Paris: Day 6
June 16, 2022
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On Day 6, I met up with a former student Momo Sakudo, currently studying and graduating this year at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), at a Latin Quartier café.
Then I took the RER D train to Chantilly (pronounced Chan-tee, Momo informed me), famous for its Chantilly cream, lace and the Château de Chantilly (really a castle, with a sizeable moat).
The original Château was built 1528 and 1531, but it was destroyed after the French Revolution. Louis Henri II, Prince of Condé did some repairs, but an English Bank confiscated the
building and estate from the Orléans family 1853-1872. The Château was entirely rebuilt 1875-1882 by Henri d'Orléans after the family got it back, and in 1889, the Château and the entire
properties were bequeathed to the Institut de France, as a price for Henri's return from political exile. Kind of a high price. Inside the Château de Chantilly is the Musée Condé.
Also part of the Château holdings ... the Grandes écuries (Great Stables) du château de Chantilly, built 1719-1734. It was said that one of the catalysts, among many, for the French
Revolution was the extravagance of these stables ... regular French citizens were living longer and some peasants and the expanding middle class began to own their own land, but they
were less than impressed that the horses had castle like accomodations while they worked hard to have enough to eat and pay high taxes to keep the horses living in splendour.
After that, it was back to Paris, a bit of shopping and sightseeing in Montmartre and then a scallop crêpe, this time at Pont de Avon Crêperie.
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Above: The Hippodrome (racetrack) de Chantilly, by the Grandes écuries (Great Stables). The first race was held in 1834 and grandstand built in 1879.
1 shows former Aquinas student Momo Sakudo meeting up at a café near the Jardin du Luxembourg.
2 to 4 show views in the RER D train towards the town of Chantilly, and the Chantilly train station.
5 shows walking through the forest shortcut to get to the Château de Chantilly.
6 to 8 show the Hippodrome de Chantilly, with both a grass and dirt racecourse available, and the Grandes écuries (stables) in the background.
9 and 11 show more of the walk towards the stables and then eventually the Château, and the dirt track of the Hippodrome very close by.
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