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 confusion of voices, and among the groups surging
about him Odo noticed a number of the Duke's sbirri making their way
quietly through the crowd. The notary of the Holy Office advanced toward
Heiligenstern, who had placed himself against the wall, with one arm
flung about his trembling acolyte. The Duchess, her boy still clasped
against her, remained proudly seated; but her eyes met Odo's in a glance
of terrified entreaty, and at the same instant he felt a clutch on his
sleeve and heard Cantapresto's whisper.