John Francis Paul, Cardinal de Retz, was the son of Philip Emanuel de Gondi, Count de Joigny, lieutenant-general, &c. and was born in 1613. From a doctor of the Sorbonne, he first became co-adjutor to his uncle John Francis de Gondi, whom he succeeded in 1634 as archbishop of Paris; and was finally made a cardinal. This extraordinary person has drawn his own character in his memoirs with impartiality. He was a man who, from the greatest degree of debauchery, and still languishing under its consequences, made himself adored by the people as a preacher. At the age of 23, he was at the head of a conspiracy against the life of Cardinal Richelieu; he precipitated the parliament into cabals, and the people into sedition: he was (says M. Voltaire) the first bishop who carried on a civil war without the mask of religion. However, his intrigues and schemes turned out so ill, that he was obliged to quit France; and he lived the life of a vagrant exile for five or six years, till the death of his great enemy Cardinal Mazarin, when he returned on certain stipulated conditions. After assisting in the conclave at Rome, which chose Clement IX., he retired from the world, and ended his life like a philosopher in 1679; which made Voltaire say, that in his youth he lived like Catiline, and like Atticus in his old age. He wrote his Memoirs in his retirement; the best edition of which is that of Amsterdam, 4 vols 12mo, 1719.