"THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL" ONCE AGAIN.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1889, 18 October 1913, Page 9

"THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL" ONCE AGAIN.

Baroness Orczy's latest story, "Eldorado" (Hodder and 1 Stoughton; per S. and W. MacKay) may be Tegared as a sequel to " The Elusive Fimpernel," "I Will Repay," and "Tho Scarlet Pimpernel," but, as were it 3 predecessors, its is complete in itself. Once again Baroness Orczy skillfully utilises historical incidents, the plot of her latest story turning upon tho rescue of the poor little son of tlie hapless Louis XVI. from his brutal jailers in the grim old prison of the Temple. The author has evidently read Gnstave Lenotre's erudite work, "A Gascon Rojalist in Revolutionary Paris," but she has cleverly intorwoven with tho record of historical facts a blend of finely romantic fiction, and the result is a, powerfully written picturesque story, in which, of course, our old friend, the chivalrous, audacious and altogether fascinating Sir Percy Blakeney plays, as might'be expected, a prominent part. The author has, perhaps, overcrowded her stage a little, and the story has hardly the same entrain and vivacity which marked its predecessors. But Baroness Orczy is astonishingly successful in reproducing to us t!he local colour of Paris undertho Terror, and in her principaT historical figure, the mysterious intriguer, the Baron de Batz, as to whose exact share in the chief events of the Revolutionary period even the most erudite historians are apt to disagree, she gives us an exceptionally clever and complox character. "Eldorado " well sustains Baroness Orczy's reputation as a gifted writer of historical romance, and will no doubt achiovo as wido a success • as did the same author' 3 earlier novels, in which "The Scarlot Pimpernel" was introduced.