Before the city ,
February,
Musée Condé No traces of habitation from the
prehistoric or
Iron Age eras have ever been found in Chantilly. A
Roman-era grave site was however found on the banks of the Nonette, and Gallo-Roman roads have been discovered in
Chantilly Forest.
Merovingian tombs from the seventh century were found in the 17th and 19th centuries not far from the
Faisanderie. Around 1223 Guy IV of Senlis agreed with the prior of Saint-Leu-d'Esserent that first referred to
Terra cantiliaci. He was the royal
grand bouteiller, a hereditary position in charge of the king's vineyards, and became the first lord of Chantilly, which at the time was little more than a rock in the middle of a swampy area. A strong house was mentioned in the area in a 1227 document. In 1282 an act of the
Parliament of Paris mentions
Chantilly Forest. A 1358 document mentions the destruction of the château in the
Grande Jacquerie. It was rebuilt by
Pierre d'Orgemont and completed in 1394. During the
Hundred Years' War Anglo-Burgundian forces laid siege to the château and Jacqueline de Paynel, widow of Pierre II d'Orgemont, who died at the
battle of Agincourt, as well as of Jean de Fayel, was forced to surrender it. In return, the lives of those in the château were spared, but the surrounding villages were laid to waste. The city began as just a few hamlets scattered outside the château. At the beginning of the 16th century, there were four: • Les Grandes Fontaines, near the foot of the current rue des Fontaines, • Les Petites Fontaines, also called Normandie, the foot of the current quai de la Canardière and rue de la Machine, • Les Aigles, near today's racetrack, which owes its name to the labourers who lived there in the late
Middle Ages. It disappeared completely during the
French Wars of Religion. • Quinquempoix, the largest and closest to the château. In this period, Quinquempoix began to see an extension of the château's functions. It was home to a chapel devoted to
Saint Germain mentioned as early as 1219, which disappeared in the 17th century with the extension of the château's gardens. Several houses were built in Quinquempoix to accommodate the prince's court officials. Also, the hôtel de Beauvais, built in 1539, lodged the master of the hunt of constable (connétable)
Anne de Montmorency. The hôtel de Quinquempoix, built around 1553, housed the constable's equerry. In 1515, Anne's father, Guillaume de Montmorency, had obtained a
papal bull that gave him the right to have mass said and all the sacraments performed in the chapel of the château, which was one of the first steps toward autonomy from the surrounding parishes.
New parish to modern times In 1673,
Louis II de Bourbon, the Prince of Condé known as the "Grand Condé", built a new road called rue Gouvieux, which is now the rue du Connétable. The land ceded by the château on both sides of this road formed the nucleus of the new town, as guesthouses, workshops for the artisans of the château, and lodgings for servants sprang up. This embryonic town was divided between the parish of Gouvieux in the diocese of Beauvais and the parish of Saint-Léonard in the diocese of
Senlis. Louis expressed a wish in his will for a parish church near the château.
Henri Jules de Bourbon-Condé fulfilled his father's wish in 1692 by building the church of Notre-Dame and creating a new parish under the Bishop of Senlis, superseding all existing parishes. Chantilly was thus established as autonomous. His grandson,
Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon, can be called the founder of the city, since he drew up the first city plans. He brought planning to the town design and renamed the rue Gouvieux the Grande Rue. After he built the Great Stables in 1721, he created a development in 1727 and sold lots for housing to court officials, holders of hereditary positions at the court of the Condés. The architectural standards for this housing were drawn by
Jean Aubert, architect of the Great Stables. This housing was built between 1730 and 1733. In 1723, the Hospice de la Charité was built at the end of the Grande Rue. In the second half of the 18th century the princes furthered economic activity.
Lace had been produced in the town since the 17th century but now reached its apogee.
Porcelain manufacture began in 1726 and was established in the rue de la Machine in 1730. Industrial buildings were built in 1780 at the end of the Grand Canal, to take advantage of the power provided by the waterfall.
The beginnings of the commune During the French Revolution, Chantilly became a commune whose boundaries matched those of the parish. The first
mayor was the administrator of the estate, André-Joseph Antheaume de Surval. The other city council members were recruited from among the château officials. The
Condés were among the first to flee abroad, just days after the fall of the
Bastille, on 17 July 1789. The estate was sequestered on 13 June 1792 following the law on
émigrés and subsequently subdivided and sold. The first section was sold between 1793 and 1795 – the old kitchen garden, the water garden and the last land available along today's rue du Connétable and around the petite pelouse, as well as the town houses that belonged to the Prince. Much of the land in this first section never came back to the estate. The rest of the land was divided into lots in 1798 and sold over time. When the
Reign of Terror began, the mayor was run out, on 15 August 1793; he was replaced by a
Jacobin. The château was transformed into a prison from 1793 to 1794, designated for suspects from the Department of Oise. Sold as a national asset in 1799, the chateau was transformed into a stone quarry by a pair of entrepreneurs. Only the "little château" was preserved. The Great Stables were requisitioned by the army and used in turn by the , the 1er dragons or 1st Dragoons from 1803 to 1806 then the 1er régiment de chevau-légers lanciers polonais, or 1st Light Artillery Polish Lancers, from 1808 to 1814. A number of industrialists took advantage of the sale of Condé assets to further develop their business activities. In 1792, the porcelain manufacturing enterprise turned its hand to ceramics under the hand of its new English owner,
Christophe Potter. A copper laminating factory was established in the industrial buildings on the canal in 1801, and opened a mill in 1807. It employed as many as 600 people and brought prosperity back to the commune. Using the new English techniques, it diversified in cloth, particularly in
calico manufacture and laundering. It began to decline in 1814 then lost its monopoly and failed in 1822. In 1815, prince
Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé came back to the area for good. He retrieved part of his family's former estate and bought back the rest. His son, , had fountains installed in 1823 as well as many of the street lamps in 1827.
Thomas Muir connection The Scottish political reformer
Thomas Muir had been banished to
Botany Bay for 14 years for the crime of
sedition in 1793. He managed to escape having only spent 13 months there. An adventurous journey followed that eventually brought Muir as a citizen of France to Paris. Muir became in time the principal intermediary between the
French Directory and the various republican refugees in Paris. He was aware that his movements were under scrutiny by British Prime Minister
William Pitt's agents. In his last known communication with the Directory, in October 1798, he requested permission to leave Paris for somewhere less conspicuous, where his crucial negotiations with the Scottish emissaries could be conducted in safety. Sometime in the middle of November 1798, Muir moved incognito to Chantilly. On 26 January 1799, he died there, suddenly and alone, with only a small child for company. So tight had his security been that not even local officials knew of his presence or identity. No identifying documents or papers were found on his person and his name was discovered only when the postman remembered delivering newspapers to him addressed to 'Citoyen Thomas Muir'. Several days later, when the news of Muir's death reached Paris, a brief obituary notice was inserted in
Le Moniteur Universel saying that he had died from a recurrence of his old wounds.
A 19th-century vacation and leisure destination Chantilly was also in the 19th century a playground for aristocrats and artists, as well as home to an English community with ties to horse racing. The first horse races were run in 1834 on the lawn area known as the pelouse, and the 1840s saw an influx of bettors of all social classes, especially from Paris. The success of the horse races was primarily due to the opening of the train station in 1859. Later, a public station allowed the arrival of up to 20,000 bettors and visitors on race days. A track and permanent seating were gradually added to form the racecourse in use today. Attendance records began to be kept just before World War I; 40,000 people attended the
prix du Jockey Club in 1912. During the
Franco-Prussian War, Chantilly was occupied by the
Prussian army for almost a year. The
Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, head of the 18th Army Corps, occupied the chateau along with his general staff. His troops requisitioned the Great Stables, the racecourse stables, which had been evacuated, and some privately owned residences as well. A racing economy grew up around the racecourse, with many stables devoted to training thoroughbred horses. Urban development grew up around these racing activities with new neighbourhoods such as the Bois Saint-Denis exclusively devoted to the activity. There were two trainers and seventeen hands in the 1846 and thirty trainers and 309 nands in 1896. Many in the racing community were British—76% of the jockeys, lads and trainers in 1911—and the British were such a presence in the area that an Anglican chapel was built around 1870. At the same time, Chantilly was becoming a vacation destination with many aristocrats, members of the
haute bourgeoisie and artists moving to the area and building villas and chateaux in the surrounding communes, such as the
Rothschild family in Gouvieux, for example. Luxury hotels were also built, such as the Hôtel du Grand Condé in 1908.
Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, last lord of the town, encouraged the development of the racecourse and of the town as well as the arrival of the English. Between 1876 and 1882, the Duke had the château rebuilt and used it to house one of the most beautiful art collections of the time. By receiving high society in his palace, such as
Empress Elizabeth of Austria, known as Sissi, and the
Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch of Russia, he contributed to the growth of the town. When the château was opened to the public in 1898 after it was willed to the
Institute of France, it drew even more tourists to the town—more than 100,000 in the first six months. Naturally such a profusion of wealth also provoked some greed. On the morning of 25 March 1912, the
Bonnot Gang robbed the Société Générale de Chantilly and killed two employees before they fled. This was soon before they broke up and Jules Bonnot died in a shootout with police. The groups was notorious for using an automobile to get away and for the coverage provoked by a Jules Bonnot's appearance, brandishing a
Browning automatic, at the office of
Le Petit Journal to complain about its coverage of their activities.
Chantilly in World War I The
German Army entered Chantilly on 3 September 1914 but did not stay, leaving the next day. The château was occupied but there was no real destruction, unlike the neighboring towns of
Creil and
Senlis, Oise, where there were fires and considerable destruction. French soldiers did not come back until 9 September. After the
First Battle of the Marne, General
Joseph Joffre installed his headquarters in Chantilly because of the easy access it offered to Paris by rail. The
Grand Quartier-Général, or HQ, took over the hôtel du Grand Condé on 29 November 1914 with 450 officers and 800 clerks and soldiers. Joffre for his part lodged at the Villa Poiret about a hundred yards away. Joffre held
the conference of Chantilly from 6 to 8 December 1915 to makes battle plans with his Allied counterparts and to coordinate military offensives for 1916. General Headquarters moved to
Beauvais in December 1916, and Chantilly became home to hospitals for soldiers wounded on the front, one in the hôtel Lovenjou, the other in the Egler Pavilion. One of the three camouflage workshops of the French First Engineers Regiment opened in 1917 in custom-built barracks on the
petite pelouse near the racetrack. Up to 1200 women were hired, as well as 200 German
prisoners of war and 200 workers from
Annam in
French Indo-China (then a French protectorate). They painted canvases which the army used to mask artillery and troop movements from view. The town grew in 1928 with the annexation of the Bois Saint-Denis from Gouvieux. In 1930 a monument was put up to Maréchal Joffre on the avenue which now bears his name.
World War II The
Wehrmacht entered the city on 13 September 1940, and occupied it. They used the Great Stables as a veterinary hospital for the horses they brought in from Germany, by some estimates the city was home to as many as 400 German horses during the war. The military command took over the hôtel du Grand Condé. Following the assassination of a
collaborator, the parish priest, Abbot Charpentier, who authored a 1943 anti-
Nazi sermon, was arrested along with several
French Resistance fighters he had supported. He was deported to the
Mauthausen camp, where he died 7 August 1944. The viaduct at La Canardière was bombed by Allied forces on 30 May 1944, and the town was liberated by American tanks on 31 August 1944. The American
8th Air Force in turn installed itself at the hôtel du Grand Condé.
Post-war Chantilly Since the war, the city has developed new neighborhoods on the north side of town. Some hotels and villas at the center of town became residences; some stables were torn down to allow housing to be built. As this new housing was built, a new population moved in who mostly work in the Paris area, while the town lost almost all of its remaining industrial base when the Guilleminot factories shut down in 1992. ==Population==