Montmorency, Connetable de France, came
into the succession and finding the old fortress, albeit somewhat
enlarged and furbished up by his predecessor, less of a palatial
residence than he would have, separated the ancient chateau-fort from an
added structure by an ornamental moat, or canal, and laid out the
_pelouse_, _parterres_ and the alleys of greensward leading to the
forest which make one of the great charms of Chantilly to-day.

Here resided, as visitors to be sure, but for more or less extended
periods, and at various times, Charles V, Charles IX and Henri IV, each
of them guests of the hospitable and ambitious Montmorencys.

[Illustration: _Statue of Le Notre, Chantilly_]

Chantilly passed in 1632 to Charlotte, the sister of the last Marechal
de Montmorency, the wife of Henri II, Prince de Conde, the mother of the
Grand Conde, the Prince de Conti and the Duchesse de Longueville.

With the Grand Conde came the greatest fame, the apotheosis, of
Chantilly. This noble was so enamoured of this admirable residence that
he never left it from his thoughts and decorated it throughout in the
most lavish taste of his time, destroying at this epoch the chateau of
the moyen-age and the fortress. These were the days of gallant warriors
with a taste for pretty things in art, not mere bloodthirsty
slaughterers.

On the foundations of the older structures there now rose an admirable
pile (not that which one sees to-day, however), embellished by the
surroundings which were evolved from the brain of the landscape
gardener, Le Notre. The Revolution made way with this lavish structure
and with the exception of the Chatelet, or the Petit Chateau (designed
by Jean Bullant in 1560, and remodelled within by Mansart) the
present-day work is a creation of the Duc d'Aumale, the heir to the
Condes' name and fame, to whom the National Assembly gave back his
ancestral estates which had in the meantime come into the inventory of
royal belongings through the claims established by the might of the
Second Empire.

Back to the days of the Grand Conde one reads of an extended visit made
by Louis XIV to his principal courtier. It was at an expense of two
hundred thousand _ecus_ that the welcoming fete was accomplished. Madame
de Sevigne has recounted the event more graphically than any other
chronicler, and it would be presumption to review it here at length. The
incident of Vatel alone has become classic.

To the coterie of poets at Ramb