In 1684 Mansart was entrusted with the entire transformation of the
interior of the Petit Château; the first floor being arranged for the
use of the Grand Condé, whilst the ground floor was reserved for his
son, the Duc d'Enghien. The exterior of this exquisite building was
fortunately left intact, and has remained unchanged since the time of
Anne de Montmorency. Nor has the interior changed since Mansart's
alterations. When the visitor passes through these apartments to-day, he
can feel that they are in the same state as when the Grand Condé dwelt
there. The Grand Cabinet with its exquisite Beauvais tapestry, its
Boulle table, and its Louis XVI consoles and lustres, and the Petit
Cabinet where the victor of Rocroy came to rest from his labours, still
exist, to recall their former owner. In an adjacent apartment we may
admire a fine piece of furniture, companion to the famous Louis XV
bureau in the Louvre, upon which is placed the Grand Condé's own
despatch-box. Then there is the Long Gallery, where the painter Sauveur
Lecomte has illustrated, under the hero's own directions, all his
victories from the battles of Rocroy, Nördlingen, and Fribourg to the
conquest of the Franche Comté, and the campaign and passage of the
Rhine.
Mansart, once installed at Chantilly, did not leave it for many years.
He unfortunately attempted to tamper with the old feudal castle of the
Orgemonts and the mediæval architecture which combined so well with
Montmorency's Petit Château, creating an inordinately lofty building,
with a straight line of innumerable windows and attics all precisely
similar in form. It was this structure which was razed to the ground at
the time of the Revolution, and which was reconstructed in a far more
suitable style by the late Duc d'Aumale.
CHAPTER VI
FESTIVITIES AT CHANTILLY
Since there was no prospect for Condé to take any prominent lead in the
affairs of his own country his name was proposed as a possible successor
to the throne of Poland. He declined, however, to accept a crown which
had been the cause of so much misery to King Wladislav IV and to his
brother Jean Casimir. There being no heir-apparent to that throne the
eyes of Marie de Gonzague, Queen of Poland, turned upon the Duc
d'Enghien, Condé's only surviving son, and it was in connection with
this idea that a marriage was arranged between Henri Jules de Bourbon
and Anne of Bavaria, eldest daughter of the Princess Palatine, sister to
the Polish Queen. Claire-Clemence was not over-pleased at the idea of
this marriage, since she did not share her husband's ambitions. The
uneasy throne of Poland for her only son was a proposal which she could
not face with equanimity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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