Victor Hugo left 50,000 francs to the poor and asked for their hearse; France gave him a state funeral that drew more than two million people

Victor Hugo died of pneumonia on 22 May 1885, aged 83. His five-sentence will said, "Je donne cinquante mille francs aux pauvres," and asked to be carried to the cemetery in the paupers' hearse. It refused funeral orations from the churches. His wife Adèle had died in 1868 and his sons before him; his daughter Adèle, placed in an asylum, outlived him. The Chamber of Deputies voted a national funeral on 24 May by 415 votes of 418. President Jules Grévy's government backed burial in the Panthéon by a decree published on 27 May. His coffin lay one night under the Arc de Triomphe, draped in black. On 1 June, 21 cannon salvos opened the ceremony. The procession left at 12:40 and ended about 18:20. The English Wikipedia says more than two million people joined it; the French article says an estimated three million. He was buried in the Panthéon. Nietzsche called the funeral a "veritable orgy of bad taste."