In 1973, at the relatively young age of 45, Gainsbourg's years of smoking and drinking began to catch up with him and in May, he suffered his first heart attack. After collapsing in his museum-like home on Rue de Verneuil in Paris's trendy St Germain, an ambulance arrived to take him to hospital. Before leaving the house however, Gainsbourg insisted he be covered with his highly fashionable, extremely valuable Hermès blanket as the hospital's "own brand" ones were too ugly. Typical Gainsbourg, always one to go out in style.