 For most of his life Bizet had suffered from a recurrent throat complaint . A heavy smoker , he may have further undermined his health by overwork during the mid @-@ 1860s , when he toiled over publishers ' transcriptions for up to 16 hours a day . In 1868 he informed Galabert that he had been very ill with abscesses in the windpipe : " I suffered like a dog " . In 1871 , and again in 1874 while completing Carmen , he had been disabled by severe bouts of what he described as " throat angina " , and suffered a further attack in late March 1875 . At that time , depressed by the evident failure of Carmen , Bizet was slow to recover and fell ill again in May . At the end of the month he went to his holiday home at Bougival and , feeling a little better , went for a swim in the Seine . On the next day , 1 June , he was afflicted by high fever and pain , which was followed by an apparent heart attack . He seemed temporarily to recover , but in the early hours of 3 June , his wedding anniversary , he suffered a fatal second attack . 
