Even in that moment of profound disarray the name sent a deeper shudder through his hearers.  The Duke, who stood grasping the arms of his chair, raised his head and tried to stare down the intruders; but no one heeded his look.  At a signal from the Dominican a servant had brought in a pair of candelabra, and in their commonplace light the cabalistic hangings, the magician’s appliances and his fantastically-dressed attendants looked as tawdry as the paraphernalia of a village quack.  Heiligenstern alone survived the test.  Erect, at bay as it were, his black robe falling in hieratic folds, the white wand raised in his hands, he might have personified the Prince of Darkness drawn up undaunted against the hosts of the Lord.  Some one had snatched the little prince from his stretcher, and Maria Clementina, holding him to her breast, sat palely confronting the sorcerer.  She alone seemed to measure her strength against his in some mysterious conflict of the will.  But meanwhile the Duke had regained his voice.

“My father,” said he, “on what information does the Holy Office act?”

The Dominican drew a parchment from his breast.  “On that of the Inquisitor General, your Highness,” he replied, handing the paper to the Duke, who unfolded it with trembling hands but was plainly unable to master its contents.  Father Ignazio beckoned to an ecclesiastic who had entered the room in his train.

“This, your Highness,” said he, “is the abate de Crucis of 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