CHATEAU DE CHANTILLY-MUSÉE CONDÉ

The Château de Chantilly, also known as the Château-Musée, holds within its walls a priceless treasure bequeathed by the Duc d'Aumale to the Institut de France. King Louis-Philippe's son spent 23 years in exile in England, where he acquired sumptuous collections of paintings, furniture, books, manuscripts and objets d'art. On his return to France, he created the Condé Museum within the château to display all his treasures. Today, the museum is considered one of France's foremost museums of early paintings, after the Louvre. To enter the château, take the upward path. At reception, you'll be asked to download a self-guided tour app onto your phone. While the app is loading, you can watch a video in the chapel: Stéphane Bern's voice will tell you the history of the château through the centuries. The tour begins with the Cabinet des Livres, designed by the Duc d'Aumale to house the most precious works, all remarkable for their provenance, content, decoration and binding: nearly 19,000 volumes and 1,500 manuscripts are on display. The tour continues with a visit to the grand apartments, where the Bourbon-Condé princes lived and received guests. Partly plundered during the French Revolution, they were restored by the Duc d'Aumale. You'll discover an array of furniture, objets d'art and master paintings. Not to be missed: the grande singerie, reminiscent of the taste for Asia fashionable in the ^18th century. This boudoir, decorated by Christophe Huet in 1737, features paintings depicting men in the form of monkeys. Continue into the Duc d'Aumale's gallery of paintings: some 550 can be seen on dark red walls. In his will, the Duc d'Aumale specified that the presentation of the paintings, typical of the ^19th century, on several levels, must be immutable. As a result, no works may be loaned out. The gallery holds works by Watteau, Delacroix, Ingres and Poussin... A treat for art lovers. The tour ends with a visit to the private apartments of the Duc and Duchesse d'Aumale, located on the first floor. Here you'll find the Cabinet d'arts graphiques, with its extraordinary collection of drawings, prints and old photographs. Here you can discover great names such as Leonardo da Vinci, Delacroix, Carmontelle...