Let Them Eat Cake

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Let Them Eat Cake was a 1999 British comedy series set in 1782 in the Palace of Versailles, as a helpful title card points out every episode, during the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Lasting a grand total of one six-episode series in 1999, it starred Jennifer Saunders as the amoral Colombine, Comtesse de Vache, with Dawn French and Adrian Scarborough as her maid Lisette and foppish manservant Bouffant, respectively.

Idle and rich, Colombine spends her days cataloging the debaucheries of her fellow palace-mates for blackmail purposes, as she has not herself had the chance to debauch as of late and is always looking for a chance to get in good with the royals. Lisette's job is to keep the Comtesse going all hours of the day, only stepping out to have her own debaucherous relations with various men, noble, soldier, and peasant. Meanwhile, Bouffant's hard work keeps her at the forefront of gaudy French fashion, whether it be a dress or a large battleship-adorned wig appropriate for viewing public royal copulation. Unfortunately, those outside the palace walls are already starting to revolt.


Tropes used in Let Them Eat Cake include:


  • Beleaguered Assistant: Lisette and Bouffant.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Apple. Banana. Thankfully, not a melon. But a cocky Lisette leaves a pineapple by her bed.
  • British Brevity
  • Famous Last Words: Said by Colombine, though technically they were only the penultimate last words of the series. Lisette's "You shouldn't've said that" were the last.
  • Grande Dame: The Comtesse and Madame de Plonge at least make attempts at it.
  • Gratuitous French: Oddly, plenty. Often requires translation for Colombine's benefit, which is confusing in itself.
  • Locked Room Mystery: Or a closed room mystery, at least, in the episode "Murder". Colombine must have done the deed, but it would require her to do an impossible task: open (many, many) doors.
  • Marie Antoinette: Funny Foreigner vith a very thick accent and a tendency to not know French (English) vords.
  • Mistaken for Pregnant: It was just bad gas from the Voopee.
  • The Rival: Madame de Plonge, with whom Colombine is in a one-upsmanship contest in. The two frequently attempt to ruin one another's reputations, until Colombine successfully get her exiled from the palace.
  • Those Two Guys: 1st and 2nd Aristocratic Woman.
  • Wacky Cravings: Soap pudding.