Volume 2 (of 6) 32/52 The nation is gliding down a declivity, and no one possesses the means or the force to arrest it. The King cannot do it: "undecided and weak beyond all expression, his character resembles those oiled ivory balls which one vainly strives to keep together."[1447] And as for the Assembly, blinded, violated, and impelled on by the theory it proclaims, and by the faction which supports it, each of its grand decrees only renders its fall the more precipitate. 195, 242.] [Footnote 1402: Elysee Loustalot, journalist, editor of the paper "Revolutions de Paris," was a young lawyer who had shown a natural genius for innovative journalism. He was to die already in 1790. (SR.)] [Footnote 1403: Montjoie, ch. |