Enchanting Chantilly
WHAT comes to mind when you hear the word ‘chantilly’? Is it the cream, oozing from the squishy interior of a profiterole or choux pastry, or perhaps the finest of black lace, its intricate layers frothing and flouncing over a crinoline skirt?
Your first thought probably isn’t of a Renaissance castle that looks every bit as if it belongs in the Loire alongside the region’s other regal palaces.
Yet the Chateau of Chantilly is where it all began in this town in northern France. It was here that Francis I’s constable of France, Anne de Montmorency, built the Petit Chateau. The later Bourbon-Conde dynasty added a great extension, Louis XIV’s cousin, the Grand Conde, made it his home and an intellectual centre for society, and today, France’s finest collection of Old Masters outside the Louvre can be found in the chateau’s Conde Museum.
Add a bit of cream and lace and you have the recipe for a perfect weekend break, particularly as the town is easily reached by train. Alight from the Eurostar at Paris Gare du Nord and it’s a change of platforms before the 30-minute onward buzz. Once in town, everything is easy to walk to, starting with the castle, just 25 minutes from the station.
THE magnificent building on show today was rebuilt after the French Revolution by Henri d’Orleans, Duke of Aumale and son of the last king of France. Wander through the interiors to see paintings by everyone from Raphael to Van Dyke, 19,000 books and fine furniture.
The gardens are similarly impressive, with a series of lakes, waterfalls and fountains that were extraordinary for the period. It’s no surprise to hear they were created by Andre Le Notre, who designed the grounds of Versailles. There is even a fun game that was added to the 18th Century parkland. The Game of the Goose is a bit like snakes and ladders, where participants roll dice and progress along a spiral path with numbers, trying to avoid pitfalls along the way.
Stop for lunch at the castle’s pretty, half-timbered hamlet, which possibly inspired Marie Antoinette’s farm at Versailles, and there’s one obvious pick on the pudding list: a plate of fresh strawberries topped with lashings of chantilly cream.
Legend has it the cream was invented in the chateau kitchens when the chef Francois Vatel whipped up – literally – an emergency pudding
for King Louis XIV. ‘That’s a nice story but it’s not true,’ says Betrand Alaime, who owns the cake shop L’Atelier de la Chantilly. He believes the cream, with at least 30 per cent fat whisked together with icing sugar and vanilla, can be attributed to the Italian Francesco Procopio. The owner of Paris’s Cafe Procope visited Chantilly after Louis XV’s coronation in 1722.
Whoever invented it, we have fun whisking and whipping up our own – Alaime runs courses and creates salty versions to go with meats and cheese, as well as the sweet variety.
Everywhere you go in this town of 11,000 inhabitants there is the chance to gorge on the fluffiest of creams. We sample it at Le Vertugadin restaurant, two minutes from our hotel, where dinner ends with a chocolately pud and dollops of chantilly.
Nearby at the bijou lace museum, you can trace the origins of lacemaking back to 1693 when the Grand Conde’s daughter-in-law, Anne of Bavaria, created a lace-making school for 20 poor country girls. Although the fine black lace is no longer made in Chantilly, its name lives on at fashion houses such as Dior and SaintLaurent. Remember the mask worn by Audrey Hepburn in How To Steal A Million? That was classic Chantilly, created by Hubert de Givenchy, who donated a replica to the museum.
So there you have it, the final frills and flourishes for a fantastic carfree mini-break. Lace, cream, castle – Chantilly has it all.
Double rooms at the Auberge du Jeu de Paume cost from £246 (aubergedujeudepaumechantilly.fr). Eurostar to Paris costs from £39 one way (eurostar.com) followed by the direct train to Chantilly-Gouvieux station, €9 (sncf-connect.com).