 Louis XIV of France, an acquisitive connoisseur, brought together the cabinet of curiosities of his uncle Gaston d'Orléans and acquired that of Hippolyte de Béthune, the nephew of Henri IV's minister Sully.In order to keep the collections closer at hand, he removed them from the old royal library in Paris to the Palace of Versailles.When Louis' great-grandson Louis XV had attained majority, the "Cabinet" was returned to Paris in 1724, to take up its present space in the royal library that was designed under the direction of Jules-Robert de Cotte, the son of Mansart's successor at the Bâtiments du Roi.