Traditionally, there has been much debate in France about whether French fascism did not exist or if it had been a marginal phenomenon before the Nazi occupation. There is growing consensus that no country can boast of being immune to fascism, but the Italian historian Sergio Luzzatto (Rome, 1963) goes a step further and states in the book El primer fascista (Pasado y Presente) that the first fascist was a French aristocrat: Antoine-Amédée-Marie-Vincent Manca Amat de Vallombrosa (1858-1896). Better known as the Marquis de Morès, he soon became convinced that the capitalist elites were contaminated by what he considered the Morès failed in practically all the projects he undertook: as a rancher in the Dakota territory, where he tried to revolutionize the meat industry; in the construction of a railway line in Asia, and, finally, when he returned to France to make a career as a populist leader and antisemitic demagogue. In this latter context, he played a particularly dark role within the , a political scandal that deeply divided French society. Luzzatto maintains that Morès's activism contributed to creating the ideological climate that made the accusation against the Jewish French officer credible. Morès ended up being murdered in the Moroccan desert, but, despite his failures, Luzzatto believes he was a visionary.