The reformers met at various places, and their meetings were conducted
with as much secrecy as those of the Honey-Bees. Odo was at first
surprised that they should admit him to their conferences; but he soon
divined that the gatherings he attended were not those at which the
private designs of the party were discussed. It was plain that they
belonged to some kind of secret association; and before he had been long
in Pianura he learned that the society of the Illuminati, that bugbear
of priests and princes, was supposed to have agents at work in the
duchy. Odo had heard little of this execrated league, but that it was
said to preach atheism, tyrannicide and the complete abolition of
territorial rights; but this, being the report of the enemy, was to be
received with a measure of doubt. He tried to learn from Gamba whether
the Illuminati had a lodge in the city; but on this point he could
extract no information. Meanwhile he listened with interest to
discussions on taxation, irrigation, and such economic problems as might
safely be aired in his presence.
These talks brought vividly before him the political corruption of the
state and the misery of the unprivileged classes. All the land in the
duchy was farmed on the metayer system, and with such ill results that
the peasants were always in debt to their landlords. The weight of the
evil lay chiefly on the country-people, who had to pay on every pig they
killed, on all the produce they carried to market, on their farm
implements, their mulberry-orchards and their silk-worms, to say nothing
of the tithes to the parish.
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