Williams, H. Noel:
The Love-affairs of the Condés. Methuen & Co.
FIRST PART
CHANTILLY AND ITS HISTORY
CHAPTER I
CHANTILLY AND ITS OWNERS
The Montmorencys
THE Château of Chantilly, now known as the Musée Condé, the magnificent gift so generously bequeathed to the French nation by the late Duc d’Aumale, has experienced great changes and passed through many vicissitudes.
At a very early date a Gallo-Roman, by name Cantillius, fixed his abode upon an isolated rock, in the midst of wild forest and marshland; hence the name of Chantilly.
In the ninth century we find established here the Seigneurs of Senlis, who bore the name of Bouteillers, from their hereditary task of wine-controllers to the Kings of France—an honorary post which they held for some centuries. But the last scion of that sturdy race, having seen his castle pillaged during the Jacquerie of 1358, died without issue.