There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.

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!

Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me.

Let them eat cake.

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.

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.

No, do not love me, it is better to give me death!