By the time we arrived in the town of Chantilly
it was mid-morning. The cloudy sky and cold breezes that blew down the rues
of Paris had given way to glorious sunshine and frosted pastures in the Hauts-de-France
department, “the North Pole of France” as the southerners, exaggeratedly, calls
it.
Our destination was the Chateau de Chantilly and at the entrance
gate of the vast domaine large patches
of the pond were frozen and on the one or two isolated thawed spots, white swans
and harlequin ducks paddled in search of food.
The train ride from Paris to Chantilly
ran through the rather boring industrial north of Paris and beyond that,
farmland, mostly unseen because most of the rolling hills were carved out to build
a straight flat terrain for the train tracks to allow the regional train to
pick up some form of speed. The few patches of landscape I could see through
the dirty window looked forlorn under the grey sky. A landscape that did not looked forward to the winter ahead. Only as we neared Chantilly
did the sun emerged from beyond the dissipating clouds.
A portrait of Chantilly as it looked around 1741.
The chateau is an 800-year old outpost whose
history is closely intertwined with French royals and one of the most
distinguished and noble families in France, the Montmorency family. Today the statue
of Anne de Montmorency on a horse, the 1st Duke of Montmorency, (the
duke originally build the first castle around 1528) can be seen in front of the
castle’s drawbridge. The original mansion was destroyed during the French
Revolution and between 1875 and 1882, Henri
d'Orléans, the Duke of Aumale, the fifth son of King Louis-Philippe I of
France, rebuilt the chateau as we see it today. (For more information about the
owners of the estate click in the link.)
Within the chateau is the Musée Condé, our main focus of the day. According
to a little research I did it seems the museum’s art galleries are the second
largest collection of antique paintings in France after that of the Louvre. Any
museum compared to the Louvre is worth a visit!
The chateau’s second major feature is
its stables, which houses the Musée de Cheval,
the Museum for the Horse. The STABLES could well be the most spectacular
stables in France and approaching the vast chateau complex from the west and
coming upon the stables first, one could easily mistake the stables for the
actual chateau. Lavish in design!
French
aloofness?
Many
have written or talked about the aloofness of the French, but thrice on our
short visit to Paris we experienced the opposite. Twice at the Gare du Nord
train station. First, when a man helped M with her baggage down the stairs, (we
were temporarily separated while I was searching for a ticket kiosk and which I
eventually found hidden behind a huge billboard.) The second event was when another
Frenchman, seeing me struggling with the ATM not accepting my credit card for
some reason (I have used the same card several times before at other ATMs) helped
me getting train tickets by using his own card and then I paid him back in
cash.
The
third time was when we arrived at the Chantilly train station, a 25-minute ride
with a regional train north of Paris. There was no taxi available at the time and
the bus service to the chateau, according to another bus driver at the bus
terminus, was only to arrive an hour from our arrival. I was not willing to
waste that amount of time! However, a young French gentleman and his
girlfriend/wife who arrived on the same train as us were waiting for a hotel
shuttle to pick them up. When the shuttle arrived he asked the driver if he
could drop us off at the chateau. The driver graciously agreed and we were very
grateful. Later in the morning, I notice the same couple was also visitors to
the Musée Condé. Upon seeing them I took the opportunity to thank them again
for their assistance.
An Unchanged Layout
The Duke of Aumale, an ardent collector
of art, old books and manuscripts, was the last private owner of the Chateau de
Chantilly. In the large Gallery of Painting he hung his paintings of suit his own personal taste. In fact, the
layout closely relates to the Duke’s personal history and the layout has not
changed since he bequeathed the domaine
to the Institute of France in 1886. On the left wall of the grand gallery the art
works are mainly Italian, reminders of his mother's family background and his
time traveling through Italy. On the opposite wall are works from France,
relating to his father’s side of the family and his own illustrious career in
the French military.
The Gallery of Painting.
Got to have some family pics on the wall too!
In the Sanctuary, a small inner room
for the castle, hangs the treasures of the Museum’s collection; two paintings
by Renaissance painter, Raphael: The Virgin
of the House of Orleans and The Three
Graces, and 40 pages of the miniature illumination manuscript, The book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier
by Jean Fouquet.
In the Reading Room, with its warm wood
atmosphere, in one corner, kept in a locked glass cabinet I was thrilled to discover
the Complete Works of François de Malherbe (1555 – 1628), a possible ancestor
of mine on my mother’s side. Being an amateur genealogist for the past 15 years
(my mother’s maiden name is Malherbe) and I having traced the Malherbes back to
1066 AD when one of them accompanied William, the Conqueror, as a knight, to conquer England, this, I
have to admit, was my personal highlight of the day. The book was printed in
1630 and its cover is still in immaculate condition.
A 1630 print of Les Euvres de Mr Francois de Malherbe
François De Malherbe was a great
reformer of French poetry and by some described as the father of French poetry.
In South Africa, centuries later, the Malherbe family, descendants from Gidion
Malherbe that arrived at the Cape of Good Hope from Normandy, France, in 1687, was
instrumental in the development of the Afrikaans language and several of the family
men were poets, writers and educators through the generations.
Unfortunately, probably the most
valuable book in the museum’s library cannot be seen except in digital format.
It is the Très Riches Heures du Duc de
Berry, one of the best surviving examples of French Gothic manuscript
illumination. (To learn more about manuscript illumination, click on the link.)
Entrance to the Musée de Cheval
After our visit to the Musee Conde, we walked the half mile or
so to the Horse museum. Meandering through the stables,
seemingly one ancient horse stall to another, modernized to museum style, it does
a decent job of capturing the history of the horse in military and personal usage;
the history of saddles, stirrups, horse bits, and horse racing at the famous
Chantilly race course, and much more. The stables are thought-provoking, to some degree, but
as the French would say: C’est mon truc,
the English equivalent of “not my cup of tea.” I have to admit it seemed M
enjoyed the horse museum far more than I did, especially the royal carriages on
show. She's got a soft spot for carriages.
Collage of the Horse Museum
At the totally inadequately staffed
snack restaurant on site, we waited way too long to be served and lingered only
a short while after the late lunch before walking back to the estate’s entrance
to await our bus back to the Chantilly train station.
The Chateau de Chantilly basking in the late afternoon sun
Chantilly, the chateau, art museum and
stables is certainly worth a visit. The estate is vast with woods, ponds, leafy
walkways and bike lanes, and even small hamlets in the woods where workers used
to live. It would have been a pleasant adventure to rent a golf cart, take a
picnic basket and tour the vast estate, but that would be more appropriate
during the summer months. Unfortunately we traveled there during December.
Chantilly Chapel
Two enormous horse heads dominates a small square
