collections have been dispersed or permanently lost the galleries such as Henry IV ordered the Louvre Richelieu in his Cardinal's palace (Palais Royal) . Both collections gathered political figures and announced the theme which was chosen for the Hall of Beauregard Illustrious. Beauregard Gallery is by no means an isolated initiative, it must be understood within a mode. However, since the seventeenth century, this collection was distinguished by his contemporaries: we find an admiring mention in the memoirs of the Grande Mademoiselle when he came to the château in 1655. The excess of the project and the care taken in the realization of the book rendered the famous gallery since its creation, which remains today the largest collection of historical portraits of characters known in Europe . Visiting the Chateau de Richelieu (1630-1642) in early September 1663, Jean de La Fontaine noticed there a place he said "Lined with portraits For most about major / Like toilet mirrors ; / If we had had more time / Less haste , another interpreter, I would tell you what people . You can judge that it is not ye of little stuff : Richelieu Cardinal , Duke ( his nephew Armand -Jean Vignerot ) who inherited his name ; Admiral fire Breze (...) . The rest is full of kings and queens,lords, the great figures of France , then that is the history of the nation that cabinet. One guard had to forget all the people who have triumphed over kings ; it is the Mona Lisas , beautiful Agnes and those illustrious conquerors without Henri fourth that would have been invincible prince." - Jean de La Fontaine Another collection of portraits are visible in France, but its theme and scale are very different; this is that which was gathered in the seventeenth century, the castle of Bussy- Rabutin in Burgund. Ernest de Ganay tells the Neuville castle in Gambais in 1939 a "curious royal portrait gallery", some attributed to students Clouet; consists of 192 leading figures in the history of France from François I to the 1789 Revolution, it would have been created in the eighteenth century by Francis Nyert. In the nineteenth century, in his château of Azay-le-Rideau the Marquis of Biencourt contitua from 1830 a collection of 300 ancient effigies, which was promptly shown to the public; a notable part, acquired in a public auction of the furniture of