Cardinal de Retz 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 Jerome (Girolamo) de Gondi in 1573 the chateau that he made the nucleus of the Chateau de Saint-Cloud; his hotel in the Faubourg Saint-Germain of Paris became the Hotel de Conde in the following generation. The Gondi acquired great estates in Brittany and became connected with the noblest houses of the kingdom.