City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library

Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz (29 September 1613 – 24 August 1679) was a French churchman, writer of memoirs, and agitator in the Fronde.

The Florentine banking family of the Gondi had been introduced into France by Catherine de' Medici; Catherine offered Jérome (Girolamo) de Gondi in 1573 the château that he made the nucleus of the Château de Saint-Cloud; his hôtel in the Faubourg Saint-Germain of Paris became the Hôtel de Condé in the following generation. The Gondi acquired great estates in Brittany and became connected with the noblest houses of the kingdom.