Marie Antoinette never said “Let them eat cake” about the people of France, but she might have said it about her adopted children — of which she had several. The Austrian-born queen of France had four biological children with King Louis XVI, only one of whom survived childhood, and adopted several others.
The couple adopted Armand Gagné (born François-Michel Gagné) in 1776, when the boy was 5, after the queen’s carriage nearly ran him over and she learned he was an orphan. Jean Amilcar was born in 1781 in French Senegal, enslaved as a child, and given to Marie Antoinette as a gift; she freed, baptized, and adopted him.
Ernestine Lambriquet’s parents were servants at Versailles, which led to her being a playmate of the king and queen’s daughter Marie-Thérèse; after the girl’s mother died in 1788, she was also adopted by the monarchs. So, too, were Jeanne Louise Victoire (better known as Zoë) and her two older sisters, whose father was an usher for the king and who were orphaned and then adopted in 1790. Only Armand, Ernestine, and Zoë actually lived with Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, however — the rest were more akin to foster children whom the royal family supported financially.
