Château de Chantilly - a beautiful gem in France

The Château de Chantilly is a historic château located in the town of Chantilly in France. The site comprises two attached buildings: the Petit Château built around 1560 for Constable Anne de Montmorency, a comrade in arms of Francis I in Marignan, who plays a distinguished political role under Francis I and Henri II; and the Grand Château, which was destroyed during the French Revolution and rebuilt in the 1870s.
Owned by the Institut de France, the château houses also the Musée Condé. It has a painting collection with of over 800 masterpieces of French, Italian, Flemish, English paintings, which makes it the number one museum of ancient paintings (prior to 1850) in France after the Louvre Museum.

Since the medieval ages, the Chantilly Estate has belonged to the great Prince families of France such as the Orgemont, Condé or Orléans family.

During the Revolution the Chantilly Collections are seized as emigrant property and transported to the Louvre. The Chateau served as a prison. In 1799, the buildings are sold to demolition workers who demolish the Grand Chateau all the way down to the terrace.
After 1815, Prince Louis-Joseph, returning from emigration, decides to restore the apartments and obtains the restitution of portions of the collections held at the Louvre. He asks architect Victor Dubois to design the English Garden in 1817 and to fill the gap separating both chateau.

Did you know that Château de Chantilly also had a dairy factory which was built in 1754, within the park of the Château of Chantilly? Unfortunately the building and the factory no longer exist. Back in the days, when visiting the premises, the princes' guests were offered ice cream, fruits and all sorts of cream delicacies. The first mention of the now infamous Chantilly whipped cream appears June 18, 1784, in a text written by the Baroness of Oberkirch about a lunch at the Hameau.