Some Books of the Week
Oxi: of the most extraordinary puzzles of recent European history is discussed in the The Dunkelgraf Mystery, by Herr Maeckel in collaboration with Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond (Hutchin- son, 21s.). The " Dark Count," of whom many strange stories have been told, has now been definitely identified by Herr Maeckel's researches with Leonardus Cornelius van der Valck, who was a Secretary to the Dutch Embassy in Paris at the close of the eighteenth century, and came from a well- known banking family in Amsterdam. For thirty-six years he lived in various parts of Germany with a beautiful veiled lady, whose face no one ever saw and who never left her house and garden. At her death he at first refused to disclose her name to the authorities, and finally gave a fictitious name. There were many very curious circumstances connected with this lady's life and death, more particularly the almost royal deference paid to her by the ducal family of Hild- burghausen, where the mysterious couple passed the last years of their lives. The authors claim to have solved the mystery, and their book, while full of scholarly research, reads like a thrilling detective story. The lady, according to the apparently irrefutable circumstantial evidence they produce, was none other than the poor " Orphan of the Temple "- Louis XVI.'s daughter—whom the world was to know after- wards as the Duchesse d'Angouleme. The theory is that she was exchanged on December 26th, 1795, somewhere near the French-Swiss frontier, for some girl who resembled her, and lived ever afterwards, hidden from the world, with her protector van der Vakk. This is a fascinating book, more exciting than most novels, yet of real value, because the reader, hot on the heels of the mystery, will learn much of Europe during the early years of last century. The coloured illustrations add nothing to the book : we hope a cheaper edition will be published without them. * * * *
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