In the beginning of 1778, Voltaire would return to Paris after the death of Louis XV who had banned him from entering. The Enlightenment writer and philosopher was returning to see his play Irene on the stage.
The five-day travel from Geneva almost killed the 83 year and he thought he would die. However, in true dramatic fashion fit for the stage, he made a full recovery.
Cheating death only meant pushing it off for a few months and on May 30, 1778; he would take his final breath. Upon his death, he had been with his friend the Marquis de Villette in Paris. Villette took charge and had M. Mitouart execute his embalmment and asked him to remove his heart. A vocal critic of the church he was secretly buried in Champagne, without his heart and one other organ.
Villette wanted to return the heart of his friend to the Chateau-de-Forney, near Switzerland where he had spent the last 20 years of his life. His former home would be turned into a shrine to him and his heart placed in his bedroom.
Napoleon had other ideas in 1864 and ordered his heart returned to Paris and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France on Rue de Richelieu. He had it placed inside the original plaster statue made by Jean-Antoine Houdon and inscribed "Heart of Voltaire given by the heirs of the Marquis de Villette".
When M. Mitouart performed the embalming and removed his heart, he also thought he would keep a little something for himself. He decided to keep the brain of the philosopher. Keeping it with him until the end of his life when his children thought it was a little odd and would give it to the Comedie Française in exchange for tickets to the historic theater. His heart would be placed in the original marble statue by Houdon, the twin of where his heart lays. His body, what was left was moved and buried in the Pantheon on this day in 1791 in a place of prominence just as you enter the lower tomb among the other great men and women of French History.
Although a foot and a tooth disappeared along the way, pour Voltaire, is all over the place.
