From 1386 to 1897, the domain was passed on by inheritance to different branches of the same family, without ever being sold.
The ORGEMONT family (14th - 15th centuries), followed by the MONTMORENCY family (15th - 17th centuries), one of the most powerful families in the kingdom and which largely contributed to its development, especially in the time of Le Connétable (the Constable) Anne de Montmorency (1493 - 1567). A friend of kings François I and Henri II, he commissioned Jean Bullant to build the Petit Château. Later came the Bourbon Condé family (17th - 18th centuries), cousins of the kings of France, the most famous of whom, Le Grand Condé, entrusted the lay out of the grounds to André le Nôtre, and finally Henri d'Orléans, Duc d'Aumale (1822 - 1897), the son of King Louis Philippe of France.
The Duc d'Aumale inherited Chantilly from his great uncle, the Prince de Condé, when he was eight years old, in 1830. He had the Grand Château, which was razed to the ground during the French Revolution, reconstructed in order to house his magnificent collection of paintings, drawings, objets d'art, books, etc.

In 1884, the Duc d'Aumale, who had no direct heir, bequeathed the Chantilly estate to the Institut de France *, subject to the Condé Museum being opened to the public. The Duc d'Aumale's wish was for the estate to use, maintain and help restore this magnificent cultural heritage. Not only the Château and the Condé Museum, but the Grandes Ecuries, which has housed the life museum of the horse, the Park which includes many attractions.
* The Institute de France, founded in 1795, groups together five academies: l'Académie Française, l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, l'Académie des Sciences, l'Académie des Beaux-arts and l'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.

The only remains left of the medieval Orgemont fortress are the bases of seven towers, lying in the moat ditch. In 1484, Pierre d'Orgemont, who was childless, bequeathed Chantilly to his nephew Guillaume de Montmorency.

Le Connétable Anne de Montmorency (1493-1567), comrade in arms to King François I at Marignan, played an eminent political role under both François I and Henri II, who often visited Chantilly. Anne de Montmorency commissioned the architect Pierre Chambiges to renovate the medieval château. Around 1560, he commissioned Jean Bullant, who was already busy working on his Château d'Ecouen property, to construct la Capitainerie or the Petit Château, the oldest standing part of Chantilly.

Anne de Montmorency also had the terrace landscaped, where today stands his statue on horseback by Paul Dubois (1886), and he constructed seven chapels, three of which still survive. Several works of art from the Château d'Ecouen are now conserved in Chantilly, including forty four "Grisaille" stained glas windows representing the courtship of Psyché and Cupid (1542 - 1544). His grandson, Henri II de Montmorency (1595 - 1632) constructed the Maison de Sylvie in the grounds of the château. After being involved in a revolt against King Louis XIII, he was decapitated in Toulouse in 1632. Chantilly was then confiscated by Louis XIII.

Le Connétable, Anne de Montmorency
Corneille de Lyon

In 1643, Chantilly was restored to the sister of Henri II of Montmorency, the wife of Henri II de Bourbon Condé, and parents to Le Grande Condé. Louis II de Bourbon Condé (1621 - 1686), known as Le Grand Condé, transformed the domain by having the grounds landscaped by André Le Nôtre, the future landscape designer of Versailles. Le Nôtre canalised the Nonette river in order to create the Grand Canal (1671 - 1673), laid out French borders on the north side of the château, had the Grand Degré constructed by Daniel Gittard, and created the present perspective from the Grille d'Honneur to the terrace.

Le Grand Condé...

… turned Chantilly into a venue for garden fetes and parties and a literary circle that included La Fontaine, La Bruyère, Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux who wrote the funeral oration for Le Grand Condé, Madame de La Fayette and Madame de Sévigné. In their honour, the two parallel alleys, which surround Le Nôtre's borders, were baptised "Allées des Philosophes" (the Philosophers' alleys). Molière's "Tartuffe (The Hypocrite") was played in Chantilly and Le Grand Condé organised many balls and firework displays in this enchanting site.

In the 18th century, the son of Le Grand Condé, Prince Henry Jules (1643 - 1709) had the Grand Château transformed by Jules Hardouin Mansart, whose work was completed by Jean Aubert. Louis Henri, Prince de Bourbon Condé (1692 - 1740) and prime minister of Louis XV from 1723 to 1726, commissioned Jean Aubert to build the Grandes Ecuries, an architectural masterpiece of the 18th century, redecorated the apartments of the Petit Château, set up the porcelaine factory in Chantilly and created a natural history study. He employed the painters Oudry, Desportes, Huet and Nattier to decorate the apartments.

His son, Louis Joseph, Prince de Condé (1736 - 1818), built the Jeu de Paume in 1756 and the château d'Enghien, a long classical style building on the right of the Grille d'Honneur, constructed by Jean François Leroy from 1769 to 1772. In 1774, he had the English Chinese gardens laid out and constructed Le Hameau, a group of five peasants' houses that inspired Marie Antionette's Le Hameau in the Trianon in the Parc de Versailles. Hostile to the ideas of the Century of Light, he emigrated when the Bastille fell and, in 1792, formed the army of emigration, known as the Condé army.

The French Revolution.
The collections in Chantilly were seized as the property of emigrants and transported to the Louvre in Paris, and the Château was subsequently used as a prison. In 1799, the buildings were sold to demolishers who completely razed the Grand Château to the ground. At the same time, the grounds were ravaged.

The Restoration.
After 1815, Prince Louis Joseph, who had returned to France, had the apartments restored and managed to recover part of his collections that were in the Louvre. He commissioned the architect Victor Dubois to design the english garden in 1817 and filled in the ditch separating the two château buildings.

The Duc d'Aumale.
The son of Louis Joseph, Louis Henri Joseph, Duc de Bourbon (1756 - 1830), without an heir since the execution of his son the Duc d'Enghien in the moat of the Château de Vincennes in 1804, bequeathed his property in 1830 to his eight year old great nephew, Henri d'Orléans, Duc d'Aumale (1822 - 1897), the fifth son of King Louis Philippe. A professional soldier, the Duc d'Aumale had his baptism of fire in 1840 in Algeria, distinguished himself in May 1843 in the taking of La Smalah of Abdel Kader, and subsequently became governor general of Algeria.

Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale
Winterhalter, 1840.

Under the July Monarchy (1830 - 1848), he had his private apartments decorated by Eugène Lami, and commissioned the architect Duban to build a wooden gallery leading to his apartments. He also planned to rebuild the Grand Château, but had to leave France after the 1848 Revolution. Exiled from 1848 to 1870 in Twickenham, near London, he built up the magnificent collections that are now conserved in Chantilly. When he returned to France after 1871, a widower and having lost his two sons at the ages of 18 and 21, he had the Grand Château reconstructed between 1875 and 1885 by the architect Honoré Daumet to house his collections.
In 1884, the Duc d'Aumale, a member of the Institut de France since 1871, bequeathed Chantilly to the Institut under the condition that, on his death, the Condé Museum would be opened to the public and that the presentation of the collections would not be changed or loaned out. The Condé Museum was opened to the public one year after his death, on the 17th April 1898.