Chantilly

The Duc d'Aumale left Chantilly to the Institut de France in 1886 with a condition attached: the collection must stay exactly as he hung it and nothing may be lent out. That makes the Conde museum a nineteenth-century picture hang preserved intact, the second collection of old masters in France after the Louvre, with Raphael, Poussin, Ingres and the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, whose original is shown only as facsimile. The Great Stables, built in the 1720s, are enormous because Prince Louis-Henri believed he would be reincarnated as a horse and wanted suitable quarters; they now hold a horse museum and a working equestrian display.

History

No traces of prehistoric or Iron Age settlement have been found at Chantilly, though there are Roman roads in the forest and Merovingian tombs of the seventh century. Around 1223 Guy IV of Senlis, the king's hereditary grand butler, became the first lord of what was then little more than a rock in a marsh, and a strong house there is recorded in 1227; the château was wrecked in the Jacquerie of 1358 and rebuilt by Pierre d'Orgemont, completed in 1394, and in the Hundred Years' War it was besieged and surrendered by Jacqueline de Paynel, whose husband had died at Agincourt. The town grew from hamlets outside the château, where houses were built for the court of the Montmorency family, among them the Hôtel de Beauvais of 1539 for the master of the hunt of the constable Anne de Montmorency; from the 17th century Chantilly belonged to the Princes of Condé, and in 1673 the Grand Condé laid out the road around which the new town grew (Wikipedia, Chantilly, Oise).

The main sights

• The Conde collection - old masters in the original unchangeable hang.
• The Great Stables - a palatial 1720s stable block with equestrian shows.
• The Le Notre gardens - formal canals and parterres in the park.
• The library - the duke's book collection, kept as he arranged it.

When to go

April to October for the gardens and shows; the domain closes on Tuesdays in low season. Chantilly cream is served on site and is genuinely from here. Racing runs at the hippodrome in summer.

Things to know

The Tres Riches Heures is shown as a facsimile; the original is not displayed. The domain is large and covering chateau, stables and park takes a full day. Equestrian shows are ticketed separately.

Nearby

Senlis lies east; Parc Asterix is southeast.