This prophecy was remarkably fulfilled in the history of France during the Revolution in 1793. “France stands apart in the world's history as the single state which, by the decree of her Legislative Assembly, declared that there was no God. The entire population of the capital, and a great majority elsewhere, women as well as men, danced and sang with joy in accepting the announcement.”1Blackwood Magazine, November 1870. LF 114.8
France also revealed the characteristics that distinguished Sodom. The historian presents together the atheism and the loose sexuality of France: “Closely connected with these laws affecting religion was the law that reduced the union of marriage—the most sacred tie that human beings can form, and whose permanence contributes most strongly to the stability of society—to nothing more than a civil contract of a temporary character, which any two persons might engage in and cast aside whenever they wished.... Sophie Arnoult, an actress famous for saying witty things, described marriage in that era as ‘the sacrament of adultery.’”2Sir Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon, volume 1, chapter 17. LF 114.9