Editing Prosper Mérimée (section)

==Last works, the fall of the Empire and death (1861–1870)==
He made his last long tour of monuments in 1853, though he remained the chief inspector of monuments until 1860. He continued to attend meetings of the Académie française and the Academy of Inscriptions. He wrote his last works, three novellas, in the genre of the fantastic: ''Djoûmane'' is a story about a soldier in North Africa who sees a sorcerer give a young woman to a snake, then realizes it was just a dream. It was not published until 1873, after his death; ''La Chambre bleu'', written as an amusement for the Empress, is the story of two lovers in a hotel room, who are terrified to find a stream of blood coming under the door of their room, then realize it is only port wine. ''Lokis'' is a horror story borrowed from a Danish folk tale, about a creature which is half-man and half bear. This story was also written to amuse the Empress, and he read it aloud to the court in July 1869, but the subject matter shocked the court, and the children were sent from the room. It was published in September 1869 in the ''Revue des deux Mondes''.{{Sfn|Darcos|1998|page=434}}

He continued to work for the preservation of monuments, attending meetings of the Commission and advising Boeswillwald, who had replaced him as Inspector of Monuments in 1860. On his urging the Commission acted to protect the medieval village of [[Cordes-sur-Ciel]], the Château de Villebon, and the romanesque churches of [[Saint-Émilion]]. He also continued to develop his passion for Russian literature, with the help of his friend [[Ivan Turgenev|Turgenev]] and other Russian émigrés in Paris. He began writing a series of twelve articles on the life of [[Peter the Great]], based on a work in Russian by Nikolai Ustrialov, which appeared in the ''Journal des Savants'' between June 1864 and February 1868. He wrote to a friend that "Peter the Great was an abominable man surrounded by abominable villains. That is amusing enough for me".{{Sfn|Darcos|1998|page=403}} In 1869 he wrote to his friend Albert Stapfer that "Russian is the most beautiful language in Europe, not excepting Greek. It is richer than German, and has a marvelous clarity... It has a great poet and another almost as grand, both killed in duels when they were young, and a great novelist, my friend Turgenev".{{Sfn|Darcos|1998|page=410}}

In the 1860s he still traveled regularly. He went to England every year between 1860 and 1869, sometimes on official business, organizing the French participation in the 1862 Universal Exposition of Fine Arts in London, and in 1868 to transfer two antique Roman busts from the British Museum to the Louvre, and to see his friend [[Anthony Panizzi]], the director of the British Museum. In 1859 he visited Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Spain, where he attended his last bullfight.{{Sfn|Darcos|1998|pages=486–489}}

By 1867, he was exhausted by the endless ceremonies and travels of the court, and thereafter he rarely participated in the imperial tours. He developed serious respiratory problems, and began to spend more and more time in the south of France, in [[Cannes]]. He became more and more conservative, opposing the more liberal reforms proposed by the Emperor in the 1860s.{{Sfn|Darcos|1998|page=352}} In May 1869 he declined an invitation to attend the opening of the [[Suez Canal]] by the Empress.

The political crisis between Prussia and France that began in May 1870 required his return from Cannes to Paris, where he participated in the emergency meetings of the Senate. His health worsened, and he only rarely could leave his house. The Empress sent him fruit from the imperial gardens, and on 24 June he was visited by his old lover, Valentine Delessert, and by Viollet-le-Duc. His health continued to decline; he told a friend: "It's well over. I see myself arriving at death, and am preparing myself".{{Sfn|Darcos|1998|page=528}}

The war with Prussia began with patriotic enthusiasm, but quickly turned into a debacle. The French Army and the Emperor were surrounded at Sedan. One of the leaders of the group of deputies advocating the creation of a republic, [[Adolphe Thiers]], visited Mérimée to ask him to use his influence with the Empress for a transition of power, but the meeting was brief; Mérimée would not consider asking the Empress and Emperor to abdicate. He told his friends that he dreaded the arrival of a republic, which he called "organized disorder".{{Sfn|Darcos|1998|page=528}}

On 2 September, news arrived in Paris that the army had capitulated and that Napoleon III had been taken prisoner. On 4 September, Mérimée got out of bed to attend the last meeting of the French Senate at the Luxembourg Palace. In the chamber he wrote a brief note to Panizzi: "All that the most gloomy and most dark imagination could invent has been surpassed by events. There is a general collapse, a French Army which surrenders, and an Emperor who allows himself to be taken prisoner. All falls at once. At this moment the legislature is being invaded and we cannot deliberate any longer. The National Guard which we just armed pretends to govern. ''Adieu'', my dear Panizzi, you know what I suffer". The Third Republic was proclaimed on the same day. Despite his illness, he hurried to the Tuileries Palace hoping to see the Empress, but the Palace was surrounded by armed soldiers and a crowd. The Empress fled for exile to London, and Mérimée did not see her again.{{Sfn|Darcos|1998|pages=529–531}}

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]].