f Innsbruck,
who was lately commissioned by the Holy Office to enquire into the
practises and doctrine of the order of the Illuminati, that corrupt and
atheistical sect which has been the cause of so much scandal among the
German principalities. In the course of his investigations he became
aware that the order had secretly established a lodge in Pianura; and
hastening hither from Rome to advise your Highness of the fact, has
discovered in the so-called Count Heiligenstern one of the most
notorious apostles of the order." He turned to the priest. "Signor
abate," he said, "you confirm these facts?"

The abate de Crucis quietly advanced. He was a slight pale man of about
thirty, with a thoughtful and indulgent cast of countenance.

"In every particular," said he, bowing profoundly to the Duke, and
speaking in a low voice of singular sweetness. "It has been my duty to
track this man's career from its ignoble beginning to its infamous
culmination, and I have been able to place in the hands of the Holy
Office the most complete proofs of his guilt. The so-called Count
Heiligenstern is the son of a tailor in a small village of Pomerania.
After passing through various vicissitudes with which I need not trouble
your Highness, he obtained the confidence of the notorious Dr.
Weishaupt, the founder of the German order of the Illuminati, and
together this precious couple have indefatigably propagated their
obscene and blasphemous doctrines. That they preach atheism and
tyrannicide I need not tell your Highness; but it is less generally
known that they have made these infamous doctrines the cloak of private
vices from which even paganism would have recoiled. The man now before
me, among other open offences against society, is known to have seduced
a young girl of noble family in Ratisbon and to have murdered her child.
His own wife and children he long since abandoned and disowned; and the
youth yonder, whom he describes as a Georgian slave rescued from the
Grand Signior's galleys, is in fact the wife of a Greek juggler of
Ravenna, and has forsaken her husband to live in criminal intercourse
with an atheist and assassin."

This indictment, pronounced with an absence of emotion which made each
word cut the air like the separate stroke of a lash, was followed by a
prolonged silence; then one of the Duchess's ladies cried out suddenly
and burst into tears. This was the signal for a general outbreak. The
room was filled with a confusi