The Château de Saint-Cloud was a château in France, built on a site overlooking the Seine at Saint-Cloud in Hauts-de-Seine, about west of Paris. On the site of the former palace is the state-owned Parc de Saint-Cloud. The château was expanded by Phillipe of France, Duke of Orléans in the 17th century, and by Marie Antoinette in the 1780s. After occupation by Napoleon I and Napoleon III, it was destroyed in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. History Hôtel d'Aulnay The Hôtel d'Aulnay on the site was expanded into a château in the 16th century by the Gondi banking family. The Gondis stemmed from a family of Florentine bankers established at Lyon in the first years of the 16th century, who had arrived at the court of France in 1543 in the train of Catherine de' Medici. In the 1570s, the Queen offered Jérôme de Gondi a dwelling at Saint-Cloud, the Hôtel d'Aulnay, which became the nucleus of the château with a right-angled wing that looked out on a terrace. The main front faced south, with a wing that terminated in a pavilion affording a handsome view over the Seine River. Henry III of France installed himself in this house in order to conduct the siege of Paris during the Wars of Religion. In 1589 he was assassinated there by the monk Jacques Clément. 17th century After the death of Jérôme de Gondi in 1604, his son Jean-Baptiste II de Gondi sold the château to Jean de Bueil, Comte de Sancerre, who died shortly afterward. The château was bought back by Jean-François de Gondi, archbishop of Paris. His embellishment notably included gardens by Thomas Francine. After the death of Jean-François de Gondi in 1654, the château was inherited by Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi and then by his nephew Henri de Gondi, known as the Duke of Retz. The latter sold the property in 1655 to Barthélemy Hervart, a banker of German extraction who was intendant then surintendant des finances. He enlarged the park to 12 hectares and did considerable rebuilding. He built a grande cascade (not the present one) in the park. Garden details that seem to be of this phase of Saint-Cloud were drawn by Israël Silvestre. It was built in the Italian style, with an invisibly flat roof and frescoed façades. Its gardens descended in a series of terraces to the Seine, with fountains at each level. On 8 October