Explanation: “We should bring back the guillotine” or similar is a common internet quip in response to billionaires doing billionaire things, when in reality the guillotine was invented to provide equal and humane deaths to people of all classes, and from there it was always a tool of the state rather than the people. Not the best euphemism for “we should depose the bourgeoisie.” In fact plenty of Revolutionary justice folks were themselves offed by the guillotine during the Terror.

  • Microw@piefed.zipEnglish
    8·
    6 days ago

    The original phrase, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat brioche”), was recorded by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Confessions in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was only nine years old and not yet in France. Rousseau attributed the phrase to “a great princess,” but did not specify who. The quote was later linked to Marie Antoinette as revolutionaries sought to paint her as an out-of-touch foreign queen who did not understand or care about the suffering of ordinary people. A lot of the attitude towards her was influenced by xenophobia (her being from France’ eternal enemy Austria) and misogyny (calling her out for a luxurious life that the entire court, most of them men, were living).