Crítica
- LAST NIGHT THE DUKE OF AUMALE'S CASTLE IN FRANCE WAS SACKED
- THEY HID ON THE SHIP BUT THE RUSE DID NOT WORK: THEY WERE CAUGHT
- Festival of the Race!
Crítica's front page of 12 October 1926 led with an Associated Press cable from Paris on an overnight burglary at the Duke of Aumale's castle in Chantilly: thieves climbed into the Tower of Jewels on twelve-meter ladders, broke a window and took gems put at 80 to 90 million francs, including the Grand Condé diamond, valued at seventy million, and a stone from Abd-el-Kader's dagger. A second cable, citing Le Matin, told of two Italian men and a woman found travelling without tickets on the liner Massilia and locked up aboard, with a subhead wondering whether an organization lay behind them. A column on the Día de la Raza mocked the flood of holiday prose, its talk of Race and Latinity and its family metaphors of Mother Spain and Aunt Italy, before turning to Columbus.
Translation
LAST NIGHT THE DUKE OF AUMALE'S CASTLE IN FRANCE WAS SACKED
…of Germany in the League of Nations
LAST NIGHT THE DUKE OF AUMALE'S CASTLE IN FRANCE WAS SACKED
Jewels worth ninety million francs have been stolen, among them the famous diamond rosette known by the name of "Grand Condé"
THEY HAVE LEFT NO TRACE
(Associated Press) PARIS, 12. – Last night thieves entered the historic castle of the Duke of Aumale, located in Chantilly, and carried off jewels worth 80 to 90 million francs. The perpetrators of the robbery got into the castle park and used twelve-meter ladders to reach the Tower of Jewels, breaking one of its windows to get inside. Among the many precious stones they took is the famous diamond rosette known by the name of "Grand Condé," of inestimable value, which even before the war was reckoned at more than ten million francs at par, and which is now appraised at the sum of seventy million francs. They also took a brilliant that was set in a dagger that belonged to Abd-el-Kader, and another that had belonged to the Bey of Tu-…
THEY HID ON THE SHIP BUT THE RUSE DID NOT WORK: THEY WERE CAUGHT
…AVAIL THEM: THEY WERE…
While she was confined, under arrest, in the infirmary, the men managed to … on reaching Marseille
IS THERE AN ORGANIZATION IN BS…?
(Ass… Press) PARIS, 12. – The Bordeaux correspondent of the newspaper "Le Matin" says that two men and a woman, who were traveling without tickets aboard the Massilia, were discovered when the liner was fourteen days from Buenos Aires. The woman, whose name is Diana Mafony, was confined, under arrest, in the ship's infirmary, while the two men, Luis Nóbile and Mario Martín, both Italians, were held under arrest in the cell…
Festival of the Race!
Fernando, Prince of Prussia. – A Gerchunoff anecdote.
Festival of the Race!… Today is one of those special days on the calendar when the thing most to be feared is the explosion of occasional literature. And the worst of it is that there is no possible means of defense. Bad literature floats in the air, and there is no recourse but to breathe it. The atmosphere fills with vague concepts: Race, Fraternity, Latinity, Epic Deeds. And with kinships: Mother Spain, Aunt Italy, the sister republics. How much would it weigh in kilos, the literature being produced today on these things? It is impossible to forget Columbus. The illustrious Genoese admiral, although the people of Galicia claim him, has the peculiar-…
Context
How the Chantilly theft was solved and the diamond recovered
The cable printed by Crítica stressed that the thieves had left no trace, and later accounts confirm that the investigation stalled at first. According to a 2025 retelling by Paris Zigzag, two Alsatian adventurers, Léon-Émile Kauffer and Émile Souter, broke into the château's treasure tower on the night of 11–12 October 1926. Inspectors of the Versailles mobile brigade were sent, but despite fingerprinting and a careful inquiry they found no lead to the thieves. The case moved on 18 December 1926 at a Paris hotel, where a chambermaid gathering the belongings of a guest who had left without paying bit into an apple and found that what looked like a piece of pink cut glass was the missing diamond. Police set a trap; when Kauffer came back a few days later he was arrested without resistance and named his accomplice. Wikipedia's entry on the stone records more soberly that it was stolen in 1926 and later recovered, and that it is shown today in the Condé Museum inside the château. The apple episode comes from a popular account, so its colourful details deserve care, but the recovery of the stone is common to both sources.
The cable's valuations and the history of the Grand Condé
The cable put the haul at 80 to 90 million francs and valued the Grand Condé alone at seventy million, while separately citing a prewar valuation of more than ten million francs "at par." These were figures from the first hours after the theft. The 2025 Paris Zigzag account estimates the loot at several million francs of the time and says the thieves smashed the cases of the gem cabinet and took 69 pieces of jewellery, among them the pink diamond and the dagger of Abd el-Kader, the same dagger the cable mentions. The stone itself is a 9.01-carat pear-cut pink diamond. According to Wikipedia, the French king or his heir Louis XIV gave it to Louis II de Bourbon, prince of Condé, known as the Grand Condé, from whom it takes its name. The family kept it until its last heir, the Duke of Aumale, ceded it to the French government on condition that it remain on display at the Château de Chantilly. That condition is why the gem was kept in a tower at Chantilly. The cable's phrase "diamond rosette" does not match the single pear-cut stone described in reference works, which suggests the first reports were imprecise about the object as well as its price.
The Massilia and the Bordeaux–Buenos Aires mail line
The Massilia, named after the Roman city on the site of present-day Marseille, was an ocean liner of the Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique. She was built under a French state mail contract that required the company to maintain a fortnightly mail service between Bordeaux and Buenos Aires, and she worked that line from 1920 as a running mate of the Lutetia. Le Matin's correspondent in Bordeaux was therefore well placed to hear of stowaways found aboard. The ship also carried Argentine dignitaries: in 1922 Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, then ambassador in France, sailed on her when he was recalled to become President of Argentina. The article's fragmentary subheads mention Marseille and ask whether there is an organization "in BS," most likely an abbreviation for Buenos Aires; that question is the paper's own framing of the case. The ship's regular line ran to Bordeaux, and the sources at hand say nothing about these three travellers or about any stowaway ring.
The Día de la Raza in Argentina and the column's targets
The 12 October holiday that the column mocks was only about a dozen years old. Its name was coined by the former Spanish minister Faustino Rodríguez-San Pedro as president of the Unión Ibero-Americana, and the date was first celebrated as the Fiesta de la Raza in 1914. The Unión's programme presented the day as a way to express the spiritual intimacy between the "discovering and civilizing Nation" and the states formed on American soil, the same family language of Mother Spain and sister republics that the columnist ridicules. In Argentina, President Hipólito Yrigoyen declared the date a national holiday in 1917; the decree gave it no specific name, and the press and custom imposed "Día de la Raza." Even supporters were uneasy: the journalist Ernesto Mario Barreda wrote that not all who applauded the substance of the celebration agreed with the name given to it. The column's "Aunt Italy" and its aside about Galicians claiming the Genoese admiral are Crítica's own jabs, and they show the paper treating the holiday's kinship rhetoric as material for satire.
What kind of newspaper Crítica was in 1926
The page's mix of a sensational foreign heist, a shipboard arrest and an ironic literary column reflects the paper that printed it. Crítica was the newspaper with which Natalio Botana, starting in 1913, changed Argentine journalism. Writing in La Nación, Pablo Mendelevich describes it as combining sensationalism, few scruples and strident, ingenious crime coverage with a home for the finest literary pens. By the mid-1920s it reached legendary runs of 800,000 copies a day, and on 26 February 1926, earlier in the same year as this issue, it peaked at 900,000 with the news of the first aeroplane crossing of the Atlantic. Big cable headlines about jewel thieves and stowaways were the paper's stock in trade, while the column's mockery of occasional literature and its teaser for a Gerchunoff anecdote show the literary side of the same paper.
Original
ANOCHE SAQUEARON EL CASTILLO DEL DUQUE D'AUMALE EN FRANCIA
de Alemania en la Liga de las Naciones ANOCHE SAQUEARON EL CASTILLO DEL DUQUE D'AUMALE EN FRANCIA Han substraído joyas por valor de noventa millones de francos, entre ellas el famoso rosetón de diamantes conocido con el nombre de " Grand Condé " NO HAN DEJADO RASTROS (Associated Press) PARIS, 12. - Anoche entraron ladrones al histórico castillo del Duque d'Aumale, situado en Chantilly, llevándose joyas por un valor de 80 a 90 millones de francos. Los autores del robo entraron al parque del castillo empleando escaleras de doce metros para penetrar en la Torre de las Joyas, de la cual rompieron una ventana para introducirse al interior. Entre las numerosas piedras preciosas que substrajeron se encuentra el famoso rosetón de diamantes conocido bajo el nombre de " Grand Condé " de un valor inestimable, que ya antes de la guerra se calculaba en más de diez millones de francos a la par, y que actualmente se justiprecia en la suma de setenta millones de francos. También se llevaron un brillante que estaba engarzado en una daga que perteneció a Abd-el-Kader y otro que fué del Bey de Tú -
SE ESCONDIERON EN EL BARCO PERO LA ESTRATAGEMA NO LES VALIO: FUERON SORPRENDIDOS
VALIO: FUE Mientras ella fué internada en la en mería, detenida, los hombres lograron garse al llegar a Marsella ¿ HAY UNA ORGANIZACION EN BS (Ass [?] d Press) PARIS, 12. - El corresponsal del diario " Le Matin " en Burdeos dice que dos hombres y una mujer, que viajaban sin pasaje a bordo del Massilia, fueron descubiertos cuando el transatlántico se hallaba a catorce días de Buenos Aires. La mujer, que se llama Diana Mafony, fué internada, detenida, en la enfermería de a bordo, mientras que los dos hombres, Luis Nóbile y Mario Martín, ambos italianos, quedaron arrestados en el calabozo
¡Fiesta de la Raza!
Fernando, príncipe de Prusia. - Anécdota de Gerchunoff. ¡ Fiesta de la Raza!... Hoy es uno de esos días especiales del calendario en los que lo más temible es la explosión de la literatura circunstancial. Y lo peor es que no hay medio posible de defensa. La mala literatura flota en el aire y no queda más recurso que respirarla. La atmósfera se puebla de conceptos vagos: Raza, Confraternidad Latinidad, Hazañas Epicas. Y de parentescos: la Madre España, la tía Italia, las repúblicas hermanas. ¿ Cuánto pesaría en kilos, la literatura que hoy se hace sobre estas cosas? No es posible olvidar a Colón. El ilustre almirante genovés, aunque los de Galicia lo reclamen, ofrece la particulari -
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina