On February 5, 1778, Voltaire left for Paris, promising to return in six weeks. In Paris, the population, which had not seen him for twenty years, gave him an ovation whenever he appeared. Marie Antoinette asked to meet and embrace him; he could not oblige her because he was still banned from court by her husband, Louis XVI. He met and embraced Benjamin Franklin instead. He never returned to his château. On May 30, 1778, he died in Paris.
