CHAPTER XVI.
The Queen expects to be confined again .-- Increasing Unpopularity of the King's Brothers .-- Birth of the Dauphin .-- Festivities .-- Deputations from the Different Trades .-- Songs of the Dames de la Halle .-- Ball given by the Body-guard .-- Unwavering Fidelity of the Regiment .-- The Queen offers up her Thanksgiving at Notre Dame .-- Banquet at the Hotel de Ville .-- Rejoicing in Paris.
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.