When the Duc d'Aumale returned to Chantilly after an absence of twenty years, he at once formed as we have seen a plan for erecting a museum upon the ruins of the old Château, with the further intention of presenting the mansion with all its contents to the French nation. Many years, however, elapsed before the building was complete and ready to receive all the treasures which it was destined to hold; but meanwhile the Duke continued to increase the collection by munificent and judicious purchases. At the Faure Sale in 1873, Delacroix's dramatic composition of _The Two Foscari_ was acquired; in 1877 there were added the four Tanagra figures which now adorn the case wherein the _Minerva_ is enshrined; and an exquisite example of Italian enamel, representing _Apollo guiding the Chariot of the Sun_ (attributed to Benvenuto Cellini), was bought from M. Cadard for 6,000 francs. In 1876 a very important acquisition was made in the shape of a collection of French portraits, once in the possession of Gaignières but subsequently belonging to Alexandre Lenoir, from whom it had passed into England and become the property of the then Duke of Sutherland. This collection, which was at Stafford House until the Duc d'Aumale acquired it, consists of no less than 69 painted portraits, 148 drawings in coloured chalk and several pastels. Amongst the most interesting of these portraits are: _Francis I_ (painted about 1515), his sister, _Marguerite d'Angoulême_, and her husband, _Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre_; _Jeanne d'Albret_; _Admiral de Coligny_, and his brother the _Cardinal_; _Catherine de Medicis_, _Diane de Poitiers_, _Charles IX_, _Henri III_, _the Duc d'Alençon_, and _the Duc de Nemours_ (all attributed to François Clouet); _Marguerite de France_, and _Madame de Lansac_ (attributed to Corneille de Lyon); _Philippe de Clève_, _Sieur de Ravenstein_; _Jean de Bugenhagen_ (attributed to Holbein); _Catherine de Bora_, the wife of Luther; _Charles V_; _the Count and Countess Hornes_; _Henri IV_ (by Pourbus), and an attractive likeness of his daughter _Elizabeth, Queen of Spain_; _Gabrielle d'Estrées au bain_; _the Duc de Retz_; _the Duc d'Aumont on horseback_; _Sully_ and _Charost_ (by Quesnel); _George I_; several portraits by Mignard, among them a magnificent likeness of _Molière_, another of _Mazarin_, and two pastels representing _Colbert_ and _Quinault_. From the same collection are the portraits of _Pope Benedict XIV_ by Subleyras and of _Marie Antoinette_ as _Hebe_ by Drouais.