Mérimée returned to Cannes on 10 September. He died there on 23 September 1870, five days before his 67th birthday. Though he had been an outspoken atheist most of his life, at his request he was buried at the Cimetière du Grand Jas, the small cemetery of the Protestant church in Cannes. A few months later, in May 1871, during the Paris Commune, a mob burned his Paris home, along with his library, manuscripts, archaeological notes and collections because of his close association with the deposed Napoleon III.