Chantilly

Chantilly, a town in the French department of Oise, 26 miles NNE. of Paris. One of the most beautiful places in the vicinity of the capital, and the headquarters of French horse-racing, it attracts immense numbers of visitors. Apart from its natural beauty, it is interesting as the place where the Great Condé spent the last twenty years of his life in the society of Molière, Boileau, Racine, La Fontaine, and Bossuet, and where his cook killed himself, on the occasion of a royal visit, because the fish failed to arrive. His magnificent chateau was pulled down at the Revolution of 1793, but was rebuilt by the Duc d'Anmale, who bought back the estate in 1872, and who in 1886 presented it to the French Institute, with its priceless art collections, its celebrated stables for 250 horses, and its 16th-century 'Petit Château,' one of the finest specimens of Renaissance architecture in France. The grounds, park, and forest, 6050 acres in area, are of great beauty—truly a princely gift, its value nearly £2,000,000. The manufacture of silk pillow-lace, or blonde, so famous in the 18th century, is all but extinct. Pop. 4202.