How irreparable his loss was, was shown by the rapid succession of finance ministers who, in the course of the next seven years, successively held the office of comptroller-general.  All were equally incompetent, and under their administration, sometimes merely incapable, sometimes combining recklessness and corruption with incapacity, the treasury again became exhausted, the resources of the nation dwindled away, and the distress of all but the wealthiest classes became more and more insupportable.  But for a time the attention of Marie Antoinette was drawn off from political embarrassments by the event which alone seemed wanting to complete her personal happiness, and to place her position and popularity on an impregnable foundation.

In the spring she discovered that she was again about to become a mother.  The whole nation expected the result with an intense anxiety.  The king’s brothers were daily becoming more and more deservedly unpopular.  The Count d’Artois, who as the father of a son, occupied more of the general attention than his elder brother, seemed to take pains to parade his contempt for the commercial class, and still more for the lower orders, and his disapproval of every proposal which had for its object to conciliate the traders or to relieve the sufferings of the poor; while the Count de Provence openly established a mistress, the Countess de Balbi, at the Luxembourg Palace, his residence in the capital, where she presided over the receptions which he took upon himself to hold, to the exclusion of his lawful princess.  The Countess de Provence was not well calculated to excite admiration or sympathy, since she was plain and ungracious.  But Madame de Balbi, whose character had been disgracefully notorious even before her connection with the count, was not more attractive in appearance or manner than the Savoy princess; and the citizens of Paris, who in this instance faithfully represented the feelings of the entire nation, did not disguise their anxiety that the child about to be born should be a prince, who might extinguish the hopes and projects of both his uncles.

Their wishes were gratified.  On the morning of the 22d of October the king was starting from the palace on a hunting expedition with his brothers, when it was announced to him that the queen was taken ill.[1] He at once returned to her room, and, mindful of the danger which she had incurred on the occasion of the birth of Madame Royale from the greatness and disorder of the crowd, he broke through the ancient custom, and ordered that the doors should be closed, and that no one should be admitted beyond a very small number of the great officers, male and female, of the household.  His cares were rewarded by a comparatively easy birth; and his anxiety to protect his wife from agitation was further shown by a second arrangement, which was perhaps hardly so easy to carry out, but which was also perfectly successful.  As was most natural, the queen and himself fully shared the ardent