Clodowald, corrupted
into St. Cloud.
Clodowald bequeathed the lands of St. Cloud to the bishops of Paris, who
had a summer palace here, in which the body of Francois I. lay in state
after his death at Rambouillet. His son, Henri II., built a villa here in
the Italian style; and Henri III. came to live here in a villa belonging
to the Gondi family, while, with the King of Navarre, he was besieging
Paris in 1589. The city was never taken, for at St. Cloud Henri was
murdered by Jacques Clement, a monk of the Jacobin convent in Paris, who
fancied that an angel had urged him to the deed in a vision....
From this time the house of the banker Jerome Gondi, one of the Italian
adventurers who had followed the fortunes of Catherine de Medici, was an
habitual residence of the Court. It became the property of Hervard,
Controller of Finances, from whom Louis XIV. bought it for his brother
Philippe d'Orleans, enlarged the palace, and employed Lenotre to lay out
the park. Monsieur married the beautiful Henriette d'Angleterre, youngest
daughter of Charles I., who died here, June 30, 1670, with strong
suspicion of poison.
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