St. Cloud was bought; and Marie Antoinette, still eager to prevent her own acquisition from being too costly, proposed to the king that it should he bought in her name, and called her property; since an establishment for her would naturally lie framed on a more moderate scale than that of any palace belonging to the king, which was held always to require the appointment of a governor and deputy-governors, with a corresponding staff of underlings, while she should only require a porter at the outer gate.  The advantage of such a plan was so obvious that it was at once adopted.  The porters and servants wore the queen’s livery; and all notices of the regulations to be observed were signed “In the queen’s name.[1]” Yet so busy were her enemies at this time, that even this simple arrangement, devised solely for the benefit of the people who were intimately concerned in every thing that tended to diminish the royal expenditure, gave rise to numberless cavils.  Some affirmed that the issue of such notices in the name of the queen instead of in that of the king was an infringement on his authority.  One most able and influential counselor of the Parliament, Duval d’Espremesnil, who in more than one discussion in subsequent years showed that in general he fully appreciated the principles of constitutional government, but who at this time seems to have been animated by no other feeling than that of hatred for the existing ministers, even went the length of affirming that there was “something not only impolitic but immoral in the idea of any palace belonging to a queen of France.[2]” But when the arrangements had once been made, Marie Antoinette not unnaturally thought her honor concerned in not abandoning it in deference to clamor so absurd, as well as so disrespectful to herself; and St. Cloud, to which she had always been partial, continued hers, and for the next five years divided her attention with the Trianon.

But though she herself disregarded all such attacks with the calm dignity which belonged to her character, her friends were not free from serious apprehensions as to the power of persistent detraction and calumny.  It was one of the penalties which the nation had to pay for the infamies which had stained the crown during the last three centuries, that the people had learned to think that nothing was too bad to say and to believe of their kings; and Marie Antoinette seemed as yet a fairer mark than usual for slanderous attack, because her position was weaker than that of a King.[3] It depended on the life of her husband and of a single son, who was already beginning to show signs of weakness of constitution.  It was therefore with exceeding satisfaction that in the autumn of 1784 her friends learned that she was again about to become a mother.  They prayed with inexpressible anxiety that the expected child should prove a son; and on the 27th of March, 1785, their prayers were granted.  A son was born, whom his delighted father at once took in his arms,