The House That Grief Built

The Guise Salon in the Château de Chantilly, outside Paris, where the Duke and Duchess of Aumale had private apartments. The rooms reopened in February after a two-year restoration project. Credit: Sophie Lloyd
The Guise Salon in the Château de Chantilly, outside Paris, where the Duke and Duchess of Aumale had private apartments. The rooms reopened in February after a two-year restoration project. Credit: Sophie Lloyd
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The House That Grief Built

The Guise Salon in the Château de Chantilly, outside Paris, where the Duke and Duchess of Aumale had private apartments. The rooms reopened in February after a two-year restoration project. Credit: Sophie Lloyd
The Guise Salon in the Château de Chantilly, outside Paris, where the Duke and Duchess of Aumale had private apartments. The rooms reopened in February after a two-year restoration project. Credit: Sophie Lloyd

When visiting the newly restored private apartments of the Duke of Aumale at the Château de Chantilly outside Paris, you could easily think you were seeing the interiors of an 18th-century French castle. The rooms are sumptuous, with purple damask-covered walls, marquetry-inlaid furniture, parquet de Versailles floors and exquisitely carved boiseries, or wooden panels, depicting musical instruments and garden implements.

It all seems very grand, though these rooms were actually redone in the 19th century, but the décor is linked to utter tragedy.

In 1830, the Duke of Aumale, one of the eight children of the king, Louis Philippe d’Orléans, inherited the estate at 8, after its rightful heir was shot by a firing squad on Napoleon’s orders. The young duke attended school in Paris and chose a career in the army. He distinguished himself in military campaigns in Algeria.

In 1844, he married his cousin Marie-Caroline, the daughter of the Prince of Salerno and a grandniece of Marie Antoinette, and hired the fashionable society decorator and court painter Eugène Lami to design the interiors of the old private apartments in a ground-floor wing of the castle.

Then came the revolution of 1848. The monarchy fell, forcing the duke and his family into exile in England (with their furniture, fortunately). Chantilly was sold.

The duke could not return to France for more than 20 years, until the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, when Napoleon III was overthrown. In the meantime, the duke’s wife and older son had died in England. He returned to France only to witness his younger son die from an illness.

The duke regained ownership of Chantilly. In his grief, he re-created the old private rooms with their original contents, precisely as Lami had decorated them in the 1840s.

“These private apartments became his ‘cemetery,’ as he called them,” said Mathieu Deldicque, curator of the Condé Museum at Chantilly. “Furniture was placed precisely where it had been earlier.”

Eventually, the duke bequeathed the chateau to the Institute of France, so the décor and collections would be protected and open to the public. After his death in 1897, the private rooms were closed and remained closed until the 1990s.

Now, Mr. Deldicque has overseen the full, detailed restoration of the suite of rooms, a two-year project costing 2.5 million euros, about $2.8 million. The restoration included meticulously removing centuries of overpainting on the 18th-century boiseries, fixing the gold-inflected plaster cove ceilings, reinstalling elaborate curtains and swags, and reupholstering the furniture with elaborate trim. The rooms opened in February.

The New York Times



Nepal Plans to Restrict Everest Permits to Experienced Climbers

FILE PHOTO: A mountaineer holds on to the rope during an ice climbing session at Everest base camp, Nepal April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Purnima Shrestha
FILE PHOTO: A mountaineer holds on to the rope during an ice climbing session at Everest base camp, Nepal April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Purnima Shrestha
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Nepal Plans to Restrict Everest Permits to Experienced Climbers

FILE PHOTO: A mountaineer holds on to the rope during an ice climbing session at Everest base camp, Nepal April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Purnima Shrestha
FILE PHOTO: A mountaineer holds on to the rope during an ice climbing session at Everest base camp, Nepal April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Purnima Shrestha

Nepal will issue Everest permits only to climbers with experience of scaling at least one of the Himalayan nation's 7,000-meter (22,965 ft) peaks, according to the draft of a new law aimed at reducing overcrowding and improving safety.
Nepal, which is heavily reliant on climbing, trekking and tourism for foreign exchange, has faced criticism for permitting too many climbers, including inexperienced ones, to try to ascend the 8,849-meter (29,032 ft) peak, Reuters reported.
This often results in long queues of climbers in the 'death Zone', an area below the summit with insufficient natural oxygen for survival.
Overcrowding has been blamed for the high number of deaths on the mountain. At least 12 climbers died, and another five went missing on Everest's slopes in 2023 when Nepal issued 478 permits. Eight climbers died last year.
Under the proposed law, an Everest permit would be issued only after a climber provides evidence of having climbed at least one 7,000-meter mountain in Nepal.
The sardar, or the head of local staff, and the mountain guide accompanying climbers must also be Nepali citizens.
The draft law has been registered at the National Assembly, the upper house of parliament, where the ruling alliance holds a majority required to pass the bill.
International expedition operators have urged Nepal to allow any 7,000-meter peak, not just those in the Himalayan nation, for the Everest permit.
"That wouldn't make any sense. And I would also add mountains that are close to 7,000 meters to that list and that are widely used as preparation, like Ama Dablam, Aconcagua, Denali and others," said Lukas Furtenbach of Austria-based expedition organizer, Furtenbach Adventures.
Furtenbach, currently leading an expedition on Everest, said mountain guides from other countries must also be allowed to work on Everest, as there are not enough qualified Nepali mountain guides.
"It is important that mountain guides have a qualification like IFMGA (International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations), no matter what nationality they are. We do also welcome Nepali IFMGA guides to work in the Alps in Europe," he told Reuters.
Garrett Madison of the US-based Madison Mountaineering also said a 6,500-meter peak anywhere in the world would be a better idea.
"It's too difficult to find a reasonable 7,000-meter plus peak in Nepal," Madison said.