Teenage Royalty

Queen of France, in the late 1700s, Marie Antoinette is rumored to be the most hated Queen of all time. She is historically remembered by her arrogant and apathetic remark, "If they have no bread, let them eat cake," when told that the peasants of her country were starving because of the severely decreased to basically non-existent bread supply in Paris. The truth of whether or not this utterance was made from her mouth is debated and some historians believe it to be revolutionary propaganda. However, the real mystery does not concern whether or not she actually said this, but rather why this quote would be plausible for her to state.

Perhaps due to her youthful naivete and national apathy, she loosely responded to this matter as if it was a joke, not understanding the depth of this issue and the problems it posed to France and its people. Being a young teenager when her coronation took place, she was never properly trained or really fit to rule a country. Her mother, the Queen of Austria, used her as a means to build relations with France after recently having signed a peace treaty with them. Since then, many people believe her to be a selfish and unaware Queen who lived solely to have fun--throwing lavish parties and spending large amounts of money on her extraordinary fashions while the rest of France was starving. Many might have seen her as the French Paris Hilton of the time, a national celebrity watched by the public solely to pick our her faults and to gleefully watch her trip and fall.