THE CHARLATAN STATE
253
would have happened if Whitney and Musica could have met alone some
place, after they had been revealed to one another; say by being placed
together in the same prison cell. And let us in some such manner bring
Wall St. and Mulberry St. face to face. I
know
what would happen. In
the end Whitney would succumb to Musica and Mulberry St. would van·
quish Wall. Spiritually, that is. Physically the conquerors would destroy
themselves.
•
To anyone who reads the story of the fake Sicilian Count, the fake
Doctor, it will be evident that he was as much the victim as the victimizer
of the society and the age in which he moved. His real crime proved to be
that his diploma was false. The European aristocracy forgave him his
false title of nobility; but the middle classes, clinging, then as now, to
their philistinism as fiercely as if it were a title of nobility, never forgave
him his false diploma in medicine. Cardinal de Rohan, one of the chief
culprits in the Diamond Necklace Scandal which began the ruin of Cagli–
ostro, had been consigned, along with the pseud-Count, to the Bastille,
where he lived "in almost as much comfort as if he had been in his own
palace....
"As money-and Cagliostro had plenty of it-like rank, was able
to purchase equal consideration in the Bastille, the contrast in the treat–
ment of the two persons almost warrants the supposition that the jailers
derived no little amusement from making sport of the sufferings of one
who was alleged to be immune from those ills to which mere clay is
prone. There are many people to whom a weeping Pierrot is as funny as
a laughing one."
6 ' •••
A mocked and crucified Antichrist.
Eighteenth century magic, with its unrestrained logic, was often more
advanced, if I may say so, than eighteenth century science. At any rate
Sicily has never produced a medicine man, legitimate or quack, to equal
Cagliostro in sheer genius. Our own age is rich in examples.
•
The quotation which heads this article is a key to the life and the
character of the South. The Southerner met the competition of the State
of Piedmont, a competition moreover brought into his very home in the
spirit of a challenge, with the creation of a State of his own, a quack of a
State to be sure. The banditry in his nature was given full play. This
anti-State had a society of its own: political bandits, literary bandits (like
~tier's
Karl May), medical bandits, clerical bandits, etc., etc. Quackery
was elevated to the dignity of a social system. Politicians without delega–
tion (like those bandit3 scurrying out of Europe before Hitler's armies,
~tatesmen
without states), priests without parishes, friars without monas–
teries,
offic~rs
without troops, doctors without medical schools and hospi-
'I.
T. Trowbridge,
Caglwstro.
