Chantilly ( , ; Picard: Cantily) is a commune in the Oise department in the Valley of the Nonette in the Hauts-de-France region of Northern France. Surrounded by Chantilly Forest, the town of 10,591 inhabitants (2023) falls within the metropolitan area of Paris. It lies north-northeast of the centre of Paris and together with six neighbouring communes forms an urban area of 37,039 inhabitants (2022).
Intimately tied to the House of Montmorency in the 15th to 17th centuries, the Château de Chantilly was home to the Princes of Condé, cousins of the Kings of France, from the 17th to the 19th centuries. It now houses the Musée Condé. Chantilly is also known for its horse racing track, Chantilly Racecourse, where prestigious races are held for the Prix du Jockey Club and Prix de Diane. Chantilly and the surrounding communities are home to the largest racehorse-training community in France.
Chantilly is also home to the Living Museum of the Horse, with stables built by the Princes of Condé. It is considered one of the more important tourist destinations in the Paris area. Chantilly gave its name to Chantilly cream and to Chantilly lace.
Geography Chantilly lies in the Parisian basin, at the south end of the region of Hauts-de-France and the north end of the Paris metropolitan area. It belongs to the historic region of Valois. Chantilly lies southwest of Beauvais, south of Amiens and north of Paris.
Saint-Maximin lies to the north, Vineuil-Saint-Firmin to the northeast, Avilly-Saint-Léonard to the east, Pontarmé and Orry-la-Ville to the south-east, Coye-la-Forêt to the south, Lamorlaye to the southwest and Gouvieux to the west.
Chantilly is the centre of an urban area that includes the communes of Avilly-Saint-Léonard, Boran-sur-Oise, Coye-la-Forêt, Gouvieux, Lamorlaye and Vineuil-Saint-Firmin. It is the third-largest urban area in the Oise and the seventh-largest in Hauts-de-France. It has no large businesses or heavy industry and 40% of the population works in Île-de-France.
Topography
Chantilly straddles the junction of the Paris Basin and the western County of Valois, of which the Nonette River is a boundary. The site of the town was originally a clearing or meadowland, sometimes called a lawn or pelouse, which is mostly occupied today by the racecourse. The remaining open space between the town and the racecourse is always referred to as the "little lawn". The highest point in the area, , is at Bois Lorris, in Lamorlaye. The lowest elevation is , at the Canardière on the banks of the Nonette in Gouvieux.
The commune sits on a Lutetian sedimentary limestone plateau covered by Chantilly Forest. Sand created by wind and erosion covers this chalky plateau.
This stone has also been used for building in parts of the region, and still is today in the adjoining commune of Saint-Maximin. It was also used for building in Chantilly itself during the 18th century, when a quarry on the current site of the racecourse produced stone for the court officials' housing and the stables. In the following century the quarry was used to grow mushrooms, then as an air raid shelter during World War II. It now belongs to the Chantilly Estate and is periodically open to the public.
Another geological feature is alluvial accumulations in the river valleys, which have allowed, in the case of the Nonette, the development of community gardens in the locality known as the Canardière.
Hydrology and water supply
The town is bounded at its southern edge by the Thève, a long tributary of the Oise River. At this point that valley contains the Commelles ponds, created in the 13th century by the monks of Chaalis Abbey to stock fish.
The river Nonette runs through the town itself. This long river is also part of the watershed of the Oise and is channeled into canals throughout the municipality. In fact, the creation of the château gardens by André Le Nôtre required the complete transformation of the waterway starting in 1663. The riverbed was moved a hundred meters (yards) north to create the long Grand Canal that runs in front of the château. The old riverbed became the long Canal Saint-Jean, named after a 16th-century chapel demolished when the gardens were created. The Canardière, beneath the actual viaduct, was channeled and cleaned up at this time also.
The Canal de la Machine, perpendicular to the other two and nearly 300 meters (yards) long, brought water to the Pavilon du Manse, which fed it to the garden ponds and waterfalls in the western gardens, since disappeared, sending it to a reservoir once located on the lawn. Part of this reservoir still exists near the racecourse, but it no longer contains water. Some of this hydrologic work was used to feed factories in the valley. The gardens that remain were watered by a completely different system based on an aqueduct coming from the area around Senlis.
In the 18th century a mineral water source was discovered in the valley and a garden pavilion was built between 1725 and 1728 to allow the public to come drink from it. This was a separate source from the source of ferruginous water, called Chantilly water, discovered at La Chausée in Gouvieux, and bottled and carbonated there from 1882 into the 20th century.
Also in the 18th century, a supply of drinking water was created by diverting water from the reservoir. In 1823, the last prince of Condé had eighteen fountains installed for the use of residents. In 1895 these were replaced with a supply from a water treatment plant in the neighboring village of Lamorlaye. This brought in water from Chantilly, Lamorlaye and Boran-sur-Oise then distributed the treated water through two water towers on the Mont de Pô in Gouvieux. This water supply has been managed by the private company Lyonnaise des eaux since 1928.
The sewer system was installed in 1878, but initially limited to the area around rue d'Aumale, the Condé Hospice and the rue de Paris, now known as the avenue du Maréchal Joffre. It was extended to the entire town in 1910 through a state subsidy financed by a tax on racetrack bets. A sewage treatment plant was built in 1969 at La Canardière, then moved to Gouvieux in 2006. This network is administered by a regional agency, the syndicat intercommunal pour le traitement des eaux de la vallée de la Nonette (SICTEUV), which covers Apremont, Avilly-Saint-Léonard, Chantilly, Gouvieux et Vineuil-Saint-Firmin.
History Before the city
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.Macon 1908 p. 10–16
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.Macon 1908 p. 30–31
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.Macon 10–12 and 23–25
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.Macon 1909–1910, pp 15 and 57
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.Macon 1908, pp 16–19 and 24–26
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.Macon 1909–1910 p. 97–114