Château de Chantilly

Chantilly

A mirror set upon the waters of the Nonette, the château of Chantilly has embodied for five centuries the splendour and the trials of the great French nobility. The Petit Château, raised around 1560, most probably by Jean Bullant for the Montmorency family, survives as one of the rare Renaissance buildings to have come through the Revolution intact — the neighbouring Grand Château, by contrast, was entirely razed in 1799 before being sumptuously rebuilt between 1875 and 1882 by the Duke of Aumale, son of King Louis-Philippe. Passed from the Montmorency to the princes of Condé — among them the Grand Condé, victor of Rocroi — the estate today holds one of the most prestigious private collections of old master paintings in France, bequeathed to the Institut de France on the condition, still honoured, that no work should ever leave it or be lent. The gardens designed by André Le Nôtre, the Great Stables where the hooves of the horses of the Domaine de Chantilly still ring out, and the vast game-rich forests all around complete the picture of a place that distils aristocratic art of living, where one reads, stone by stone, the turbulent history of a France first royal, then Orléanist.

Getting there : Paid admission to the estate, reachable by train from Paris-Nord (Chantilly-Gouvieux station), car parks on site, gardens designed by Le Nôtre

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound