Political developments in 1806 hit Schütz particularly hard. In October 1806, in the aftermath of the Battle of Jena nearby, Halle was over-run by a victorious French army. Schütz's house was plundered while he himself was arrested and briefly detained by the invading forces. Possibly of greater long term consequence was the French emperor's decision to close down the university and convert its main building into a quarantine hospital. Deprived of his university salary, Schütz was eventually obliged to sell a valuable volume from his library. He considered moving to Berlin, but in the end remained in Halle, redoubling the effort he put into his academic and literary publishing. Above all, the somehow lived on and flourished. In 1808 Schütz was elected an external member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. At Halle the university remained closed till December 1814, but the war years ended in 1815 and the university was reinstated, impoverished and for a time diminished, but not terminated: Schütz appears still to have been based at Halle when he died there in 1832.