!Collection: Country
I have just been condemned, not to a shameful death, which can only apply to felons, but rather to finding your brother again...I seek forgiveness for all whom I know for every harm I may have unwittingly caused them...Adieu, good, gentle sister...I embrace you with all my heart as well as the poor, dear children.Collection: Brother
Farewell, my children, forever. I go to your Father.Collection: Children
I trust we shall never be reduced to the painful extremity of seeking the aid of Mirabeau.Collection: Revolution
I have come, Sire, to complain of one of your subjects who has been so audacious as to kick me in the belly.Collection: Pregnancy