Notes by Axbom

Tagged: Twitter

Per Axbom Twitter

1. In 1965 Andre-Francois Raffray, a lawyer, signed to buy an apartment from his 90-year old client Jeanne Calment, "en viager". The deal, clearly in his favor, was that he would pay her only 2,500 francs a month until she died, and then the apartment would become his.

2. As it turns out Raffray lived until he was 77. When he died his family continued to pay the still alive Jeanne Calment under the terms of the contract. In the end payments for the apartment totalled more than 950,000 francs, twice the market value.

3. Jeanne Calment died only a year after Raffray, officially confirmed to have reached the tender age of 122. According to Raffray's widow, he still had a very good relationship with Calment until his own death.

"In life, one sometimes makes bad deals,'' Mrs. Calment said.

4. The French theorize around her longevity, noting that she used to eat more than two pounds of chocolate a week and treat her skin with olive oil, rode a bicycle until she was 100, and only quit smoking five years prior to her death.

5. No doubt she also had a good sense of humor and was well-known for her one-liners. When parting people would sometimes say: "Until next year, perhaps." to which she would quip:

"I don't see why not? You don't look so bad to me!"

(to be continued)

6. Several independent studies in recent years have suggested that 115 years is the approximate maximum lifespan for human beings. Mrs Clament surpassed this by a good margin, and since she passed away in 1997, no others have come close to her well-documented record.

7. When something appears inplausible, the doubters will appear. In 2018 a Russian a mathematician, Nikolay Zak, claimed this: it was not Jeanne Calment who died in 1997, but her daughter, Yvonne.

8. Jeanne Calment was born in 1875, the same year Georges Bizet's last and greatest opera "Carmen" premiered in Paris,. Also the year Alexander Graham Bell made his first sound transmission; a year later making the world’s first telephone call.

9. She was born and ended her days in the same city: Arles in the south of France. She married her cousin, Fernand Nicolas Calment, in 1896. He supported her in style and she never had to work. She spent most of her days doing sports: swimming, cycling and tennis.

10. Together they had one child, their daughter Yvonne, who in turn married Joseph Billot and gave birth to a son Frederic Billot. Yvonne died of pleurisy in 1934, aged 36. Mrs Calmert raised her grandson who became a medical doctor and died in a car accident in 1960.

11. This is where Zak’s theory intervenes. The Russian claims that there was a “switch” in 1934, where Yvonne claimed her mother’s identity and that Jeanne in fact was the one who had died. He has in a paper presented around 17 pieces of circumstantial evidence.

12. Among the evidence is a “change in eye color” from dark to green and some discrepancies in verbal testimonies. This naturally hurt French pride and many in french press dismissed the “switch” theory as fake news and attacked Zak’s credentials.

13. There is now a Facebook group engaged in a counter-investigation into the Jeanne Calment investigation. Among other things they have uncovered a photo of Yvonne at the Belvédère sanatorium in Leysin, Switzerland, consistent with Yvonne’s diagnosis of pleurisy.

14. There is also the impressive feat of a potential ruse to consider, and many others would need to have been complicit. Her son (7 at the time) would have had to stop calling her “Maman”. Yvonne would have had to share a household with her own father until his 1942 death.

15. It appears that only a DNA test could settle the whole ordeal and the side you choose to believe will likely come down to your own leanings towards conspiracy theories :)

As far as lifespans go, the scientists are still debating that one as well.

16. Sources:

A. Jeanne Calment, World's Elder, Dies at 122
nytimes.com/1997/08/05/wor…

B. Jeanne Calment's Unique 122-Year Life Span: Facts and Factors; Longevity History in Her Genealogical Tree
liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.10…

17. Sources:

C. ‘People are caught up in magical thinking': was the oldest woman in the world a fraud?
theguardian.com/science/2019/n…

D. Was Jeanne Calment the Oldest Person Who Ever Lived—or a Fraud?
newyorker.com/magazine/2020/… ht @ilovegraphics

18. Sources:

E. Human lifespan has hit its natural limit, research suggests
theguardian.com/science/2016/o…

F. Maximum human lifespan could far exceed 115 years – new research
theguardian.com/science/2017/j…

19.Sources:

Nikolay’s paper:
Evidence That Jeanne Calment Died in 1934—Not 1997
liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/re…

🔗 Originally posted on Twitter