The Library › Reel I · The Scissor Queen
Did Louis XVI write “Rien” in his diary on his wedding day?
VERDICTINVENTED
No. His journal, published in 1873, gives 16 May 1770 as “Mon mariage, appartement dans la Galerie, festin royal à la salle d’Opéra.” The famous “Rien” is real, but it meant no hunting that day, and he wrote it constantly, including on 14 July 1789, the day the Bastille fell. Someone moved his best word to a more flattering date.
The receipts
- Journal de Louis XVI, ed. Louis Nicolardot (1873), Internet Archive
The comedy version
The untold story of Marie Antoinette, inventor of scissoring.
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