CHANTIBAN, a large town of Siam, the capital of a province of the same name, on the south bank of a small river near its mouth in the Gulf of Siam, 150 miles S.E. of Bangkok, in 12° 45' N. lat. and 102° 18' E. long. It is the seat of one of the Siamese arsenals, and has a considerable export trade in pepper, cardamoms, rosewood, dyewoods, ship-timber, hides, horns, and ivory. In the vicinity there are mines of precious stones. The population, which is estimated at 30,000, contains a large proportion of Chinese traders.

CHANTILLY, a small town of France, in the department of Oise, 25 miles north of Paris by the main line of the great northern railway. It is .finely situated near the River Nonette, and is one of the favourite Parisian resorts. Its name has long been associated with the manufacture of lace and blonde, and it is still more celebrated for its chateaux and pleasure grounds, and as the scene of the great annual races of the French Jockey Club. The old castle must have been in existence in the 13th century, and in the reign of Charles VI. the lordship belonged to Pierre d’Orgemont, Chancellor of France. In 1484 it was transferred by his grandson to the house of Montmorency, and in 1632 it passed from that family to the house of Condé. The Prince de Condé, surnamed the Great, was specially attached to the spot, and did a great deal to enhance its beauty and splendour. Here he enjoyed the society of La Bruyère, Racine, Molière, La Fontaine, Boileau, and other great men of his time; and here his steward Vatel killed himself in despair, because something had gone wrong with the preparations for the reception of his majesty Louis XIV. Of the two splendid mansions that then existed, and were known as the Grand Chateau and the Petit Château, the former was destroyed about the time of the Revolution, but the latter still remains as one of the finest specimens of the Renaissance architecture in France. On the death of the duke of Bourbon, the last representative of the house of Condé, the estate passed into the hands of the Duc d’Aumale, fourth son of Louis Philippe. In 1853 the house of Orleans was declared incapable of possessing property in France, and Chantilly was accordingly sold by auction. Purchased by the English bankers Coutts & Co. for the sum of 11,000,000 ...

CHANTREY, Sir Francis (1782-1841), a sculptor of repute, was born on 7th April 1782, at Norton, near Sheffield, where his father cultivated a small property of his own. His father died when he was eight years of age; and, his mother having married again, his profession was left to be chosen by his friends. In his sixteenth year he was on the point of being apprenticed to a lawyer in Sheffield, when, having seen some wood-carving in a shopwindow, he requested to be made a carver instead of a solicitor, and was accordingly placed with a Mr Ramsay, wood-carver in Sheffield. When in this situation, he became acquainted with Mr Raphael Smith, a distinguished draftsman in crayon, who gave him lessons in painting; and Chantrey, eager to commence his course as an artist, procured the cancelling of his indentures, and went to try his fortune in Dublin and Edinburgh, and finally in London. Here he first obtained employment as an assistant wood-carver, but at the same time devoted himself to portrait-painting, bust-sculpture, and modelling in clay. The sculptor Nollekens showed particular zeal in recognizing his merits. His first imaginative work was the model of the head of Satan, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1808. He afterwards executed for Greenwich Hospital four colossal busts of the admirals Duncan, Howe, Vincent, and Nelson; and so rapidly did his reputation spread that the next bust which he executed, that of Horne Tooke, procured him commissions to the extent of £12,000. From this period he was almost uninterruptedly engaged in professional labour. In 1819 he visited Italy, and became acquainted with the most distinguished sculptors of Florence and Rome. He was chosen an associate, and afterwards a member, of the Royal Academy (1816 and 1818), received the ...