That is some insane sh*t.
A French jurist, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, lived in interesting times.
He self-published, in the 1820s, what is now known as "The Physiology of Taste", and a month later, in the dead of Winter, attended a memorial service for the long-dead Louis XVI.
He caught his death of cold (probably pneumonia) in the drafty cathedral.