Vermigli attended the abortive Colloquy at Poissy in the summer of 1561 with Theodore Beza, a conference held in France with the intention of reconciling Catholics and Protestants. He was able to converse with queen mother of France Catherine de'Medici in her native Italian. He contributed a speech on the Eucharist, arguing that Jesus' words "this is my body" at the Last Supper were figurative rather than literal. Vermigli's health was already declining when he succumbed to an epidemic fever in 1562. He died 12 November 1562 in his Zürich home, attended by physician Conrad Gesner. He was buried in the Grossmünster cathedral, where his successor Josias Simler gave a funeral oration, which was published and is an important source for Vermigli's later biographies. Vermigli had had two children by his second wife, Caterina, while he was alive, but they did not survive infancy. Four months after his death she bore him a daughter, Maria.