I had heard the cake version, and thought that was because there was no better word for brioche in English. As you hinted at, she never said that anyway, it's a Jean-Jacques Rousseau invention. So Jones's version with Vegemite is not less accurate than the original in fact :) Didn't know about the potatoes angle, so Louis XVI wasn't such a bad king after all.
Michel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Foster" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 8:19 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: corn price and ethanol > Michel wrote: > >> (Marie-Antoinette, not Marie, you ignoramus ;-) > > Well actually, if she said it at all it was, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche." > Nothing about cake. This may sound silly or irrelevant to the discussion but > it's not. Her husband, Louis XV1, had gone to great lengths to convince > French farmers to grow potatoes, so they wouldn't starve if the wheat crop > failed. Potatoes of one variety or another are very forgiving of the climate > they grow in, and yield far more calories per acre than almost any other crop. > > The vast majority of farmers refused and there was a very low yield of wheat > for a couple of years running. That, coupled with debts from financing the > American revolution, precipitated the French revolution. It's far more > complicated than that, but those are the root causes (pun intended). > > The message is this. If traditional crops are not supplemented by something > else, real trouble will follow. Using food crops for motor fuel is simply > disastrous. > > M. > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Be a better friend, newshound, and > know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. > http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ >
