The foreign leprosy gradually changed the character of our plebeians; they began to tremble before the powerful from whom they were separated by an immense interval. The two classes had nothing in common but vices and the habit of servility. Universal corruption produced great crimes and long catalogues of malefactors were often published. Nor was this in Liguria alone; all the provinces of the Peninsula were involved in a common demoralization. Assassins and robbers collected, not merely in bands, but in armies, and desolated the country and even the cities. They were led by trained warriors such as Alfonso Piccolomini, Corsietto del Sambuco--who ventured to the very gates of Rome--and Marco Sciarra who in Calabria took the title of king. Let no one suppose that the numerous altars, crucifixes and images of Mary prove the piety of our ancestors. They are witnesses for quite the contrary; in the midst of innumerable crimes perpetrated in open day, these religious emblems protected the citizen from the knife of the assassin who was too superstitious to smite him at the foot of the altar. Religion was then only a superstition and a terror. A multitude of books appeared full of the wildest vagaries that fanaticism ever produced. For example, there were the prophecies of S. Brigida threatening the city with destruction! and through such follies the cunning generation of men, who live upon hypocrisy, mystery and the dead, amassed large fortunes. Their instructions were idle speculations and appeals to human fears. In those days, patrician and jesuit intrigues collected their followers in a little church situated in the _Corsa del Diavolo_ and bound themselves by an oath to support for public offices only those of their own faction. An opposite faction organized, and from their standard--a black crucifix--were called _Moro delle Fucine_. This was the origin of those pagan saturnalia which survive in our times under the name of _Casaccie_. Duplicity, fraud and treachery took the place of frank and fearless honesty. Entire towns were infected with these vices like a species of leprosy. The inhabitants of Borsonasca acquired a wide reputation for shrewd frauds and deceptions. They understood every sleight of hand, learned foreign tongues and imitated them with admirable skill; they had cunning artifices for getting other people’s purses, and they travelled in every country in Europe. Though born in the woods, they entered boldly the palaces of nobles and even of princes, dressed as physicians, merchants, bishops and cardinals. They sold charms, medicines, false titles and privileges with such perfect art that they often acquired extravagant wealth and high rank.[55]