The castle of Écouen, now houses the exceptional collections of the National Museum of the Renaissance. Property of a great lord of the Renaissance, Anne de Montmorency, who grew up in the intimacy of Francis I, then prospered under the protection of Henry II, Ecouen is a House like no other: it inscribed in its stones the ambitions and successes of a powerful man who is also a patron and an esthete passionate about art.