Victor Hugo attended a massive party celebrating the restoration of his own health in 1885, only to die shortly afterward because he ate entirely too much food at the celebration.

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Victor Hugo attended a massive party celebrating the restoration of his own health in 1885, only to die shortly afterward because he ate entirely too much food at the celebration. The legendary French author of Les Miserables had just recovered from a minor illness, so he naturally decided to throw a colossal banquet filled with rich meats, wine, and decadent desserts. His fragile elderly body could not handle the sheer volume of calories he consumed, leading to a fatal bout of pneumonia brought on by intense gastric distress. It is darkly poetic that a man who spent his life writing epic tragedies about starving peasants ultimately met his demise by aggressively overeating at a party thrown in his own honor