TALL TALES
LET them eat cake! Did Queen Marie Antoinette really say that? Or is this just another piece of history we should consign to fake news? In this fascinating three-parter, Lucy Worsley uncovers the real stories hidden by historical distortions and exaggerations.
As she looks behind the popular historical narratives of these big moments that have evolved over the decades to suit the political interests of the age,
Lucy reveals that history is packed full of whopping great lies. Hardly surprising, since we all know that our recent history is also packed full of fibs.
Kicking off with the French Revolution of 1789, there are plenty of myths to dispel – that famous cake command being one of them.
It seems Marie Antoinette has been misquoted to help historians explain why the revolution happened.
Historian Michael Rapport explains how the revolution wasn’t started by starving peasants as many assume – it was in fact sparked by a group of lawyers and property owners.
Lucy also finds out that Maximilien Robespierre wasn’t the bloodthirsty revolutionary of the popular imagination. And the guillotine was invented by the revolutionaries not as a brutal punishment but as a more egalitarian and humanitarian form of execution.
Ultimately Lucy discovers that everyone has a very different take, depending on their politics and nationality.
“We often think that royal history is definitive, but it’s not,” says Lucy. “Everyone has their own version.”
It may be a bunch of lies, but let’s all eat cake anyway…