Home to the son of the last King of France
The Château de Chantilly, located 25 miles north of the French capital, was the ancestral home of the prestigious Montmorency and Bourbon-Condé dynasties from the 14th century to the end of the 19th century. In 1830, Henri d’Orléans, Duke d’Aumale and son of King Louis-Philippe, inherited the estate and devoted his life to its reconstruction, restoration and embellishment. Upon his death in 1897, the Duke bequeathed the entire château and its capacious art collection to the Institut de France, on the condition that it remain exactly as he had assembled it.
The château houses the Musée Condé, one of the premier museums in France today, second only to the Louvre in terms of the number of Old Master paintings it contains. A passionate bibliophile, the Duke d’Aumale constituted a vast library of some 50,000 volumes dating from the 10th century to contemporary times. The château stands amid beautiful gardens designed by famed landscape architect André Le Nôtre, who also designed the gardens of Versailles.
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