The Goldberg Repetitions

Lucianne, Jnr., son of a bat, is nothing if not repetitive.

In 2001, Jonah Goldberg wrote this at National Review Online:

Marie-Antoinette didn't actually say "Let them eat cake!" In fact, she actually worked pretty hard to feed the poor. The legend comes from Rousseau's Confessions, where he wrote that a "Great princess" had declared "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" while the people were starving. Unfortunately "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" doesn't mean "Let them eat cake!" either. It means, more or less, "Let them eat [expensive] buns." And, it should be pointed out, Confessions was written in 1768, two years before Marie-Antoinette moved to France. Assuming Rousseau didn't just make it up, he was probably referring to Queen Marie-Therese.

Fascinating.

And just this week, the Bat's boy wrote another version of the same lame anecdote:

Let's start from the top. First, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" doesn't mean, "Let them eat cake." It means, "Let them eat some fancy egg-based bread" -- i.e. a brioche. Second, Marie Antoinette never said it. The story comes from Rousseau's "Confessions" and, according to historians, he couldn't have been talking about Marie Antoinette, because she was only 10 years old when the book was written and still living in Austria. Some believe that perhaps Marie Therese, another queen, had said, "Let them eat brioche," 100 years before the French Revolution. Other historians think Rousseau just made it all up. Whatever.

And most of the 2004 column is just a rewrite of 2001's lame effort. It's not quite a case of self-plagiarism, since Jonah worked up enough energy to rewrite the same thing in a slightly different way. (Although I wonder if he wrote the same thing for a college term paper, his high school paper, etc.) But it shows how little effort Jonah puts into his little hobby.

And don't get me started on how Jonah's explanation of the story doesn't even make sense, assuming it's true.