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bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss bylepreamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL eErqIx bylename-lk button" href="/ntributors/lren-lls">Lren Colls</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2020-02-10T06:00:00-05:00" class="SplScreenContentHearPublishDate-bMGEVk gvRvVr">Febary 10, 2020</time><div class="SocialInsWrapper-hKMEXV ffgPVr social-ins social-ins--standard SplScreenContentHearSocialShare-gSVclr kUKgnn"><ul data-ttid="socialInslist" class="SocialInsList-cHVTIA ivmblD social-inslist"><li class="SocialInsListItem-mbhR hHoUCw social-inslist-em social-inslist-em--facebook social-inslist-em--standard thner"><a aria-label="Share on Facebook" class="external-lk SocialInExternalLk-huuzOU cLGRzS social-inslk social-inslk--facebook" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" 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class="SplScreenContentHearLeadWrapper-jYfGAC kBeEbL"><div data-ttid="ContentHearLeadAsset" class="SplScreenContentHearLeBlock-nUOA cwQiEB"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset SplScreenContentHearLe-bGywFh gyNssY"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SplScreenContentHearLe-bGywFh gyNssY rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Jeanne Calment" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></picture></span></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 SplScreenContentHearGrid-kFpOdh fLkIyA"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn SplScreenContentHearCaptn-iOfEOv ckLUKG"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">Sce Calment died, 1997, at a hundred and twenty-two, her claim to the longevy rerd has e unr attack.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Illtratn by Gérard DuBois</span></div></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-bodyntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 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story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP bwyLBj"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG Uozmo"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay ; encrypted-media ; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">People France remember the summer of 1997 for the aths of <a href=">Prcs Diana</a>, Mother Tera, and Jeanne Calment. The first beme a hoehold name by marryg to royalty; the send, by rg for the world’s sick and poor. Jeanne Calment, however, was an accintal in, her celebry the rult of a form of passivy. For a hundred and twenty-two years, five months, and fourteen days, Calment managed not to die.</p><p class="paywall">She was born at home on the Rue du Roure, Arl, one of only four addrs she ever held. That Febary morng, 1875, lavenr smoke mgled wh the ld the tight streets of La Roquette, a tradnal neighborhood of fishermen and the marime tras. Plastic, tea bags, public trash ns, and the zipper had yet to e to the world. The life expectancy for a French woman was forty-five. Approximately one billn five hundred ln people walked the pla, and Calment would outlive them all.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-unslot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Later life, Calment claimed to have known <a href=">Vcent van Gogh</a>, tellg different versns of an enunter wh him 1888. “Van Gogh was very ugly. Ugly like a loe,” she once remembered. “We lled him <em>le dgo.</em>” Acrdg to one anecdote, van Gogh me to her fay’s drygoods store, on Rue Gambetta, wantg to buy nvas. Calment sometim said that her father waed on him. Her father, however, was a shipbuilr; the store actually belonged to her hband’s fay. Another time Calment relled, “My hband said to him, ‘I prent to you my wife.’ ” This rellectn was also blurred: Calment, an adolcent 1888, didn’t marry for another eight years.</p><p class="paywall">She had known her hband, Fernand Calment, her entire life. Their paternal grandfathers were brothers, and their paternal grandmothers were sisters, makg Jeanne and Fernand double send s. They had a dghter, Yvonne, 1898. Jeanne never worked, but led a by life of recreatnal pursus, cludg tennis, roller-skatg, and stalkg wild boar. The Calments lived grand apartments above the fay store. Jeanne appeared ocsnally, cuttg an imper figure. “Madame Calment wanted to impose her taste on me,” a woman later said, rememberg a girlhood errand to buy fabric. “Stubborn, I stuck wh my choice, replyg a tone that didn’t please her. I haven’t fotten the pair of slaps.”</p><p class="paywall">In 1934, Yvonne died of plitns om tuberculosis, leavg behd a hband, Colonel Joseph Billot, and a seven-year-old son, Freddy. Jeanne and Fernand took re of the boy as though he were their own. In 1942, some iends of the Calments ved the uple to their untry hoe. Durg the vis, Fernand ged on cherri, while Jeanne had one or two. The cherri were tated wh chemils, and, wh a few months, Jeanne was a widow. Two years later, women got the vote France. The Eiffel Tower was jt past fifty. Calment was sixty-seven, wh nearly half her life ont of her.</p><p class="paywall">Followg the ath of Calment’s hband, she and her son--law, Joseph, shared an apartment. Freddy, an otolaryngologist, lived nearby wh his wife. In 1963, Calment lost her last timat. That January, Joseph died after a long illns. In Augt, Freddy was killed a r accint. Calment ped by never stayg still. In the s that followed, her stacto footfall was as tegral to Arl as the sound of the mistral, the rattlg Provençal wd. One bgrapher wrote, “Everyone knew the ‘ltle old lady’ who dashed all over town, who went down the steps of St. Trophime church like a kid.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The ground floor of the Calments’ limtone buildg is now occupied by a supermarket. On a recent wter morng, the current owner showed me around the third floor, above where Calment lived. It was easy to image her wakg each day, shufflg down a hallway of whe til wh red Occan cross, warmg herself ont of a fireplace wh an ornately rved walnut mantelpiece, and unlatchg the floor-to-ceilg shutters, to let the southern light. On the roof, a fad sign glowed the sunshe: <em class="small">MAISON CALMENT</em>.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoonimage rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A woman tied to tra tracks looks at her watch." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoonptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptntext">“Late, as ual.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtooncred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptncred">Cartoon by Liana Fck</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 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cxFROy alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">When Calment was nety-four, 1969, her notary bought her apartment. The purchase was ma unr the French <em>en viager</em> system, which the buyer agre to make regular payments on a property that the seller ntu to live . In such an arrangement, the buyer sentially wagers on how quickly the seller will die. The Calment apartment proved to be an epilly terrible vtment. By the time the notary died, 1995, he’d spent nearly two hundred thoand dollars, more than twice the value of the place, whout ever takg occupancy.</p><p class="paywall">As Calment approached her hundredth year, she was still ridg her bicycle. Jt before her birthday, the mayor of Arl offered to anize a celebratn. Calment cled, llg the mayor <em>un rouge</em>, a Communist. Not long after, thkg better of her manners, she went to see him at the town hall. “In the wag room, there were several people,” he later said. “I didn’t spot a centenarian. In fact, she was right ont of my ey. A ltle woman a gray su, wearg a hat wh a fe veil. I noticed her heeled sho and seamed stockgs. Very elegant, she seemed twenty years younger.”</p><p class="paywall">At a hundred and ten, Calment was still livg alone, the Rue Gambetta apartment, where she had never bothered to stall a morn heatg system. One day, she climbed up on a table to uneeze the boiler wh the flame of a ndle, startg a small fire. She agreed to move to a lol retirement home, the Maison du Lac, until the weather improved. She end up stayg, and, 1988, at a hundred and twelve, was briefly regnized as the “doyenne of humany,” the olst person the world. Soon afterward, the tle was given to a Florida woman three months her elr, who had spent seventy-five years a mental hospal after beg diagnosed wh “post-typhoid psychosis,” a disease that doctors no longer believed existed. After the woman died, at a hundred and sixteen, 1991, Calment beme the olst person ever known to have lived.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">A team of three rearchers who spent several years validatg Calment’s age—Victor Lèbre, her personal doctor; Michel Allard, a gerontologist; and Jean-Marie Robe, a mographer—scribed her as a “tough okie.” At the Maison du Lac, she mataed a rigid schle, risg at six-forty-five, sayg her prayers, performg listhenics, and listeng to classil mic on her Walkman. She proudly told <em>Paris Match</em> that her breasts remaed as firm as “two ltle appl.” At night, she sisted that her bed be turned down, as though she were a gut a hotel. Behd her back, the nurs lled her <em>la mandante.</em> She qu smokg at a hundred and seventeen, but never gave up havg a nightly glass of port.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layoutasi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-boxprimary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="adslot adslot--rail" data-no-id="oge3ij"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="oifw"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The longer Calment lived, the more famo she beme. On Grandmother’s Day, a well-known televisn prenter offered her a kilo of cholate. “I want a ton!” Calment replied. Several weeks later, two tcks showed up. Even the validators were dazzled by their subject. They rerd hours of nversatns wh her, excerpts of which they later published a book, “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">L 120 Ans Jeanne Calment</a>.” Ocsnally, she’d e a word so antiquated (like <em>mahonne</em>, a kd of round-bottomed barge that her father had built) that the validators had to look up. “We were tly the state of excatn of an Egyptologist who, while walkg through an unexplored labyrth of a pyramid, disvers an unknown room filled wh treasur,” they wrote. Calment lived through twenty French Prints and survived perds of terrorism that no one even relled. She died on Augt 4, 1997, of unspecified . She was buried her fay’s tomb, where she rted peace until early last year.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">The first public attack on Jeanne Calment’s thenticy appeared the tabloid <em>Komsomolskaya Pravda</em>, November, 2018. In an terview, Valery Novoselov, a geriatrician and the director of the gerontology chapter of the Mosw Society of Naturalists, announced his tentn to disprove Calment’s claim to the longevy tle. A burly former doctor the Rsian Army, Novoselov said that he had been lookg at some photographs of Calment and found that she simply didn’t display the physil characteristics one would expect of a person her age. “In the picture of 110-year-old Jeanne, I see a strong lady a ltle younger than 90,” he clared.</p><p class="paywall">He had shared his doubts wh Nikolay Zak, a mathematician he knew om Facebook. In ntrast to Novoselov, Zak had a dishevelled look and résumé, havg published ltle sce a 2007 this. He was workg as a glassblower, fabritg flasks and beakers for the chemistry partment at Mosw State Universy. Intrigued, he agreed to work on the Calment se. Usg a database of centenarians, he lculated that the probabily of someone reachg the age of a hundred and twenty-two was “fimally small.” As Zak explaed to <em>Komsomolskaya Pravda</em>, the numbers were tellg him that Calment uldn’t have lived that long.</p><p class="paywall">He started surg the Inter. He found strange that Calment didn’t mentn the cholera epimic that ravaged Arl 1884; that, upon movg out of her apartment, she had enlisted a relative to burn her personal effects; that her grandson had lled her Manzane, a portmante of <em>maman</em> and a childish pronunciatn of her first name. Calment had often equivoted nversatns about her fay. (“That’s a els qutn!” she once barked, when an terviewer asked if she’d loved her grandson.) An inty rd om the neteen-thirti said that she had black ey, but, at the end of her life, one report rerd them as gray. Furthermore, acrdg to the rd, Calment’s height, middle age, had been a hundred and fifty-two centimetr. If that was te, then how uld she have still stood a hundred and fifty centimetr tall at the age of a hundred and fourteen, as one rerd suggted, havg lost almost no height? Meanwhile, her signature, Zak thought, had changed tremendoly over the years, acquirg a loopg “J.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">There were the van Gogh stori, which she’d mixed up her hband and her father. In addn, Calment had told her validators that she had been rted to school by a maid named Marthe Touchon. Cens documents nfirmed that a Marthe worked for the Calment fay the early neteen-hundreds. She was listed as Marthe Foson, a variatn on the name that seemed reasonable, given that Calment had difficulty enunciatg at the end of her life. Yet, when Zak tracked down Foson’s birth certifite, he found an odd discrepancy: Marthe Foson was ten years younger than Jeanne Calment and th uldn’t very well have taken her to school.</p><p class="paywall">Zak started fiddlg wh Photoshop, examg Calment’s lower lip, the sk on her ch, the tip of her nose, and the shape of her skull at var ag. Soon he had veloped a theory: the person the world had known and fêted as Jeanne Calment was actually her dghter, Yvonne. Acrdg to Zak, Jeanne had died 1934, but the Calment fay had prented the rpse to the thori as Yvonne, orr to avoid herance tax. This, he said, would expla “the strange habatn of ‘mother--law’ wh ‘son--law’; the ‘grandson’ who lled his ‘grandmother’ mom,” not to mentn the advantageo <em>en viager</em> al. In the urse of more than six s, he posed, a fay secret had metastasized to a natnal nspiracy. <em>Komsomolskaya Pravda</em> clared that the reputatns of Calment’s validators would soon “pop like a soap bubble.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">A rnival atmosphere often surrounds the very old—gild proclamatns, giant k—but they are cril to science, which reli on extreme s to fe s sense of the possible. If, for the general public, supercentenarians—people who live to or beyond the age of a hundred and ten—are emissari of the past, for blogists they are msengers om the future. Supercentenarians often look and feel younger than their age might suggt, and they tend to elu the diseas, such as ncer, Alzheimer’s, and diabet, that kill off most of their peers. Some scientists believe that clu to extendg and improvg human life are embedd their DNA.</p><p class="paywall">Herodot wrote about the Macrobians, a legendary people who drank k, ate boiled flh, and “lived to be a hundred and twenty years old.” Methelah was supposed to have lived almost a lennium. The Victorians beme obssed wh the phenomenon of longevy, attemptg to tap the founta of youth as they had the natural rourc of the Empire. In 1873, William Thoms, a librarian at the Hoe of Lords, set forth a system of age validatn that more or ls remas e today. Through archival rearch, he bunked the legend of Thomas Parr, a Shropshire man whose longevy so imprsed the Earl of Anl that, 1635, he sent him on a palanqu to London, to meet the kg. Parr dropped ad soon thereafter, at the alleged age of a hundred and fifty-two. After a thorough topsy—the kg’s roner examed Parr’s genals, ncludg that he’d been sexually active to his fourteenth —Parr was buried at Wtmster Abbey.</p><p class="paywall">Acrdg to a 2010 paper, “Typologi of Extreme Longevy Myths,” sixty-five per cent of people who purport to be a hundred and ten are wrong or lyg. For those who claim to be a hundred and fifteen, the rate of accuracy is nety-eight per cent. Sometim people don’t know their real ag. Other tim, people exaggerate for reasons of prtige, fancial ga, relig practice, fay honor, or regnal or natnal chvism. Pensn sms and the sire to avoid or participate ary service are equently the of rrect age claims, as are admistrative errors. (The Uned Stat didn’t have a centralized birth-registratn system until 1933.) Some people’s motivatns are as unpredictable as human nature. In the neteen-fifti, men posed as Conferate veterans orr to sta a myth of Southern imperishabily: “If we uldn’t beat ’em, we n outlive ’em.” Norris McWhirter, the -founr of Guns World Rerds, wrote, “No sgle subject is more obscured by vany, ce, falsehood, and liberate d than the extrem of human longevy.”</p><le-embed name="feature-flt" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="image" ntentType="llout:feature-flt"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Jeanne and Yvonne as adults." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">The only known photograph of Jeanne (right) and her dghter, Yvonne, as adults.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Photograph by Nolwenn Brod / Agence VU / Rx</span></div></figure></le-embed><p class="paywall">In a field plagued by data-qualy issu, Jeanne Calment had long been nsired the gold standard. This was partly due to chance: bee she’d married her , she’d had the same name throughout her life, the entirety of which she’d spent Arl, which posss some of the most well-prerved archiv of any municipaly the world. Workg wh a genealogist, her validators renstcted the Calment fay tree gog back seven generatns. The Thoms method of validatn required five “speci of evince.” They had dozens, cludg Calment’s origal birth certifite, her marriage certifite, and seventeen cens documents which she appeared, datg back to 1876.</p><p class="paywall">Over the years, qutns about Calment’s rerd had surfaced ocsnally, but nothg much me of them. A book about the French surance dtry, published 2007, claimed that an surer had unvered Calment’s real inty the neti, but that French thori didn’t want to unrme “a figure who’d bee mythic.” Scientists, too, had raised doubts about Calment. Leonid Gavrilov and Natalia Gavrilova, hband-and-wife mographers at the Universy of Chigo, wrote that Calment’s hundred-and-twenty-two-year life span was “particularly provotive” bee so handily outstripped the petn. The send-longt-livg person died 1999, at a hundred and neteen. The gerontologist Tom Kirkwood asked of Calment, a 1999 book, “Could she be a d?” He nclud that “any ceptn on Madame Calment’s part would have required extraordary prcience and the nnivance of survivg relativ and we should banish such thoughts om our mds.” Even Calment’s validators explored the possibily of a swch, a 2000 publitn, but surmised that was a “crackpot” ia.</p><p class="paywall">In gerontology, three years might as well be a century. Acrdg to the Gompertz law—formulated 1825 by a Brish actuary named Benjam Gompertz—the mortaly rate for adult humans roughly doubl wh every addnal eight years of age. In other words, however likely you are to die 2020, you will be twice as likely 2028, and four tim as likely 2036. But the Gompertz curve seems to flatten after about a hundred years of age, creatg what some scientists ll the “late-life mortaly plate.” Gavrilov and Gavrilova have explaed that the celeratn of the ath rate old age, if accurate, uld suggt that there is no fixed lim to the human life span. Scientists disagree about whether the late-life mortaly plate is the nsequence of flty data.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layoutasi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-boxprimary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="09l2y"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The passage of time often quells ntroversy, but, the Calment se, only unsettled the dt. As the world’s populatn ntued to grow, the hort of people livg to the age of a hundred and twenty-two did not. More than two s after Calment’s ath, her rerd still stood, makg her a more nspicuo outlier wh every year that went by. Eher she had lived longer than any human beg ever or she had executed an dac d. As one observer wrote, “Both are highly unlikely life stori but one is te.” In “L 120 Ans Jeanne Calment,” her validators had reproduced the only picture known to exist of the two Calment women as adults. In , Yvonne appears to be stg on a wdowsill. Jeanne stands to her left, behd a table, lookg down at a basket of flowers and a wrapped gift. The women are both wearg whe shirts and dark sweaters. Acpanyg the photograph was a tantalizg ptn: “Jeanne and Yvonne, her dghter. Which one is which?”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">On December 19, 2018, Nikolay Zak posted a preprt— amia, a draft of a paper that hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed—to RearchGate, a social work for scientists. It began wh a quote om Genis (“Then the <em class="small">LORD</em> said, ‘My spir will not ntend wh humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years’ ”), and reerated somewhat more ro language the se that he and Novoselov had ma to <em>Komsomolskaya Pravda</em>, addg some new tails. On one page, Zak would perform plited mathematil equatns; on the next, he’d ce Wikipedia or the <em>Daily Mail</em>. At tim, his logic leaped to the realm of pure speculatn. “Beg the nursg home and not beg able to stroy the documents herself, Jeanne rorted to the help of a distant relative,” he wrote, referrg to Calment’s cisn to burn most of her personal papers. “Most likely, was a rult of ld lculatn and acute necsy stead of an emotnal act.”</p><p class="paywall">Zak’s paper, though unnventnal, was enticg. The A.F.P., France’s wire service, picked up, and, on New Year’s Eve, articl about the ntroversy appeared a number of newspapers. Soon the Calment story had bee an “<em>affaire</em>,” an appellatn that, France, scrib a dramatic episo while more or ls guaranteeg s latn. France 2, the natnal televisn broadster, voted a prime-time special to the “enigma of Jeanne Calment,” and <em>Le Mon</em> examed the “crazy hypothis of two Rsian rearchers,” cg experts who likened the Rsians’ methods to those of “fake news.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The se might have remaed largely the ncern of gerontologists and the French had Aubrey Grey not got volved. The posh, wild-beard panjandm of the <a href=">anti-agg</a> movement, Grey was born London 1963. After a reer artificial telligence, he began studyg blogy, earng a Ph.D. om Cambridge at the age of thirty-seven. Now, as the chief science officer of the <em class="small">SENS</em> (Strategi for Engeered Negligible Sencence) Rearch Foundatn, a nonprof anizatn based Mounta View, California, he is attemptg to velop medil therapi that will reverse <a href=">agg</a>. He claims that there are human begs alive right now who uld live more than a thoand years.</p><p class="paywall">Speci such as sea anemon and hydras show no signs of sencence, and many rearchers believe that agg is not evable. As Tom Kirkwood, the gerontologist, has wrten, “Ageg about through the gradual build-up of unrepaired flts the cells and tissu of our bodi as we live our liv, not as a rult of some active mechanism for ath and stctn.” In recent years, the sire of Silin Valley moguls to acquire the one thg you n’t buy has kicked off a sort of space race for “life extensn.” The PayPal -founr Peter Thiel has donated at least five ln dollars to Grey’s projects. De Grey himself ntributed another thirteen ln 2011, after receivg an herance om his mother. A certa eccentricy has only add to his ra. “De Grey relax by hoistg a pt his lol pub and ocsnally piickg nu wh his nsirably olr wife,” the L.A. <em>Tim</em> noted, a review of a 2014 documentary lled “The Immortalists.”</p><p class="paywall">De Grey is the edor--chief of <em>Rejuvenatn Rearch</em>, a bgerontology journal, which, Febary, 2019, published an article by Zak, “Evince That Jeanne Calment Died 1934—Not 1997.” The article was based on his preprt, wh some chang and new njectur. Notably, Zak ntend that photographs of Yvonne showed the prence of a fibroma—a flhy bump—on the tip of her nose, which matched wh one a picture of Calment as an old woman. “Intertgly, is absent om later photos, ditg that was removed,” he wrote, to acunt for pictur of Calment as an even olr woman wh no such fibroma. Earlier, Zak had raised the possibily of exhumg Calment’s body; now he proposed another way to exame her DNA. Calment had reportedly given a blood sample to rearchers as part of the Chronos Project, a pneerg survey of more than a thoand French centenarians, nducted the neteen-neti by the Fondatn Jean Dsset-<em class="small">CEPH</em>, a renowned geic-rearch center. Zak asserted “that blogil material om the person who died 1997” was likely still storage.</p><p class="paywall">S. Jay Olshansky, a gerontologist at the Universy of Illois at Chigo, told me, “I did not fd the paper to be of a very high qualy. If I were the edor, I would not have accepted .” Many rears were nfound: why had Grey cid to btow the imprimatur of amic rpectabily on Zak’s work? Outlandish nspiracy theori proliferated. Was Grey, an “ternatnal adjunct profsor” at the Mosw Instute of Physics and Technology, somehow league wh the Rsians? Was Big Pharma? Was Put? Or was there a plot volvg the Lifeboat Foundatn, a techno-survivalist anizatn to which Grey and Zak both belonged, which had been filtrated by Rsian spi? “The are bad guys, playg nasty gam,” Robert Young, a nsultant for Guns World Rerds and a director of the Gerontology Rearch Group, which matas a database of supercentenarians, told me. “This is a manufactured ntroversy—we don’t even nsir the se to be disputed.”</p><p class="paywall">Calment’s validators sudnly had to fend work that they’d done twenty-five years earlier. One of them, Victor Lèbre, had died. Michel Allard, the gerontologist, had retired and was livg a village central France. When I spoke wh him, he seemed dly amed by the whole thg. He’d ially been open to the possibily of d, but he’d dug up his fil and nclud that the ia was ridiculo. “I tried to nstct a scenar, but n you image that someone would do all that?” he said. “At a certa pot, we need to be reasonable.” As for the DNA, he said, “It’s not my idge.”</p><p class="paywall">The third validator, Jean-Marie Robe, was a director at <em class="small">INSERM</em>, France’s natnal health-rearch stute. He took the Rsians’ attacks on his reputatn serly. “It’s nonsense, and not only is nonsense but was a hostile approach and not a scientific approach,” he told me, of Zak’s <em>Rejuvenatn Rearch</em> paper. “Why did they lnch this operatn like kamikaz? Why did they throw down sixty weak arguments?” Robe did not thk Put or the K.G.B. was volved. De Grey, he believed, wanted accs to Calment’s blood, which was said to be stored a reigerated bbank at the Fondatn Dsset.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">Clde Serena was a ltle girl when she saw Jeanne Calment one day near her school. Her mother had jt arrived for pickup. “What do you know, here Mother Calment,” she said, as a slenr, fast-walkg figure proceed down the street. Serena’s fay wasn’t fond of the lol hte bourgeoisie. “My grandfather was a Communist, and Jeanne didn’t like Communists, bee she acced them of the Rsian Revolutn,” Serena explaed. Like Calment, her grandfather lived almost his entire life Arl. “He would have known the difference between her and her dghter,” Serena said. “And if he’d had the slightt spicn he would have nounced her.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoonimage rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A man tampers wh and brib the jury." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoonptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptntext">“Some ll jury tamperg. I ll sty.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtooncred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptncred">Cartoon by P. C. Vey</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc cxFROy alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">We were stg the urtyard of a fé Arl, wh Cécile Pellegri, another native Arlésienne. They were both members of a Facebook group lled Contre Enquête sur l’Enquête Jeanne Calment (Counter-Invtigatn of the Jeanne Calment Invtigatn), which was g the llective talents of more than a thoand ordary people to try to clear Calment’s name. Neher Serena nor Pellegri uld que believe what they’d got to. Serena was retired om the Maison du Lac retirement home, where she’d worked as a regiver for fifteen years, ten of them lookg after Calment. “She had the small ey, wh an cisive look,” she relled. “Very nscendg, ‘<em>ma fille</em>,’ et cetera.” She add, “I didn’t like her, so I’m impartial.” Pellegri, a social worker, normally spent her time onle postg pictur of her four ts. Now both were votg hours a day to tective work and sparrg wh Zak. (Gamely, they’d allowed him to jo the Facebook group.)</p><p class="paywall">“<em>C’t du Jam Bond</em>,” Serena said.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">I asked why they’d got volved.</p><p class="paywall">“In spe of all, this stung me,” Serena said. “We’re not idts. What’s sultg is that Zak don’t believe .”</p><p class="paywall">“As if we were hidg a secret villa,” Pellegri said.</p><p class="paywall">“He liv behd his puter on the other si of the world,” Serena add.</p><p class="paywall">Arl has a huddled, electric energy. For lennia, the Rhône was s lifeblood, but the cy fac ward, as though were too va to acknowledge s benefactor. Plant a flower Arl, h a Roman relic wh your shovel. The mistral might blow the teeth out of your mouth. The signer Christian Lacroix, who was born there, wrote of a sombre palette: “the funereal blue of cyprs,” the “sky baked whe.” Van Gogh pated the cy vlet, balt, gold, and chartrse. As Lacroix put , “It’s not so much Arl that gave s lors to van Gogh but van Gogh who gave Arl s lors.” Serena mentned that her great-grandmother slept stg upright a chair, so as to prerve her tradnal Arlésienne if.</p><p class="paywall">Zak argued that the people of Arl were too close to the Calment se to be ratnal. But the unter-vtigators were mountg a meticulo fense. They started off by topplg Zak’s theory about the Calments’ fancial motive. One of the group’s bt rearchers, a telemunitns engeer named François Rob-Champignl, showed that, 1934, herance tax for the fay would likely have amounted to six per cent of Jeanne’s assets, which totalled around two hundred and fifty thoand ancs. This was a rate that they surely uld have managed, particularly given—<em>et voilà!</em>—the group’s disvery that Jeanne had hered a mor fortune om her father, 1926.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layoutasi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-boxprimary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="adslot adslot--rail" data-no-id="f0sxd"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="gjsrog"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Moreover, Yvonne would have had to pretend to be her own father’s wife. It also beggared belief that Freddy, a seven-year-old, eher would not notice that his mother had taken his grandmother’s place or would accept the swch and say nothg about for the rt of his life. Only a few people who ever saw the fay members together are still alive. One of them, Gilberte Mery, whose grandfather was Jeanne’s first , told <em>Le Journal du Dimanche</em> that the swch theory was “pletely idtic.” Rellg the Arl tradn of promenas, she said, “We looked at who walked wh whom, we noticed if someone changed her drs. Can you image if, all of a sudn, people no longer saw Aunt Jeanne but Yvonne?”</p><p class="paywall">Zak quickly me up wh a new ratnale for an inty swch: Jeanne had ntracted tuberculosis, and the fay lied about to protect s livelihood and shield self om social stigma. Why would the Calments ver for Jeanne’s tuberculosis by sayg that Yvonne had died of tuberculosis? In Zak’s scenar, Yvonne was fected wh the disease first, and transmted to Jeanne sometime around 1926. In the followg years, Jeanne started to show symptoms. Fearg that news of her illns would affect bs at the store, she began to spend most of her time outsi Arl. Zak had noticed, the France 2 special, a partly blurred-out page of a medil stunt’s 1993 this on Jeanne Calment. The words <em>séquell plral</em>—plral effns, or buildups of fluid around the lungs, which are sometim a marker of tubercular fectns—were jt visible. Yvonne, he believed, had revered om the disease. In her mother’s absence, she would ocsnally e the olr woman’s I.D. rd to sign important documents. The d was meant to be temporary, but, once got gog, beme impossible to stop.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Some of the members of the Facebook group lled themselv “Jeanne’s Angels.” They kept turng up new piec of evince, such as a 1983 letter, proffered by a fay member, which Calment ed an abbreviatn—“Xbre” for <em>décembre</em>—that was popular the neteenth century. Calment had told her validators stori about her drsmaker, her midwife, and her math teacher. The group found all of them old documents, livg the right place and at the right time. “No matter how much you formatted someone, I n’t image them g out wh that,” Karen Rchie, a nropsychologist who examed Calment 1993, told me, addg that Calment had reunted the nam of the makers of her weddg cutlery and crockery.</p><p class="paywall">Calment’s piano teacher, Césarie Gachon, proved to be a pellg wns om beyond the grave. Documents nfirmed that Gachon, born 1867, lived an apartment behd her parents’ bakery, jt as Calment had once relled. In orr to le out the possibily that Yvonne had had the same memori, a group member examed several cens. By 1911, when Jeanne was thirty-six and Yvonne thirteen, the bakery was gone and Gachon’s parents were ad. “The n’t be Yvonne’s memori, then, but those of Jeanne,” the group member wrote, a Facebook post. “Too precise, my opn, for the dghter to have heard them om the mother and remembered them to reunt eighty years later.”</p><p class="paywall">In the ments, Zak chimed , claimg that Calment had once said that she began playg the piano at the age of seven. Gachon would only have been fourteen then, and th, Zak wrote, “this is yet another argument for the I.D. swch.”</p><le-embed name="feature-flt" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="image" ntentType="llout:feature-flt"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Image may nta Tie Accsori Accsory Sunglass Human Person Jeanne Calment Su Coat Clothg and Overat" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">Calment, photographed 1989, at a hundred and fourteen years old.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Photograph by Eric CATARINA / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Imag</span></div></figure></le-embed><p class="paywall">As for the drsmaker, Zak posed that if she were “a famo uturier she uld leave a label wh her name on the drs and people uld remember her after her ath.”</p><p class="paywall">A group member sarstilly wrote back, “Celebry Arl isn’t que Chanel.”</p><p class="paywall">The group’s most important disveri volved Yvonne, whose apparently short life was much ls well known than her mother’s long one. A letter showed that, 1928, Yvonne was sick enough for Joseph Billot to have requted a five-year leave of absence om the ary. “It’s wh regret that he leav the Army, but his terts and the health of his wife oblige him to go live the Midi, near Arl,” a superr of Billot’s wrote. Newspaper articl, prerved on microfiche, scribed Yvonne’s funeral—a public event, not the shed burial that one would expect om a fay tryg to get away wh a body swch. A prit admistered the last r and led a funeral Mass at St. Trophime. Acrdg to one acunt, a “particularly abundant crowd” of mourners procsed om the Billot rince, where, per lol ctom, they would have been able to view the rpse.</p><p class="paywall">One photograph of Yvonne was pecially myster. It had first appeared 1995, on the ver of a special edn of <em>Le Figaro</em> magaze, mislabelled as an image of Jeanne. Now everyone agreed that the subject of the photograph was Yvonne, but qutns about s provenance persisted. The photograph was clearly taken on a summer day the mountas. Fir tre and a chalet are visible the distance. In the foreground, Yvonne pos on a balny wh an ornate railg, holdg an open parasol over her right shoulr. Her dark, si-parted bob is held back wh a barrette, and she is wearg what appears to be a fashnable outf of sleevels mp shirt and billowg pants. She don’t really remble her mother. She looks stnch, like the sort of person who would remember to label a vered dish.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layoutasi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-boxprimary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="b377lh"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The group ially assumed that the picture had been taken the French Alps, maybe the Pyrene. Then a member started searchg the Inter for rmatn about sanatoriums. This led her to an image of a sanatorium wh balny railgs that looked jt like the one the picture of Yvonne. Other members picked up the trail. One of them analyzed eleven photographs he’d found of a particular cement wall. Soon they had a posive intifitn: the photograph showed Yvonne, at age thirty-three, standg on the east terrace of the Belvere sanatorium, Leys, Swzerland, Augt of 1931. Yvonne had fively vised a treatment center for tuberculosis, then. No such evince existed for Jeanne.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">On March 10, 2019, Aubrey Grey e-mailed Jean-Marie Robe and Michel Allard, Calment’s validators. De Grey remd them that a sample of Calment’s blood was thought to be safekeepg at the Fondatn Dsset, Paris. A tt of the sample uld rolve the qutn of Calment’s inty, sce Jeanne had the ual sixteen distct great-great-grandparents, whereas Yvonne had only twelve, bee of her parents’ nsangueo marriage. “Personally I thk that the current balance of evince do not favour the hypothis of an ID swch— other words, I thk is likely that Jeanne really did live to 122,” Grey wrote. He felt, however, that the discsn around Calment prented “a huge opportuny.” He went on:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embedntent"><p>I am very unhappy to see that you two are beg publicly cricised for havg failed, 20 years ago, to disver var ems of evince that have recently been disvered by others, cludg several photos om the middle of the century. . . . I believe that a requt, om you, for accs to the cells at Dsset would be a powerful way to end this unfair cricism of your work.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Two weeks later, the <em class="small">SENS</em> Rearch Foundatn sponsored an anti-agg nference Berl, where several hundred atten, payg up to ne hundred dollars a ticket, gathered to enunter “leadg rearchers om around the world.” De Grey ved Nikolay Zak to speak. His b for the nference clud a quote om Grey: “Zak’s jt-published vtigatns have st nsirable doubt on Calment’s actual age at ath, and lend credibily to the possibily of an inty swch wh her dghter.” On the send day of the nference, Zak, wearg a black T-shirt bearg the face of Charl Darw, livered a “special lecture” on the inty-swch hypothis. De Grey joed him onstage, llg “sndalo” that the Calment blood sample had been fotten. Were to be tted, he add, “I’m not gog to say that the rmatn will tell the founta of youth, but might fely give some ol ias for new experiments.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">When I spoke to Grey, November, I asked him about the swch hypothis. “I have much bigger fish to y,” he said. “I’m a very proment person the gerontology field, and I’m out to save liv. So this is not a big al to me—you need to know that.” De Grey nied that he wants Calment’s blood sample for his own e. He seemed to be tryg to rema publicly evenhand about the se, while g to shake somethg loose at the Fondatn Dsset. He had entreated Allard and Robe to enlist Yv Christen, a famo French blogist, the mpaign to retrieve the blood sample. “I believe falls to people like you to get Christen,” he told me. “The sgle bt thg you uld do to save liv, to hasten the feat of agg, is to get to Christen and get him to see that he has the pacy to go to Dsset and get them to release that sample!”</p><p class="paywall">The examatn of Calment’s DNA pos ethil difficulti. Calment gave the sample on the ndn of anonymy, but is prumably intifiable by her age. Furthermore, was tend only for certa purpos. “Jeanne Calment participated the Chronos Project wh the lims of an rmed nsent she signed that prevents any e of rmatn beyond this project,” Jean-François Delze, the scientific director of the Fondatn Dsset, said.</p><p class="paywall">Some people I spoke to believed that a breach of the ndns would be jtifiable unr certa circumstanc, but was unclear whether, the Calment se, the benefs outweighed the sts. Establishg the tth about Jeanne Calment would be tertg, but certaly wasn’t sential. Members of the unter-vtigatn group argued that Calment’s inty was already well tablished; qutns about were beg ed as a wedge, they spected, to open the door for all manner of ttg. The trigue surroundg the sample grew to fill the void of thorative rmatn. Neher Allard nor Robe ever replied to Grey’s e-mail. “The naïveté of the people,” Robe told me. “You go to the bt jeweller the world and mand that he giv you his biggt diamond?”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">As the ntroversy ntued, Zak’s theori beme creasgly baroque. As soon as one ia was disproved, he me up wh another. Calment’s late-life height, turned out, was really a hundred and forty-three centimetr, reflectg the loss of stature that one would expect. The ptn that the validators had ed for the photo of Jeanne and Yvonne—“Which one is which?”—seemed to e om the slogan for a brand of soap. Zak eventually dropped the fibroma argument.</p><p class="paywall">Even Zak’s adversari gave him cred for doggedns, and an unually rich imagatn. His latt ia was that the sole existg jot photograph of Jeanne and Yvonne had been taken at the sanatorium Leys. In this scenar, Jeanne was the patient and Yvonne was jt visg. The flowers the shot, he said, may have been rle thistle, “a stemls alpe plant native to Swzerland and ed as a herbal remedy for lung diseas cludg tuberculosis.” In the photograph, the right si of Jeanne’s body was shadow. Zak claimed to be able to make out that the right si of her jacket was shorter than the left. From this, he nclud that Jeanne may have had her right arm amputated, “probably before she me to Leys.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoonimage-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoonimage rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Two men are about to be stomped on by Godzilla." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtooncred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptncred">Cartoon by Karl Stevens</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 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16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Even at his most transigent, Zak weled bate. At the end of November, he agreed to meet me at a pizzeria near his home, Mosw. He arrived a red T-shirt and black athletic pants, wh yellow circl unr his ey. I knew, om my own Inter rearch, that his father was a proment mathematician. The Nikolay Zak me found strikg that Nikolay Zak, who had once attempted to follow his father’s footsteps algebraic geometry, had bee obssed wh the ia of Yvonne takg Jeanne’s place. But Zak didn’t seem particularly terted talkg about his bgraphy. Of his glassblowg job, he said, “I’m still there, though I don’t work for very long hours. I jt e and go.” He was not beg paid by Grey, he said, as many of his tractors had alleged. “I already have money, so ’s not a problem for me.”</p><p class="paywall">Zak said that he’d first heard about Jeanne Calment after gettg terted longevy, about ten years ago. “I read about her life style, and that she ed olive oil, and I rearched and found the bt olive oil the world,” he said. “They make on Corfu.” In the summer of 2018, when Valery Novoselov beme the head of the gerontology chapter of the Mosw Society of Naturalists, he issued a ll for papers. Zak’s ial subject was the naked mole rat, a hairls ront wh ont teeth that look like fgernails and an unually long life span. From naked mole rats, he pivoted to supercentenarians.</p><p class="paywall">At the pizzeria, Zak said that he was “99.99 per cent” nvced that Calment was a d. I asked why hardly any experts the field agreed wh him. “I already told you, I get a lot of letters om people,” he said. When I asked for their nam, he murred, sayg, “Those who thk I am right, they will still be silent until is all proved.” Talkg to him felt like talkg to a Magic 8-Ball.</p><p class="paywall">I knew om Facebook that Zak had a hab of leadg people so ep to the microtails of Calment’s life that larger, more obv qutns were easily overlooked. I was hopg to get him to addrs some gaps his reasong. Why, if Calment were hidg somethg, would she have agreed to the validatn terviews? Why would she have given a blood sample, if she knew that her sixty-year secret uld be betrayed wh one drop? Why, for that matter, wouldn’t she have chosen to be cremated, the ultimate form of burng one’s personal effects?</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layoutasi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-boxprimary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="adslot adslot--rail" data-no-id="rh4h"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="oxkm1h"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">“She was a bold liar,” Zak replied. “If I were her, I would arrange somethg to show, sometime after my ath, that I cheated all of you. It’s much more fun for her that way, so I don’t see any problem. She’s already ad and got everythg she ever wanted.” I brought up her specific rellectns of the drsmaker, the midwife, the math teacher, the piano teacher, but he didn’t yield. Pickg at a mhroom pizza, he add, “I’m younger than my father by thirty-four years, and I’m not very close wh him, but I know the name of his math teacher.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Yvonne, Zak ntued, uld have been ached. This was a good pot: Calment’s validators, the first chapter of their book, mentn that they ocsnally “re-jected” certa bgraphil tails to their nversatns wh her, the hope of activatg dormant memori. When I spoke to Michel Allard, I asked him whether they had ever attempted to re-ject a false piece of rmatn, as a sort of ntrol. He said that they hadn’t.</p><p class="paywall">I agreed wh Zak that the validators had sometim taken a boosterish approach to their task, but I didn’t see evince of a nspiracy. Zak had been lobbyg them to release the terview tap, implyg that they might be hidg somethg. The tap, I learned om Allard, were stg a box his basement; he simply hadn’t bothered to fetch them. When I phed Zak about the nsistenci his theory, he beme annoyed. “You misunrstand the whole thg about the validatn of extreme age,” he said. “Everybody agre that the burn of proof extreme age is on the claimant and the validators, not on the skeptics.”</p><p class="paywall">That morng, I had met wh Valery Novoselov, at Mosw State Universy’s Zoologil Mm. He greeted me a domed entryway led wh murals of wildlife, and we proceed through a seri of fad rridors—past a mastodon skeleton and a glass se emptied of all but a set of doili—before arrivg a dty classroom, where we sat down at a long woon table. We were joed by two of his lleagu om the Society of Naturalists, and I had brought an terpreter. Novoselov had a boistero, orotund way of talkg that even the terpreter seemed to have trouble makg sense of. After a disurse on his rearch to the e of Len’s ath, Novoselov turned to Jeanne Calment. “This was taken 1955, so she was past eighty here,” he said, pullg up a photograph of Calment on his laptop. “The woman is still full of trogen—she is jt enterg the early stag of menopse. It’s clear that, hormonally, she is still a woman.”</p><p class="paywall">Novoselov remaed certa that Calment uldn’t have been a hundred and twenty-two years old, but he was now agnostic about the possibily of a swch. He felt that Zak, as a non-scientist, had been too hasty publishg some of his work. “We are the people of the Soviet Unn, Zak is a person om Rsia,” Novoselov said, at one pot. “We are analog people, he is a digal person.” I asked Novoselov why, given his belief the importance of scientific method, he was willg to rely so heavily on photographs, which are notorly open to terpretatn. He started talkg about the youthful look of Calment’s legs. At one pot, he said that he had asked specialists at the Invtigative Commtee, Rsia’s equivalent of the F.B.I., to perform a forensic analysis of some photographs. He had a letter om the mtee, which I did not read until later. It stated that “the qualy of the photos you submted of Jeanne Calment and her dghter . . . do not meet the requirements for forensic portra examatn.”</p><p class="paywall">It felt like we weren’t gettg anywhere. One of the most pellg pots of the se mounted by Novoselov and Zak, had always seemed to me, was that the llective assumptns of a society n supprs unlikely tths. Every time I found myself nvced that their accatns were impossibly far-fetched, I wonred whether I wasn’t jt beg placent: who would have believed, for stance, that Jack Nicholson’s sister was actually his mother, before <em>Time</em> sprang the news on him, 1974?</p><p class="paywall">“How old do you thk I am?” I asked Novoselov.</p><p class="paywall">“Seventeen,” he said.</p><p class="paywall">“Serly, how old do you thk I am? This is one of your methods, lookg at someone and timatg their age. Wre down.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoonimage-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoonimage rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="People look at a vast ral space." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoonptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptntext">“All this, as far as you n see, is jt what you’d pay for a one-bedroom ndo the cy.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtooncred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptncred">Cartoon by Edward Koren</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" 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aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Novoselov obfted, but eventually I persuad him, along wh each of his lleagu, to jot down on a slip of paper the age that he perceived me to be. One of them wrote twenty-eight and another thirty-five. Novoselov’s gus was forty-two. I am thirty-ne.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">It’s hard to fd a smokg gun if there hasn’t been a crime. As time went by, I grew creasgly nvced of the veracy of Jeanne Calment’s rerd, but several loose ends troubled me. I wanted to know more about the claim, the book about the surance dtry, that an surer and French thori had turned a bld eye to d. The source, turned out, was a former employee of the French treasury, who did not want to be named. An surance pany had acquired the annuy (the <em>rente viagère</em>) on Jeanne Calment’s apartment sometime the sixti. Acrdg to the source, officials at the pany noticed that Calment was an actuarial outlier and quired wh the treasury about the acunt. The source’s superrs signalled that he should back off. Later, after Calment’s ath, one of the surance-pany officials told him that she had swched plac wh her dghter. The official died the two-thoands, and, along wh him, the orig of the tale.</p><p class="paywall">Months after my first nversatn wh Michel Allard, I e-mailed him to see if, by chance, he’d unearthed the taped terviews wh Calment. “You’ve e at jt the right time,” he replied. He’d got them out of his basement and, he said, was about to take them to be digized. He agreed to allow me to listen to them before he did. It was crazy to be able to hear a voice om the neteenth century, a soul rennected wh her memori, some of which I’d already enuntered on the page. “She never performed nu!” Calment said, of La Belle Otero, a famo actrs of her day. “Never!” She spoke passnately, whout as much promptg as I’d imaged.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In Arl, I’d met a woman named Maguy Raspail, a retired nurse who seemed to be the only person town who supported Zak. She told me, “I found Nikolay very telligent, and I told myself that maybe he was able to see what we, the French, weren’t able to see.” Raspail uldn’t rebut much of the evince atttg to Calment’s thenticy, but she did tell me somethg tertg. Lre Msy, the head nurse at the Maison du Lac at the time that Calment lived there, had told her that another nurse had lled Calment “Yvonne” ont of the staff and other rints. Msy nfirmed this a text msage. “She would say loudly that Jeanne was her dghter, but I was her boss and she uldn’t say ont of me,” she wrote. Msy said was “impossible that someone as natural as Jeanne was a liar.” I lled the other nurse, but she hung up when I mentned Calment’s name. The next time, she stayed on the le. She said that she had never doubted Calment’s inty. “Are you jokg, askg me that?” she said, of the mor that she had addrsed Jeanne as “Yvonne.” “Not possible.”</p><p class="paywall">The end of Jeanne Calment’s life was tumultuo, even sordid. As her fame grew, the Maison du Lac stggled to manage the mands of journalists and well-wishers. Msy beme her unofficial handler, performg the job wh a clumsy mix of hawkishns and impotence. In Calment’s hundred-and-twenty-first year, barely able to speak, she rerd a rap CD. Another day, as she sat immobile her wheelchair, a Japane clown kissed her on the mouth. After the airg of a documentary that suggted Calment was not beg treated properly, the retirement home’s management tervened, transferrg Msy for “failure to observe the obligatn of rerve, discretn, and rtrat.” Calment’s visors were severely rtricted, and her validators were barred om seeg her. Allard said, “She was thrown the dungeon.”</p><p class="paywall">Calment died on a Monday Augt, the middle of <em>l grans vanc</em>. One bgrapher njectured that she died of boredom. Jean-Marie Robe told me that Calment had agreed to donate her bra to science. “We had a team wag Paris around the clock, ready to board a flight,” he relled, but Calment was buried wh such “vlent haste” that the team was unable to harvt the an. Although Calment had been a vout Catholic and a celebry, only a handful of people, mostly retirement-home personnel, were allowed to attend the burial. The next day, hundreds of mourners gathered at St. Trophime, her longtime church. In li of a ff, a large picture of her stood at the altar.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layoutasi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-boxprimary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="u1lrg"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Her fay tomb, the Trquetaille Cemetery, Arl, li at the end of a long row of msolms. It’s a relatively morn and simple monument black grane. The nam of Joseph and Freddy Billot are scribed on a plaque. In the middle of the tomb, there’s a marker the shape of an open book that reads “Jeanne Calment, 1875-1997, La doyenne l’humané.” Yvonne is buried there, too, but her name is absent. “Why there is no Yvonne’s name on fay grave, while there are nam of Joseph and Freric?” Zak wrote, when a Facebook fight epted over the subject. “Explanatn the swch scenar is easy: she didn’t want her name to be on the grave bee she was alive.” But Fernand and other relativ are buried there, too, and their nam aren’t marked, eher. Acrdg to unter-vtigators, the tomb was redone the sixti, and is engraved only wh the nam of fay members who have died sce.</p><p class="paywall">The secret of Jeanne Calment may ri a village about an hour’s drive om Arl. Renée Billot Bonnary, Freddy’s widow, liv there, near the Mederranean Sea. Bonnary, a retired ntist, was born 1926. She is one of the last livg lks to the time when the Calments were a thrivg Arlian dynasty, to the long middle of her former grandmother--law’s epoch-spanng story. Several sourc suggted to me that Bonnary and Calment had a dispute after Freddy’s ath. The sire to keep such a nflict private uld help expla why Calment chose to stroy her personal papers. It uld also attt to her thenticy: if Calment had been volved a sm, ’s nceivable that Bonnary would have known and would have been motivated to expose her. I sent a letter to Bonnary and ntacted a relative of hers, who eventually asked me to leave them alone.</p><p class="paywall">So I went to Marseille. First, I walked om the tra statn to the Aix-Marseille Universy medil school, where I checked out Cathere Levrd’s this om 1993, “Jeanne Calment: 118 Years, Prototype of Longevy.” Levrd spent several months visg Calment at the Maison du Lac, and charted her medil history. On page 10, I found the passage that had raised Zak’s spicns when appeared, partially, the special on France 2. It read, “The blood report is that of a woman of thirty years old good health. The X-rays, however, show hyper-transparence bee of the meralizatn of the bon, and plral effns on the thorax.” Zak was right: both mother and dghter may have had tuberculosis. This do not mean, however, that the person who died 1997 was Yvonne. “Jeanne uld have been touched passg by the illns and not even known she had ,” Cathere Levrd, now a doctor Arl, told me. “In that populatn, was extremely equent.” For another opn, I lled Petros Karakois, a tuberculosis expert and a profsor of medice at Johns Hopks, who nfirmed that the prence of plral effns n dite a prev tuberculosis fectn, but said that they n also be attributable to “plenty of other ,” such as d heart failure, om which Calment suffered. It ma sense, Levrd add, that someone strong enough to rever pletely om a disease that felled many of her peers would go on to bee a supercentenarian.</p><p class="paywall">François Rob-Champignl, the telemunitns engeer who lculated the Calments’ herance tax, had tipped me off that there might be some tertg documents the partmental archiv of the Bouch-du-Rhône, Marseille. (Rob-Champignl recently published a paper <em>Rejuvenatn Rearch</em> fendg Calment’s rerd, and he is workg on a book.) I took an Uber there and walked across a wdswept plaza to a huge rectangular buildg of whe iriscent glass. I applied for a rd, stuffed my bag a locker, and, wh the help of a librarian, punched some s to a puter. Wh twenty mut, I was stg ont of thick, flaky ledgers ntag Fernand Calment’s tate documents om 1943, along wh mortgage ntracts om the purchase of several properti.</p><p class="paywall">The documents suggt a uple optimistic spirs. They had plenty of liquidy, wh Fernand posssg a greater share of the assets. In Febary, 1933, they bought a untry hoe outsi Arl. Frédérique Skyronka, the granddghter of Joseph Billot’s brother, remembered spendg her summer vatns the sixti nearby. “She was already an ‘old lady,’ but extremely dynamic,” she told me, of Jeanne. “She walked, walked, and walked—that’s the secret.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-9 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">A typewrten document of six time-splotched pag rerd the sale of Jeanne’s childhood apartment, at 53 Rue la Roquette, on November 28, 1931, to a M. Honoré Mistral and his wife, Mme. Clarisse Raoux, for thirty-five thoand ancs. At some pot, someone had unrled parts of wh an oily dark-green crayon. I flipped through, tryg to foc. <em>Entrée en jouissance, régime dotal, imposns foncièr.</em> The archiv were closg soon.</p><p class="paywall">It wasn’t until weeks later, Paris, that I unrstood the signifince of the document. Its fal sectn dited that both Jeanne Calment and Lucien Arnd, a notary Arl, had attend the 1931 closg. Arnd had admistered the marriage ntracts of Jeanne, 1896, and Yvonne, 1926. He was also the head of the lol chapter of the Alliance Française, whose balls the Calments equented. When Yvonne married, Jeanne, Yvonne, and Arnd all gathered to sign the ntract. Acrdg to the document I’d held my hands, not even five years later Jeanne was standg ont of Arnd aga, to sign for the sale of 53 Rue la Roquette. In Zak’s scenar, Yvonne had already started impersonatg her mother 1931. She would have shown up before Arnd wh her hair dyed whe and a loopg “J” her signature that wasn’t que right.</p><p class="paywall">It is next to impossible that Yvonne uld have fooled Arnd. She uld have bought him off, but the documents I had seen also showed that Jeanne appeared ont of his succsor, Louis David, 1933 and 1942. In neher se would Yvonne have been likely to prent an I.D. rd, false or otherwise, as Zak claimed. Both Arnd and David knew Jeanne too well to ask for intifitn. How many people would Yvonne have had to -opt? Two notari, a prit, a seven-year-old boy, a crowd full of mourners, a whole cy? The theory ma no sense, and, even though I knew , I was already thkg about what Zak would say next. ♦</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layoutasi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-boxprimary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="adslot adslot--rail" data-no-id="q6j06c"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="body bodyle-barrier articlebody"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv brYtrA grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="body bodyntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-bodyfooter"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><footer class="ContentFooterMagazeDisclaimer-gzKAqo iZIuUU" data-ttid="MagazeDisclaimerWrapper">Published the prt edn of the <a href="/magaze/2020/02/17" data-reactroot="">Febary 17 & 24, 2020</a>, issue, wh the headle “Livg Proof.”</footer></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layoutntent"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/lren-lls"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/lren-lls">Lren Colls</a> has been a staff wrer at The New Yorker sce 2008. 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bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-embric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Reporter at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackghed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2017/04/03/silin-valleys-qut-to-live-forever" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-emhed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Silin Valley’s Qut to Live Forever</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href="/magaze/2017/04/03/silin-valleys-qut-to-live-forever" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Silin Valley’s Qut to Live Forever" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-emk">Can billns of dollars’ worth of high-tech rearch succeed makg ath optnal?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-embyle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-embyle"><div class="summary-embylentent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle bylbyle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss bylepreamble">By </span>Tad Friend</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href="/magaze/2019/11/04/why-we-nt-tell-the-tth-about-agg" 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class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Cric at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackghed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2019/11/04/why-we-nt-tell-the-tth-about-agg" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-emhed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Why We Can’t Tell the Tth About Agg</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href="/magaze/2019/11/04/why-we-nt-tell-the-tth-about-agg" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why We Can’t Tell the Tth About Agg" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-emk">A long life is a gift. But will we really be grateful for ?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-embyle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-embyle"><div class="summary-embylentent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle bylbyle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss bylepreamble">By </span>Arthur Krystal</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--evio summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false 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jeanne gay 17 ans

4 Dec 2024

Fd out about Jeanne Gay's fay tree, fay history, anctry, anctors, genealogy, relatnships and affairs! Right here at FameCha.

FAY OF JEANNE GAY, MARV GAYE’S SISTER, SETS UP GOFUNDME FOR MEMORIAL
MARV GAYE'S SISTER ZEOLA SAID SHE MANAGED TO FIVE ALHOLIC FATHER FOR KILLG HER BROTHER
JEANNE GAY (SISTER OF MARV GAYE) PASS AFTER SHORT ILLNS – SHE WAS 87
JEANNE GAY
PARTNERS OF JEANNE GAY
JEANNE GAY
FAL GAY : TO L AVIS DéCèS ET D’OBSèQU
MARVIN GAYE: WHY DID HIS FATHER KILL HIM?
FAL GAY : TO L AVIS DéCèS ET D’OBSèQU
JEANNIE GAY
JEANNE GAY BLASENA
PARTNERS OF JEANNE GAY
JEANNE GAY

FAY OF JEANNE GAY, MARV GAYE’S SISTER, SETS UP GOFUNDME FOR MEMORIAL

Marv Gaye's life was tragilly cut short after his own father shot him April 1984. Dpe the trma, his sister Zeola once revealed that she had fiven her father and even lent him a helpg hand before his ath. * jeanne gay 17 ans *

*Earlier we reported that Jeanne Gay, the sister of revered R&B sger/songwrer Marv Gaye, unexpectedly passed away at a hospal Henrson, Nevada. Jeanne Gay. *Our beloved mother and elst sister of the late soul sger, Marv Gaye, Jeanne, passed away unexpectedly March 23, 2021 at age 84.

CIRCA 1974: Soul sger Marv Gaye plays piano as he rerds a stud cir 1974.

MARV GAYE'S SISTER ZEOLA SAID SHE MANAGED TO FIVE ALHOLIC FATHER FOR KILLG HER BROTHER

View Jeanne Gay rults cludg current phone number, addrs, relativ, background check report, and property rerd wh Whepag. * jeanne gay 17 ans *

Marv Gaye's life was tragilly cut short after his own father shot him April 1984. Marv Gaye was a Motown soul sger the 1960s and 1970s. ”Marv Gaye's sister Zeola Gaye viss FOX 29's "Good Day" to promote "My Brother Marv" | Source: Getty ImagSHE CARED FOR HER FATHERAlthough she exprsed regret over her dad killg Marv, the star's sister admted to beg one of the few fay members who red for her father when he need the time, Marv Sr.

Marv Gaye performs live on stage at Jaap Enhal Amsterdam, Netherlands 1978 | Source: Getty ImagMARVIN GAYE'S CAREERThe R&B legend began his reer the late 1950s and spanned until his untimely ath 1984. He created art spe his troubled life, rerdg songs to su people's needs more than anythg Gaye performs on stage at the Holiday Star Theater Indiana | Source: Getty ImagREMEMBERING JEANNE GAYIn March 2021, Marv and Zeola's sister Jeanne passed away at 87 after a short illns. Zeola, the only survivg siblg of the Gaye fay, ma sure to remember her sister a sweet way, exprsg how much she would miss her.

JEANNE GAY (SISTER OF MARV GAYE) PASS AFTER SHORT ILLNS – SHE WAS 87

* jeanne gay 17 ans *

*She had been ill the last several days, but unfortunately Jeanne Gay, 87, the elst sister of the legendary Marv Gaye, passed away Tuday morng (03/23/21) at 5:15am at St. Rose Domin Siena Hospal Henrson Nevada, acrdg to her now her now only survivg siblg, Zeola Gaye who remembers her big sis this way:.

Jeanne who cid not to add an “e” to our last name Gaye was so very funny..

I ll the famo Gaye se. Zeola Gaye and Jeanne Gay. Jeanne Gay also served for several years as chairperson of the Marv P Gaye Jr Memorial Foundatn and was the admistrator of her brother, Marv Gaye’s Stud Hollywood California for several years.

JEANNE GAY

Get all the lyrics to songs by Jeanne Gay and jo the Geni muny of mic scholars to learn the meang behd the lyrics. * jeanne gay 17 ans *

Jeanne GAY.

Santa Pla, CA Alias Jean Mara Gay Relativ Alai F Gay •. Gary Gerald Gay •. Michael Dennis Gay •.

Deborah Ann Gay •.

PARTNERS OF JEANNE GAY

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Create acuntENFully supportedEnglish (Uned Stat)Partially supportedFrançais (Canada)Français (France)Dtsch (Dtschland)हिंदी (भारत)Italiano (Italia)Português (Brasil)Español (España)Español (Méxi)BackBgraphyIMDbProBgraphyEdMi BJeanne Gay is known for Stud Bagel (2012), My Brother Marv (2012) and Fal 24 (2006). Retrouvez l rniers avis décès s fal Gay.

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SplScreenContentHearGrid-kFpOdh fLkIyA"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn SplScreenContentHearCaptn-iOfEOv ckLUKG"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Sce Calment died, 1997, at a hundred and twenty-two, her claim to the longevy rerd has e unr attack.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Illtratn by Gérard DuBois</span></div></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN 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23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP bwyLBj"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG Uozmo"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay *; encrypted-media *; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">People France remember the summer of 1997 for the aths of <a href=">Prcs Diana</a>, Mother Tera, and Jeanne Calment. The first beme a hoehold name by marryg to royalty; the send, by rg for the world’s sick and poor. Jeanne Calment, however, was an accintal in, her celebry the rult of a form of passivy. For a hundred and twenty-two years, five months, and fourteen days, Calment managed not to die.</p><p class="paywall">She was born at home on the Rue du Roure, Arl, one of only four addrs she ever held. That Febary morng, 1875, lavenr smoke mgled wh the ld the tight streets of La Roquette, a tradnal neighborhood of fishermen and the marime tras. Plastic, tea bags, public trash ns, and the zipper had yet to e to the world. The life expectancy for a French woman was forty-five. Approximately one billn five hundred ln people walked the pla, and Calment would outlive them all.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Later life, Calment claimed to have known <a href=">Vcent van Gogh</a>, tellg different versns of an enunter wh him 1888. “Van Gogh was very ugly. Ugly like a loe,” she once remembered. “We lled him <em>le dgo.</em>” Acrdg to one anecdote, van Gogh me to her fay’s drygoods store, on Rue Gambetta, wantg to buy nvas. Calment sometim said that her father waed on him. Her father, however, was a shipbuilr; the store actually belonged to her hband’s fay. Another time Calment relled, “My hband said to him, ‘I prent to you my wife.’ ” This rellectn was also blurred: Calment, an adolcent 1888, didn’t marry for another eight years.</p><p class="paywall">She had known her hband, Fernand Calment, her entire life. Their paternal grandfathers were brothers, and their paternal grandmothers were sisters, makg Jeanne and Fernand double send s. They had a dghter, Yvonne, 1898. Jeanne never worked, but led a by life of recreatnal pursus, cludg tennis, roller-skatg, and stalkg wild boar. The Calments lived grand apartments above the fay store. Jeanne appeared ocsnally, cuttg an imper figure. “Madame Calment wanted to impose her taste on me,” a woman later said, rememberg a girlhood errand to buy fabric. “Stubborn, I stuck wh my choice, replyg a tone that didn’t please her. I haven’t fotten the pair of slaps.”</p><p class="paywall">In 1934, Yvonne died of plitns om tuberculosis, leavg behd a hband, Colonel Joseph Billot, and a seven-year-old son, Freddy. Jeanne and Fernand took re of the boy as though he were their own. In 1942, some iends of the Calments ved the uple to their untry hoe. Durg the vis, Fernand ged on cherri, while Jeanne had one or two. The cherri were tated wh chemils, and, wh a few months, Jeanne was a widow. Two years later, women got the vote France. The Eiffel Tower was jt past fifty. Calment was sixty-seven, wh nearly half her life ont of her.</p><p class="paywall">Followg the ath of Calment’s hband, she and her son--law, Joseph, shared an apartment. Freddy, an otolaryngologist, lived nearby wh his wife. In 1963, Calment lost her last timat. That January, Joseph died after a long illns. In Augt, Freddy was killed a r accint. Calment ped by never stayg still. In the s that followed, her stacto footfall was as tegral to Arl as the sound of the mistral, the rattlg Provençal wd. One bgrapher wrote, “Everyone knew the ‘ltle old lady’ who dashed all over town, who went down the steps of St. Trophime church like a kid.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The ground floor of the Calments’ limtone buildg is now occupied by a supermarket. On a recent wter morng, the current owner showed me around the third floor, above where Calment lived. It was easy to image her wakg each day, shufflg down a hallway of whe til wh red Occan cross, warmg herself ont of a fireplace wh an ornately rved walnut mantelpiece, and unlatchg the floor-to-ceilg shutters, to let the southern light. On the roof, a fad sign glowed the sunshe: <em class="small">MAISON CALMENT</em>.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A woman tied to tra tracks looks at her watch." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Late, as ual.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Liana Fck</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT 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19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">When Calment was nety-four, 1969, her notary bought her apartment. The purchase was ma unr the French <em>en viager</em> system, which the buyer agre to make regular payments on a property that the seller ntu to live . In such an arrangement, the buyer sentially wagers on how quickly the seller will die. The Calment apartment proved to be an epilly terrible vtment. By the time the notary died, 1995, he’d spent nearly two hundred thoand dollars, more than twice the value of the place, whout ever takg occupancy.</p><p class="paywall">As Calment approached her hundredth year, she was still ridg her bicycle. Jt before her birthday, the mayor of Arl offered to anize a celebratn. Calment cled, llg the mayor <em>un rouge</em>, a Communist. Not long after, thkg better of her manners, she went to see him at the town hall. “In the wag room, there were several people,” he later said. “I didn’t spot a centenarian. In fact, she was right ont of my ey. A ltle woman a gray su, wearg a hat wh a fe veil. I noticed her heeled sho and seamed stockgs. Very elegant, she seemed twenty years younger.”</p><p class="paywall">At a hundred and ten, Calment was still livg alone, the Rue Gambetta apartment, where she had never bothered to stall a morn heatg system. One day, she climbed up on a table to uneeze the boiler wh the flame of a ndle, startg a small fire. She agreed to move to a lol retirement home, the Maison du Lac, until the weather improved. She end up stayg, and, 1988, at a hundred and twelve, was briefly regnized as the “doyenne of humany,” the olst person the world. Soon afterward, the tle was given to a Florida woman three months her elr, who had spent seventy-five years a mental hospal after beg diagnosed wh “post-typhoid psychosis,” a disease that doctors no longer believed existed. After the woman died, at a hundred and sixteen, 1991, Calment beme the olst person ever known to have lived.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">A team of three rearchers who spent several years validatg Calment’s age—Victor Lèbre, her personal doctor; Michel Allard, a gerontologist; and Jean-Marie Robe, a mographer—scribed her as a “tough okie.” At the Maison du Lac, she mataed a rigid schle, risg at six-forty-five, sayg her prayers, performg listhenics, and listeng to classil mic on her Walkman. She proudly told <em>Paris Match</em> that her breasts remaed as firm as “two ltle appl.” At night, she sisted that her bed be turned down, as though she were a gut a hotel. Behd her back, the nurs lled her <em>la mandante.</em> She qu smokg at a hundred and seventeen, but never gave up havg a nightly glass of port.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="oge3ij"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="oifw"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The longer Calment lived, the more famo she beme. On Grandmother’s Day, a well-known televisn prenter offered her a kilo of cholate. “I want a ton!” Calment replied. Several weeks later, two tcks showed up. Even the validators were dazzled by their subject. They rerd hours of nversatns wh her, excerpts of which they later published a book, “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">L 120 Ans Jeanne Calment</a>.” Ocsnally, she’d e a word so antiquated (like <em>mahonne</em>, a kd of round-bottomed barge that her father had built) that the validators had to look up. “We were tly the state of excatn of an Egyptologist who, while walkg through an unexplored labyrth of a pyramid, disvers an unknown room filled wh treasur,” they wrote. Calment lived through twenty French Prints and survived perds of terrorism that no one even relled. She died on Augt 4, 1997, of unspecified . She was buried her fay’s tomb, where she rted peace until early last year.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The first public attack on Jeanne Calment’s thenticy appeared the tabloid <em>Komsomolskaya Pravda</em>, November, 2018. In an terview, Valery Novoselov, a geriatrician and the director of the gerontology chapter of the Mosw Society of Naturalists, announced his tentn to disprove Calment’s claim to the longevy tle. A burly former doctor the Rsian Army, Novoselov said that he had been lookg at some photographs of Calment and found that she simply didn’t display the physil characteristics one would expect of a person her age. “In the picture of 110-year-old Jeanne, I see a strong lady a ltle younger than 90,” he clared.</p><p class="paywall">He had shared his doubts wh Nikolay Zak, a mathematician he knew om Facebook. In ntrast to Novoselov, Zak had a dishevelled look and résumé, havg published ltle sce a 2007 this. He was workg as a glassblower, fabritg flasks and beakers for the chemistry partment at Mosw State Universy. Intrigued, he agreed to work on the Calment se. Usg a database of centenarians, he lculated that the probabily of someone reachg the age of a hundred and twenty-two was “fimally small.” As Zak explaed to <em>Komsomolskaya Pravda</em>, the numbers were tellg him that Calment uldn’t have lived that long.</p><p class="paywall">He started surg the Inter. He found strange that Calment didn’t mentn the cholera epimic that ravaged Arl 1884; that, upon movg out of her apartment, she had enlisted a relative to burn her personal effects; that her grandson had lled her Manzane, a portmante of <em>maman</em> and a childish pronunciatn of her first name. Calment had often equivoted nversatns about her fay. (“That’s a els qutn!” she once barked, when an terviewer asked if she’d loved her grandson.) An inty rd om the neteen-thirti said that she had black ey, but, at the end of her life, one report rerd them as gray. Furthermore, acrdg to the rd, Calment’s height, middle age, had been a hundred and fifty-two centimetr. If that was te, then how uld she have still stood a hundred and fifty centimetr tall at the age of a hundred and fourteen, as one rerd suggted, havg lost almost no height? Meanwhile, her signature, Zak thought, had changed tremendoly over the years, acquirg a loopg “J.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">There were the van Gogh stori, which she’d mixed up her hband and her father. In addn, Calment had told her validators that she had been rted to school by a maid named Marthe Touchon. Cens documents nfirmed that a Marthe worked for the Calment fay the early neteen-hundreds. She was listed as Marthe Foson, a variatn on the name that seemed reasonable, given that Calment had difficulty enunciatg at the end of her life. Yet, when Zak tracked down Foson’s birth certifite, he found an odd discrepancy: Marthe Foson was ten years younger than Jeanne Calment and th uldn’t very well have taken her to school.</p><p class="paywall">Zak started fiddlg wh Photoshop, examg Calment’s lower lip, the sk on her ch, the tip of her nose, and the shape of her skull at var ag. Soon he had veloped a theory: the person the world had known and fêted as Jeanne Calment was actually her dghter, Yvonne. Acrdg to Zak, Jeanne had died 1934, but the Calment fay had prented the rpse to the thori as Yvonne, orr to avoid herance tax. This, he said, would expla “the strange habatn of ‘mother--law’ wh ‘son--law’; the ‘grandson’ who lled his ‘grandmother’ mom,” not to mentn the advantageo <em>en viager</em> al. In the urse of more than six s, he posed, a fay secret had metastasized to a natnal nspiracy. <em>Komsomolskaya Pravda</em> clared that the reputatns of Calment’s validators would soon “pop like a soap bubble.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">A rnival atmosphere often surrounds the very old—gild proclamatns, giant k—but they are cril to science, which reli on extreme s to fe s sense of the possible. If, for the general public, supercentenarians—people who live to or beyond the age of a hundred and ten—are emissari of the past, for blogists they are msengers om the future. Supercentenarians often look and feel younger than their age might suggt, and they tend to elu the diseas, such as ncer, Alzheimer’s, and diabet, that kill off most of their peers. Some scientists believe that clu to extendg and improvg human life are embedd their DNA.</p><p class="paywall">Herodot wrote about the Macrobians, a legendary people who drank k, ate boiled flh, and “lived to be a hundred and twenty years old.” Methelah was supposed to have lived almost a lennium. The Victorians beme obssed wh the phenomenon of longevy, attemptg to tap the founta of youth as they had the natural rourc of the Empire. In 1873, William Thoms, a librarian at the Hoe of Lords, set forth a system of age validatn that more or ls remas e today. Through archival rearch, he bunked the legend of Thomas Parr, a Shropshire man whose longevy so imprsed the Earl of Anl that, 1635, he sent him on a palanqu to London, to meet the kg. Parr dropped ad soon thereafter, at the alleged age of a hundred and fifty-two. After a thorough topsy—the kg’s roner examed Parr’s genals, ncludg that he’d been sexually active to his fourteenth —Parr was buried at Wtmster Abbey.</p><p class="paywall">Acrdg to a 2010 paper, “Typologi of Extreme Longevy Myths,” sixty-five per cent of people who purport to be a hundred and ten are wrong or lyg. For those who claim to be a hundred and fifteen, the rate of accuracy is nety-eight per cent. Sometim people don’t know their real ag. Other tim, people exaggerate for reasons of prtige, fancial ga, relig practice, fay honor, or regnal or natnal chvism. Pensn sms and the sire to avoid or participate ary service are equently the of rrect age claims, as are admistrative errors. (The Uned Stat didn’t have a centralized birth-registratn system until 1933.) Some people’s motivatns are as unpredictable as human nature. In the neteen-fifti, men posed as Conferate veterans orr to sta a myth of Southern imperishabily: “If we uldn’t beat ’em, we n outlive ’em.” Norris McWhirter, the -founr of Guns World Rerds, wrote, “No sgle subject is more obscured by vany, ce, falsehood, and liberate d than the extrem of human longevy.”</p><le-embed name="feature-flt" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="image" ntentType="llout:feature-flt"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Jeanne and Yvonne as adults." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">The only known photograph of Jeanne (right) and her dghter, Yvonne, as adults.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph by Nolwenn Brod / Agence VU / Rx</span></div></figure></le-embed><p class="paywall">In a field plagued by data-qualy issu, Jeanne Calment had long been nsired the gold standard. This was partly due to chance: bee she’d married her , she’d had the same name throughout her life, the entirety of which she’d spent Arl, which posss some of the most well-prerved archiv of any municipaly the world. Workg wh a genealogist, her validators renstcted the Calment fay tree gog back seven generatns. The Thoms method of validatn required five “speci of evince.” They had dozens, cludg Calment’s origal birth certifite, her marriage certifite, and seventeen cens documents which she appeared, datg back to 1876.</p><p class="paywall">Over the years, qutns about Calment’s rerd had surfaced ocsnally, but nothg much me of them. A book about the French surance dtry, published 2007, claimed that an surer had unvered Calment’s real inty the neti, but that French thori didn’t want to unrme “a figure who’d bee mythic.” Scientists, too, had raised doubts about Calment. Leonid Gavrilov and Natalia Gavrilova, hband-and-wife mographers at the Universy of Chigo, wrote that Calment’s hundred-and-twenty-two-year life span was “particularly provotive” bee so handily outstripped the petn. The send-longt-livg person died 1999, at a hundred and neteen. The gerontologist Tom Kirkwood asked of Calment, a 1999 book, “Could she be a d?” He nclud that “any ceptn on Madame Calment’s part would have required extraordary prcience and the nnivance of survivg relativ and we should banish such thoughts om our mds.” Even Calment’s validators explored the possibily of a swch, a 2000 publitn, but surmised that was a “crackpot” ia.</p><p class="paywall">In gerontology, three years might as well be a century. Acrdg to the Gompertz law—formulated 1825 by a Brish actuary named Benjam Gompertz—the mortaly rate for adult humans roughly doubl wh every addnal eight years of age. In other words, however likely you are to die 2020, you will be twice as likely 2028, and four tim as likely 2036. But the Gompertz curve seems to flatten after about a hundred years of age, creatg what some scientists ll the “late-life mortaly plate.” Gavrilov and Gavrilova have explaed that the celeratn of the ath rate old age, if accurate, uld suggt that there is no fixed lim to the human life span. Scientists disagree about whether the late-life mortaly plate is the nsequence of flty data.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="09l2y"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The passage of time often quells ntroversy, but, the Calment se, only unsettled the dt. As the world’s populatn ntued to grow, the hort of people livg to the age of a hundred and twenty-two did not. More than two s after Calment’s ath, her rerd still stood, makg her a more nspicuo outlier wh every year that went by. Eher she had lived longer than any human beg ever or she had executed an dac d. As one observer wrote, “Both are highly unlikely life stori but one is te.” In “L 120 Ans Jeanne Calment,” her validators had reproduced the only picture known to exist of the two Calment women as adults. In , Yvonne appears to be stg on a wdowsill. Jeanne stands to her left, behd a table, lookg down at a basket of flowers and a wrapped gift. The women are both wearg whe shirts and dark sweaters. Acpanyg the photograph was a tantalizg ptn: “Jeanne and Yvonne, her dghter. Which one is which?”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">On December 19, 2018, Nikolay Zak posted a preprt— amia, a draft of a paper that hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed—to RearchGate, a social work for scientists. It began wh a quote om Genis (“Then the <em class="small">LORD</em> said, ‘My spir will not ntend wh humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years’ ”), and reerated somewhat more ro language the se that he and Novoselov had ma to <em>Komsomolskaya Pravda</em>, addg some new tails. On one page, Zak would perform plited mathematil equatns; on the next, he’d ce Wikipedia or the <em>Daily Mail</em>. At tim, his logic leaped to the realm of pure speculatn. “Beg the nursg home and not beg able to stroy the documents herself, Jeanne rorted to the help of a distant relative,” he wrote, referrg to Calment’s cisn to burn most of her personal papers. “Most likely, was a rult of ld lculatn and acute necsy stead of an emotnal act.”</p><p class="paywall">Zak’s paper, though unnventnal, was enticg. The A.F.P., France’s wire service, picked up, and, on New Year’s Eve, articl about the ntroversy appeared a number of newspapers. Soon the Calment story had bee an “<em>affaire</em>,” an appellatn that, France, scrib a dramatic episo while more or ls guaranteeg s latn. France 2, the natnal televisn broadster, voted a prime-time special to the “enigma of Jeanne Calment,” and <em>Le Mon</em> examed the “crazy hypothis of two Rsian rearchers,” cg experts who likened the Rsians’ methods to those of “fake news.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The se might have remaed largely the ncern of gerontologists and the French had Aubrey Grey not got volved. The posh, wild-beard panjandm of the <a href=">anti-agg</a> movement, Grey was born London 1963. After a reer artificial telligence, he began studyg blogy, earng a Ph.D. om Cambridge at the age of thirty-seven. Now, as the chief science officer of the <em class="small">SENS</em> (Strategi for Engeered Negligible Sencence) Rearch Foundatn, a nonprof anizatn based Mounta View, California, he is attemptg to velop medil therapi that will reverse <a href=">agg</a>. He claims that there are human begs alive right now who uld live more than a thoand years.</p><p class="paywall">Speci such as sea anemon and hydras show no signs of sencence, and many rearchers believe that agg is not evable. As Tom Kirkwood, the gerontologist, has wrten, “Ageg about through the gradual build-up of unrepaired flts the cells and tissu of our bodi as we live our liv, not as a rult of some active mechanism for ath and stctn.” In recent years, the sire of Silin Valley moguls to acquire the one thg you n’t buy has kicked off a sort of space race for “life extensn.” The PayPal -founr Peter Thiel has donated at least five ln dollars to Grey’s projects. De Grey himself ntributed another thirteen ln 2011, after receivg an herance om his mother. A certa eccentricy has only add to his ra. “De Grey relax by hoistg a pt his lol pub and ocsnally piickg nu wh his nsirably olr wife,” the L.A. <em>Tim</em> noted, a review of a 2014 documentary lled “The Immortalists.”</p><p class="paywall">De Grey is the edor--chief of <em>Rejuvenatn Rearch</em>, a bgerontology journal, which, Febary, 2019, published an article by Zak, “Evince That Jeanne Calment Died 1934—Not 1997.” The article was based on his preprt, wh some chang and new njectur. Notably, Zak ntend that photographs of Yvonne showed the prence of a fibroma—a flhy bump—on the tip of her nose, which matched wh one a picture of Calment as an old woman. “Intertgly, is absent om later photos, ditg that was removed,” he wrote, to acunt for pictur of Calment as an even olr woman wh no such fibroma. Earlier, Zak had raised the possibily of exhumg Calment’s body; now he proposed another way to exame her DNA. Calment had reportedly given a blood sample to rearchers as part of the Chronos Project, a pneerg survey of more than a thoand French centenarians, nducted the neteen-neti by the Fondatn Jean Dsset-<em class="small">CEPH</em>, a renowned geic-rearch center. Zak asserted “that blogil material om the person who died 1997” was likely still storage.</p><p class="paywall">S. Jay Olshansky, a gerontologist at the Universy of Illois at Chigo, told me, “I did not fd the paper to be of a very high qualy. If I were the edor, I would not have accepted .” Many rears were nfound: why had Grey cid to btow the imprimatur of amic rpectabily on Zak’s work? Outlandish nspiracy theori proliferated. Was Grey, an “ternatnal adjunct profsor” at the Mosw Instute of Physics and Technology, somehow league wh the Rsians? Was Big Pharma? Was Put? Or was there a plot volvg the Lifeboat Foundatn, a techno-survivalist anizatn to which Grey and Zak both belonged, which had been filtrated by Rsian spi? “The are bad guys, playg nasty gam,” Robert Young, a nsultant for Guns World Rerds and a director of the Gerontology Rearch Group, which matas a database of supercentenarians, told me. “This is a manufactured ntroversy—we don’t even nsir the se to be disputed.”</p><p class="paywall">Calment’s validators sudnly had to fend work that they’d done twenty-five years earlier. One of them, Victor Lèbre, had died. Michel Allard, the gerontologist, had retired and was livg a village central France. When I spoke wh him, he seemed dly amed by the whole thg. He’d ially been open to the possibily of d, but he’d dug up his fil and nclud that the ia was ridiculo. “I tried to nstct a scenar, but n you image that someone would do all that?” he said. “At a certa pot, we need to be reasonable.” As for the DNA, he said, “It’s not my idge.”</p><p class="paywall">The third validator, Jean-Marie Robe, was a director at <em class="small">INSERM</em>, France’s natnal health-rearch stute. He took the Rsians’ attacks on his reputatn serly. “It’s nonsense, and not only is nonsense but was a hostile approach and not a scientific approach,” he told me, of Zak’s <em>Rejuvenatn Rearch</em> paper. “Why did they lnch this operatn like kamikaz? Why did they throw down sixty weak arguments?” Robe did not thk Put or the K.G.B. was volved. De Grey, he believed, wanted accs to Calment’s blood, which was said to be stored a reigerated bbank at the Fondatn Dsset.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Clde Serena was a ltle girl when she saw Jeanne Calment one day near her school. Her mother had jt arrived for pickup. “What do you know, here Mother Calment,” she said, as a slenr, fast-walkg figure proceed down the street. Serena’s fay wasn’t fond of the lol hte bourgeoisie. “My grandfather was a Communist, and Jeanne didn’t like Communists, bee she acced them of the Rsian Revolutn,” Serena explaed. Like Calment, her grandfather lived almost his entire life Arl. “He would have known the difference between her and her dghter,” Serena said. “And if he’d had the slightt spicn he would have nounced her.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="A man tampers wh and brib the jury." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Some ll jury tamperg. I ll sty.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by P. C. Vey</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc cxFROy alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">We were stg the urtyard of a fé Arl, wh Cécile Pellegri, another native Arlésienne. They were both members of a Facebook group lled Contre Enquête sur l’Enquête Jeanne Calment (Counter-Invtigatn of the Jeanne Calment Invtigatn), which was g the llective talents of more than a thoand ordary people to try to clear Calment’s name. Neher Serena nor Pellegri uld que believe what they’d got to. Serena was retired om the Maison du Lac retirement home, where she’d worked as a regiver for fifteen years, ten of them lookg after Calment. “She had the small ey, wh an cisive look,” she relled. “Very nscendg, ‘<em>ma fille</em>,’ et cetera.” She add, “I didn’t like her, so I’m impartial.” Pellegri, a social worker, normally spent her time onle postg pictur of her four ts. Now both were votg hours a day to tective work and sparrg wh Zak. (Gamely, they’d allowed him to jo the Facebook group.)</p><p class="paywall">“<em>C’t du Jam Bond</em>,” Serena said.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">I asked why they’d got volved.</p><p class="paywall">“In spe of all, this stung me,” Serena said. “We’re not idts. What’s sultg is that Zak don’t believe .”</p><p class="paywall">“As if we were hidg a secret villa,” Pellegri said.</p><p class="paywall">“He liv behd his puter on the other si of the world,” Serena add.</p><p class="paywall">Arl has a huddled, electric energy. For lennia, the Rhône was s lifeblood, but the cy fac ward, as though were too va to acknowledge s benefactor. Plant a flower Arl, h a Roman relic wh your shovel. The mistral might blow the teeth out of your mouth. The signer Christian Lacroix, who was born there, wrote of a sombre palette: “the funereal blue of cyprs,” the “sky baked whe.” Van Gogh pated the cy vlet, balt, gold, and chartrse. As Lacroix put , “It’s not so much Arl that gave s lors to van Gogh but van Gogh who gave Arl s lors.” Serena mentned that her great-grandmother slept stg upright a chair, so as to prerve her tradnal Arlésienne if.</p><p class="paywall">Zak argued that the people of Arl were too close to the Calment se to be ratnal. But the unter-vtigators were mountg a meticulo fense. They started off by topplg Zak’s theory about the Calments’ fancial motive. One of the group’s bt rearchers, a telemunitns engeer named François Rob-Champignl, showed that, 1934, herance tax for the fay would likely have amounted to six per cent of Jeanne’s assets, which totalled around two hundred and fifty thoand ancs. This was a rate that they surely uld have managed, particularly given—<em>et voilà!</em>—the group’s disvery that Jeanne had hered a mor fortune om her father, 1926.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="f0sxd"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="gjsrog"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Moreover, Yvonne would have had to pretend to be her own father’s wife. It also beggared belief that Freddy, a seven-year-old, eher would not notice that his mother had taken his grandmother’s place or would accept the swch and say nothg about for the rt of his life. Only a few people who ever saw the fay members together are still alive. One of them, Gilberte Mery, whose grandfather was Jeanne’s first , told <em>Le Journal du Dimanche</em> that the swch theory was “pletely idtic.” Rellg the Arl tradn of promenas, she said, “We looked at who walked wh whom, we noticed if someone changed her drs. Can you image if, all of a sudn, people no longer saw Aunt Jeanne but Yvonne?”</p><p class="paywall">Zak quickly me up wh a new ratnale for an inty swch: Jeanne had ntracted tuberculosis, and the fay lied about to protect s livelihood and shield self om social stigma. Why would the Calments ver for Jeanne’s tuberculosis by sayg that Yvonne had died of tuberculosis? In Zak’s scenar, Yvonne was fected wh the disease first, and transmted to Jeanne sometime around 1926. In the followg years, Jeanne started to show symptoms. Fearg that news of her illns would affect bs at the store, she began to spend most of her time outsi Arl. Zak had noticed, the France 2 special, a partly blurred-out page of a medil stunt’s 1993 this on Jeanne Calment. The words <em>séquell plral</em>—plral effns, or buildups of fluid around the lungs, which are sometim a marker of tubercular fectns—were jt visible. Yvonne, he believed, had revered om the disease. In her mother’s absence, she would ocsnally e the olr woman’s I.D. rd to sign important documents. The d was meant to be temporary, but, once got gog, beme impossible to stop.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Some of the members of the Facebook group lled themselv “Jeanne’s Angels.” They kept turng up new piec of evince, such as a 1983 letter, proffered by a fay member, which Calment ed an abbreviatn—“Xbre” for <em>décembre</em>—that was popular the neteenth century. Calment had told her validators stori about her drsmaker, her midwife, and her math teacher. The group found all of them old documents, livg the right place and at the right time. “No matter how much you formatted someone, I n’t image them g out wh that,” Karen Rchie, a nropsychologist who examed Calment 1993, told me, addg that Calment had reunted the nam of the makers of her weddg cutlery and crockery.</p><p class="paywall">Calment’s piano teacher, Césarie Gachon, proved to be a pellg wns om beyond the grave. Documents nfirmed that Gachon, born 1867, lived an apartment behd her parents’ bakery, jt as Calment had once relled. In orr to le out the possibily that Yvonne had had the same memori, a group member examed several cens. By 1911, when Jeanne was thirty-six and Yvonne thirteen, the bakery was gone and Gachon’s parents were ad. “The n’t be Yvonne’s memori, then, but those of Jeanne,” the group member wrote, a Facebook post. “Too precise, my opn, for the dghter to have heard them om the mother and remembered them to reunt eighty years later.”</p><p class="paywall">In the ments, Zak chimed , claimg that Calment had once said that she began playg the piano at the age of seven. Gachon would only have been fourteen then, and th, Zak wrote, “this is yet another argument for the I.D. swch.”</p><le-embed name="feature-flt" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="image" ntentType="llout:feature-flt"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Image may nta Tie Accsori Accsory Sunglass Human Person Jeanne Calment Su Coat Clothg and Overat" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Calment, photographed 1989, at a hundred and fourteen years old.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph by Eric CATARINA / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Imag</span></div></figure></le-embed><p class="paywall">As for the drsmaker, Zak posed that if she were “a famo uturier she uld leave a label wh her name on the drs and people uld remember her after her ath.”</p><p class="paywall">A group member sarstilly wrote back, “Celebry Arl isn’t que Chanel.”</p><p class="paywall">The group’s most important disveri volved Yvonne, whose apparently short life was much ls well known than her mother’s long one. A letter showed that, 1928, Yvonne was sick enough for Joseph Billot to have requted a five-year leave of absence om the ary. “It’s wh regret that he leav the Army, but his terts and the health of his wife oblige him to go live the Midi, near Arl,” a superr of Billot’s wrote. Newspaper articl, prerved on microfiche, scribed Yvonne’s funeral—a public event, not the shed burial that one would expect om a fay tryg to get away wh a body swch. A prit admistered the last r and led a funeral Mass at St. Trophime. Acrdg to one acunt, a “particularly abundant crowd” of mourners procsed om the Billot rince, where, per lol ctom, they would have been able to view the rpse.</p><p class="paywall">One photograph of Yvonne was pecially myster. It had first appeared 1995, on the ver of a special edn of <em>Le Figaro</em> magaze, mislabelled as an image of Jeanne. Now everyone agreed that the subject of the photograph was Yvonne, but qutns about s provenance persisted. The photograph was clearly taken on a summer day the mountas. Fir tre and a chalet are visible the distance. In the foreground, Yvonne pos on a balny wh an ornate railg, holdg an open parasol over her right shoulr. Her dark, si-parted bob is held back wh a barrette, and she is wearg what appears to be a fashnable outf of sleevels mp shirt and billowg pants. She don’t really remble her mother. She looks stnch, like the sort of person who would remember to label a vered dish.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="b377lh"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The group ially assumed that the picture had been taken the French Alps, maybe the Pyrene. Then a member started searchg the Inter for rmatn about sanatoriums. This led her to an image of a sanatorium wh balny railgs that looked jt like the one the picture of Yvonne. Other members picked up the trail. One of them analyzed eleven photographs he’d found of a particular cement wall. Soon they had a posive intifitn: the photograph showed Yvonne, at age thirty-three, standg on the east terrace of the Belvere sanatorium, Leys, Swzerland, Augt of 1931. Yvonne had fively vised a treatment center for tuberculosis, then. No such evince existed for Jeanne.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">On March 10, 2019, Aubrey Grey e-mailed Jean-Marie Robe and Michel Allard, Calment’s validators. De Grey remd them that a sample of Calment’s blood was thought to be safekeepg at the Fondatn Dsset, Paris. A tt of the sample uld rolve the qutn of Calment’s inty, sce Jeanne had the ual sixteen distct great-great-grandparents, whereas Yvonne had only twelve, bee of her parents’ nsangueo marriage. “Personally I thk that the current balance of evince do not favour the hypothis of an ID swch— other words, I thk is likely that Jeanne really did live to 122,” Grey wrote. He felt, however, that the discsn around Calment prented “a huge opportuny.” He went on:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>I am very unhappy to see that you two are beg publicly cricised for havg failed, 20 years ago, to disver var ems of evince that have recently been disvered by others, cludg several photos om the middle of the century. . . . I believe that a requt, om you, for accs to the cells at Dsset would be a powerful way to end this unfair cricism of your work.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">Two weeks later, the <em class="small">SENS</em> Rearch Foundatn sponsored an anti-agg nference Berl, where several hundred atten, payg up to ne hundred dollars a ticket, gathered to enunter “leadg rearchers om around the world.” De Grey ved Nikolay Zak to speak. His b for the nference clud a quote om Grey: “Zak’s jt-published vtigatns have st nsirable doubt on Calment’s actual age at ath, and lend credibily to the possibily of an inty swch wh her dghter.” On the send day of the nference, Zak, wearg a black T-shirt bearg the face of Charl Darw, livered a “special lecture” on the inty-swch hypothis. De Grey joed him onstage, llg “sndalo” that the Calment blood sample had been fotten. Were to be tted, he add, “I’m not gog to say that the rmatn will tell the founta of youth, but might fely give some ol ias for new experiments.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">When I spoke to Grey, November, I asked him about the swch hypothis. “I have much bigger fish to y,” he said. “I’m a very proment person the gerontology field, and I’m out to save liv. So this is not a big al to me—you need to know that.” De Grey nied that he wants Calment’s blood sample for his own e. He seemed to be tryg to rema publicly evenhand about the se, while g to shake somethg loose at the Fondatn Dsset. He had entreated Allard and Robe to enlist Yv Christen, a famo French blogist, the mpaign to retrieve the blood sample. “I believe falls to people like you to get Christen,” he told me. “The sgle bt thg you uld do to save liv, to hasten the feat of agg, is to get to Christen and get him to see that he has the pacy to go to Dsset and get them to release that sample!”</p><p class="paywall">The examatn of Calment’s DNA pos ethil difficulti. Calment gave the sample on the ndn of anonymy, but is prumably intifiable by her age. Furthermore, was tend only for certa purpos. “Jeanne Calment participated the Chronos Project wh the lims of an rmed nsent she signed that prevents any e of rmatn beyond this project,” Jean-François Delze, the scientific director of the Fondatn Dsset, said.</p><p class="paywall">Some people I spoke to believed that a breach of the ndns would be jtifiable unr certa circumstanc, but was unclear whether, the Calment se, the benefs outweighed the sts. Establishg the tth about Jeanne Calment would be tertg, but certaly wasn’t sential. Members of the unter-vtigatn group argued that Calment’s inty was already well tablished; qutns about were beg ed as a wedge, they spected, to open the door for all manner of ttg. The trigue surroundg the sample grew to fill the void of thorative rmatn. Neher Allard nor Robe ever replied to Grey’s e-mail. “The naïveté of the people,” Robe told me. “You go to the bt jeweller the world and mand that he giv you his biggt diamond?”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">As the ntroversy ntued, Zak’s theori beme creasgly baroque. As soon as one ia was disproved, he me up wh another. Calment’s late-life height, turned out, was really a hundred and forty-three centimetr, reflectg the loss of stature that one would expect. The ptn that the validators had ed for the photo of Jeanne and Yvonne—“Which one is which?”—seemed to e om the slogan for a brand of soap. Zak eventually dropped the fibroma argument.</p><p class="paywall">Even Zak’s adversari gave him cred for doggedns, and an unually rich imagatn. His latt ia was that the sole existg jot photograph of Jeanne and Yvonne had been taken at the sanatorium Leys. In this scenar, Jeanne was the patient and Yvonne was jt visg. The flowers the shot, he said, may have been rle thistle, “a stemls alpe plant native to Swzerland and ed as a herbal remedy for lung diseas cludg tuberculosis.” In the photograph, the right si of Jeanne’s body was shadow. Zak claimed to be able to make out that the right si of her jacket was shorter than the left. From this, he nclud that Jeanne may have had her right arm amputated, “probably before she me to Leys.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Two men are about to be stomped on by Godzilla." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 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clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc cxFROy alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Even at his most transigent, Zak weled bate. At the end of November, he agreed to meet me at a pizzeria near his home, Mosw. He arrived a red T-shirt and black athletic pants, wh yellow circl unr his ey. I knew, om my own Inter rearch, that his father was a proment mathematician. The Nikolay Zak me found strikg that Nikolay Zak, who had once attempted to follow his father’s footsteps algebraic geometry, had bee obssed wh the ia of Yvonne takg Jeanne’s place. But Zak didn’t seem particularly terted talkg about his bgraphy. Of his glassblowg job, he said, “I’m still there, though I don’t work for very long hours. I jt e and go.” He was not beg paid by Grey, he said, as many of his tractors had alleged. “I already have money, so ’s not a problem for me.”</p><p class="paywall">Zak said that he’d first heard about Jeanne Calment after gettg terted longevy, about ten years ago. “I read about her life style, and that she ed olive oil, and I rearched and found the bt olive oil the world,” he said. “They make on Corfu.” In the summer of 2018, when Valery Novoselov beme the head of the gerontology chapter of the Mosw Society of Naturalists, he issued a ll for papers. Zak’s ial subject was the naked mole rat, a hairls ront wh ont teeth that look like fgernails and an unually long life span. From naked mole rats, he pivoted to supercentenarians.</p><p class="paywall">At the pizzeria, Zak said that he was “99.99 per cent” nvced that Calment was a d. I asked why hardly any experts the field agreed wh him. “I already told you, I get a lot of letters om people,” he said. When I asked for their nam, he murred, sayg, “Those who thk I am right, they will still be silent until is all proved.” Talkg to him felt like talkg to a Magic 8-Ball.</p><p class="paywall">I knew om Facebook that Zak had a hab of leadg people so ep to the microtails of Calment’s life that larger, more obv qutns were easily overlooked. I was hopg to get him to addrs some gaps his reasong. Why, if Calment were hidg somethg, would she have agreed to the validatn terviews? Why would she have given a blood sample, if she knew that her sixty-year secret uld be betrayed wh one drop? Why, for that matter, wouldn’t she have chosen to be cremated, the ultimate form of burng one’s personal effects?</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="rh4h"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="oxkm1h"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">“She was a bold liar,” Zak replied. “If I were her, I would arrange somethg to show, sometime after my ath, that I cheated all of you. It’s much more fun for her that way, so I don’t see any problem. She’s already ad and got everythg she ever wanted.” I brought up her specific rellectns of the drsmaker, the midwife, the math teacher, the piano teacher, but he didn’t yield. Pickg at a mhroom pizza, he add, “I’m younger than my father by thirty-four years, and I’m not very close wh him, but I know the name of his math teacher.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Yvonne, Zak ntued, uld have been ached. This was a good pot: Calment’s validators, the first chapter of their book, mentn that they ocsnally “re-jected” certa bgraphil tails to their nversatns wh her, the hope of activatg dormant memori. When I spoke to Michel Allard, I asked him whether they had ever attempted to re-ject a false piece of rmatn, as a sort of ntrol. He said that they hadn’t.</p><p class="paywall">I agreed wh Zak that the validators had sometim taken a boosterish approach to their task, but I didn’t see evince of a nspiracy. Zak had been lobbyg them to release the terview tap, implyg that they might be hidg somethg. The tap, I learned om Allard, were stg a box his basement; he simply hadn’t bothered to fetch them. When I phed Zak about the nsistenci his theory, he beme annoyed. “You misunrstand the whole thg about the validatn of extreme age,” he said. “Everybody agre that the burn of proof extreme age is on the claimant and the validators, not on the skeptics.”</p><p class="paywall">That morng, I had met wh Valery Novoselov, at Mosw State Universy’s Zoologil Mm. He greeted me a domed entryway led wh murals of wildlife, and we proceed through a seri of fad rridors—past a mastodon skeleton and a glass se emptied of all but a set of doili—before arrivg a dty classroom, where we sat down at a long woon table. We were joed by two of his lleagu om the Society of Naturalists, and I had brought an terpreter. Novoselov had a boistero, orotund way of talkg that even the terpreter seemed to have trouble makg sense of. After a disurse on his rearch to the e of Len’s ath, Novoselov turned to Jeanne Calment. “This was taken 1955, so she was past eighty here,” he said, pullg up a photograph of Calment on his laptop. “The woman is still full of trogen—she is jt enterg the early stag of menopse. It’s clear that, hormonally, she is still a woman.”</p><p class="paywall">Novoselov remaed certa that Calment uldn’t have been a hundred and twenty-two years old, but he was now agnostic about the possibily of a swch. He felt that Zak, as a non-scientist, had been too hasty publishg some of his work. “We are the people of the Soviet Unn, Zak is a person om Rsia,” Novoselov said, at one pot. “We are analog people, he is a digal person.” I asked Novoselov why, given his belief the importance of scientific method, he was willg to rely so heavily on photographs, which are notorly open to terpretatn. He started talkg about the youthful look of Calment’s legs. At one pot, he said that he had asked specialists at the Invtigative Commtee, Rsia’s equivalent of the F.B.I., to perform a forensic analysis of some photographs. He had a letter om the mtee, which I did not read until later. It stated that “the qualy of the photos you submted of Jeanne Calment and her dghter . . . do not meet the requirements for forensic portra examatn.”</p><p class="paywall">It felt like we weren’t gettg anywhere. One of the most pellg pots of the se mounted by Novoselov and Zak, had always seemed to me, was that the llective assumptns of a society n supprs unlikely tths. Every time I found myself nvced that their accatns were impossibly far-fetched, I wonred whether I wasn’t jt beg placent: who would have believed, for stance, that Jack Nicholson’s sister was actually his mother, before <em>Time</em> sprang the news on him, 1974?</p><p class="paywall">“How old do you thk I am?” I asked Novoselov.</p><p class="paywall">“Seventeen,” he said.</p><p class="paywall">“Serly, how old do you thk I am? This is one of your methods, lookg at someone and timatg their age. Wre down.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="People look at a vast ral space." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“All this, as far as you n see, is jt what you’d pay for a one-bedroom ndo the cy.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Edward Koren</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT 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ifgabc cxFROy alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Novoselov obfted, but eventually I persuad him, along wh each of his lleagu, to jot down on a slip of paper the age that he perceived me to be. One of them wrote twenty-eight and another thirty-five. Novoselov’s gus was forty-two. I am thirty-ne.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">It’s hard to fd a smokg gun if there hasn’t been a crime. As time went by, I grew creasgly nvced of the veracy of Jeanne Calment’s rerd, but several loose ends troubled me. I wanted to know more about the claim, the book about the surance dtry, that an surer and French thori had turned a bld eye to d. The source, turned out, was a former employee of the French treasury, who did not want to be named. An surance pany had acquired the annuy (the <em>rente viagère</em>) on Jeanne Calment’s apartment sometime the sixti. Acrdg to the source, officials at the pany noticed that Calment was an actuarial outlier and quired wh the treasury about the acunt. The source’s superrs signalled that he should back off. Later, after Calment’s ath, one of the surance-pany officials told him that she had swched plac wh her dghter. The official died the two-thoands, and, along wh him, the orig of the tale.</p><p class="paywall">Months after my first nversatn wh Michel Allard, I e-mailed him to see if, by chance, he’d unearthed the taped terviews wh Calment. “You’ve e at jt the right time,” he replied. He’d got them out of his basement and, he said, was about to take them to be digized. He agreed to allow me to listen to them before he did. It was crazy to be able to hear a voice om the neteenth century, a soul rennected wh her memori, some of which I’d already enuntered on the page. “She never performed nu!” Calment said, of La Belle Otero, a famo actrs of her day. “Never!” She spoke passnately, whout as much promptg as I’d imaged.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In Arl, I’d met a woman named Maguy Raspail, a retired nurse who seemed to be the only person town who supported Zak. She told me, “I found Nikolay very telligent, and I told myself that maybe he was able to see what we, the French, weren’t able to see.” Raspail uldn’t rebut much of the evince atttg to Calment’s thenticy, but she did tell me somethg tertg. Lre Msy, the head nurse at the Maison du Lac at the time that Calment lived there, had told her that another nurse had lled Calment “Yvonne” ont of the staff and other rints. Msy nfirmed this a text msage. “She would say loudly that Jeanne was her dghter, but I was her boss and she uldn’t say ont of me,” she wrote. Msy said was “impossible that someone as natural as Jeanne was a liar.” I lled the other nurse, but she hung up when I mentned Calment’s name. The next time, she stayed on the le. She said that she had never doubted Calment’s inty. “Are you jokg, askg me that?” she said, of the mor that she had addrsed Jeanne as “Yvonne.” “Not possible.”</p><p class="paywall">The end of Jeanne Calment’s life was tumultuo, even sordid. As her fame grew, the Maison du Lac stggled to manage the mands of journalists and well-wishers. Msy beme her unofficial handler, performg the job wh a clumsy mix of hawkishns and impotence. In Calment’s hundred-and-twenty-first year, barely able to speak, she rerd a rap CD. Another day, as she sat immobile her wheelchair, a Japane clown kissed her on the mouth. After the airg of a documentary that suggted Calment was not beg treated properly, the retirement home’s management tervened, transferrg Msy for “failure to observe the obligatn of rerve, discretn, and rtrat.” Calment’s visors were severely rtricted, and her validators were barred om seeg her. Allard said, “She was thrown the dungeon.”</p><p class="paywall">Calment died on a Monday Augt, the middle of <em>l grans vanc</em>. One bgrapher njectured that she died of boredom. Jean-Marie Robe told me that Calment had agreed to donate her bra to science. “We had a team wag Paris around the clock, ready to board a flight,” he relled, but Calment was buried wh such “vlent haste” that the team was unable to harvt the an. Although Calment had been a vout Catholic and a celebry, only a handful of people, mostly retirement-home personnel, were allowed to attend the burial. The next day, hundreds of mourners gathered at St. Trophime, her longtime church. In li of a ff, a large picture of her stood at the altar.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="u1lrg"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Her fay tomb, the Trquetaille Cemetery, Arl, li at the end of a long row of msolms. It’s a relatively morn and simple monument black grane. The nam of Joseph and Freddy Billot are scribed on a plaque. In the middle of the tomb, there’s a marker the shape of an open book that reads “Jeanne Calment, 1875-1997, La doyenne l’humané.” Yvonne is buried there, too, but her name is absent. “Why there is no Yvonne’s name on fay grave, while there are nam of Joseph and Freric?” Zak wrote, when a Facebook fight epted over the subject. “Explanatn the swch scenar is easy: she didn’t want her name to be on the grave bee she was alive.” But Fernand and other relativ are buried there, too, and their nam aren’t marked, eher. Acrdg to unter-vtigators, the tomb was redone the sixti, and is engraved only wh the nam of fay members who have died sce.</p><p class="paywall">The secret of Jeanne Calment may ri a village about an hour’s drive om Arl. Renée Billot Bonnary, Freddy’s widow, liv there, near the Mederranean Sea. Bonnary, a retired ntist, was born 1926. She is one of the last livg lks to the time when the Calments were a thrivg Arlian dynasty, to the long middle of her former grandmother--law’s epoch-spanng story. Several sourc suggted to me that Bonnary and Calment had a dispute after Freddy’s ath. The sire to keep such a nflict private uld help expla why Calment chose to stroy her personal papers. It uld also attt to her thenticy: if Calment had been volved a sm, ’s nceivable that Bonnary would have known and would have been motivated to expose her. I sent a letter to Bonnary and ntacted a relative of hers, who eventually asked me to leave them alone.</p><p class="paywall">So I went to Marseille. First, I walked om the tra statn to the Aix-Marseille Universy medil school, where I checked out Cathere Levrd’s this om 1993, “Jeanne Calment: 118 Years, Prototype of Longevy.” Levrd spent several months visg Calment at the Maison du Lac, and charted her medil history. On page 10, I found the passage that had raised Zak’s spicns when appeared, partially, the special on France 2. It read, “The blood report is that of a woman of thirty years old good health. The X-rays, however, show hyper-transparence bee of the meralizatn of the bon, and plral effns on the thorax.” Zak was right: both mother and dghter may have had tuberculosis. This do not mean, however, that the person who died 1997 was Yvonne. “Jeanne uld have been touched passg by the illns and not even known she had ,” Cathere Levrd, now a doctor Arl, told me. “In that populatn, was extremely equent.” For another opn, I lled Petros Karakois, a tuberculosis expert and a profsor of medice at Johns Hopks, who nfirmed that the prence of plral effns n dite a prev tuberculosis fectn, but said that they n also be attributable to “plenty of other ,” such as d heart failure, om which Calment suffered. It ma sense, Levrd add, that someone strong enough to rever pletely om a disease that felled many of her peers would go on to bee a supercentenarian.</p><p class="paywall">François Rob-Champignl, the telemunitns engeer who lculated the Calments’ herance tax, had tipped me off that there might be some tertg documents the partmental archiv of the Bouch-du-Rhône, Marseille. (Rob-Champignl recently published a paper <em>Rejuvenatn Rearch</em> fendg Calment’s rerd, and he is workg on a book.) I took an Uber there and walked across a wdswept plaza to a huge rectangular buildg of whe iriscent glass. I applied for a rd, stuffed my bag a locker, and, wh the help of a librarian, punched some s to a puter. Wh twenty mut, I was stg ont of thick, flaky ledgers ntag Fernand Calment’s tate documents om 1943, along wh mortgage ntracts om the purchase of several properti.</p><p class="paywall">The documents suggt a uple optimistic spirs. They had plenty of liquidy, wh Fernand posssg a greater share of the assets. In Febary, 1933, they bought a untry hoe outsi Arl. Frédérique Skyronka, the granddghter of Joseph Billot’s brother, remembered spendg her summer vatns the sixti nearby. “She was already an ‘old lady,’ but extremely dynamic,” she told me, of Jeanne. “She walked, walked, and walked—that’s the secret.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-9 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">A typewrten document of six time-splotched pag rerd the sale of Jeanne’s childhood apartment, at 53 Rue la Roquette, on November 28, 1931, to a M. Honoré Mistral and his wife, Mme. Clarisse Raoux, for thirty-five thoand ancs. At some pot, someone had unrled parts of wh an oily dark-green crayon. I flipped through, tryg to foc. <em>Entrée en jouissance, régime dotal, imposns foncièr.</em> The archiv were closg soon.</p><p class="paywall">It wasn’t until weeks later, Paris, that I unrstood the signifince of the document. Its fal sectn dited that both Jeanne Calment and Lucien Arnd, a notary Arl, had attend the 1931 closg. Arnd had admistered the marriage ntracts of Jeanne, 1896, and Yvonne, 1926. He was also the head of the lol chapter of the Alliance Française, whose balls the Calments equented. When Yvonne married, Jeanne, Yvonne, and Arnd all gathered to sign the ntract. Acrdg to the document I’d held my hands, not even five years later Jeanne was standg ont of Arnd aga, to sign for the sale of 53 Rue la Roquette. In Zak’s scenar, Yvonne had already started impersonatg her mother 1931. She would have shown up before Arnd wh her hair dyed whe and a loopg “J” her signature that wasn’t que right.</p><p class="paywall">It is next to impossible that Yvonne uld have fooled Arnd. She uld have bought him off, but the documents I had seen also showed that Jeanne appeared ont of his succsor, Louis David, 1933 and 1942. In neher se would Yvonne have been likely to prent an I.D. rd, false or otherwise, as Zak claimed. Both Arnd and David knew Jeanne too well to ask for intifitn. How many people would Yvonne have had to -opt? Two notari, a prit, a seven-year-old boy, a crowd full of mourners, a whole cy? The theory ma no sense, and, even though I knew , I was already thkg about what Zak would say next. ♦</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="q6j06c"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv brYtrA grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-body__footer"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><footer class="ContentFooterMagazeDisclaimer-gzKAqo iZIuUU" data-ttid="MagazeDisclaimerWrapper">Published the prt edn of the <a href="/magaze/2020/02/17" data-reactroot="">Febary 17 & 24, 2020</a>, issue, wh the headle “Livg Proof.”</footer></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"></div></div></div><div data-ttid="RowWrapper" class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/lren-lls"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/lren-lls">Lren Colls</a> has been a staff wrer at The New Yorker sce 2008. 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class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Reporter at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2017/04/03/silin-valleys-qut-to-live-forever" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Silin Valley’s Qut to Live Forever</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2017/04/03/silin-valleys-qut-to-live-forever" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Silin Valley’s Qut to Live Forever" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Can billns of dollars’ worth of high-tech rearch succeed makg ath optnal?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Tad Friend</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2019/11/04/why-we-nt-tell-the-tth-about-agg" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why We Can’t Tell the Tth About Agg" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Cric at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2019/11/04/why-we-nt-tell-the-tth-about-agg" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Why We Can’t Tell the Tth About Agg</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2019/11/04/why-we-nt-tell-the-tth-about-agg" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why We Can’t Tell the Tth About Agg" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">A long life is a gift. But will we really be grateful for ?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Arthur Krystal</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--evio summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 720w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 480w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="A Couple’s Last Words to Each Other" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fsJGML summary-em__bric summary-em__seri-lk"><a class="RubricLk-gRWSOU fgWnkQ bric__lk" href="/vio/seri/the-new-yorker-documentary"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">The New Yorker Documentary</span></a></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">A Couple’s Last Words to Each Other</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 720w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 480w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="A Couple’s Last Words to Each Other" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k summary-em__k--isCneVio">A son mak a surprisg disvery on his elrly parents’ answerg mache Sara Joe Wolansky’s film “The Last Conversatn.”</div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm fvDIAb" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Iphigenia Fort Hills" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Reporter at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Iphigenia Fort Hills</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Iphigenia Fort Hills" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd 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Contents:

FAY OF JEANNE GAY, MARV GAYE’S SISTER, SETS UP GOFUNDME FOR MEMORIAL

MARV GAYE'S SISTER ZEOLA SAID SHE MANAGED TO FIVE ALHOLIC FATHER FOR KILLG HER BROTHER

JEANNE GAY (SISTER OF MARV GAYE) PASS AFTER SHORT ILLNS – SHE WAS 87

JEANNE GAY

PARTNERS OF JEANNE GAY

JEANNE GAY

FAL GAY : TO L AVIS DéCèS ET D’OBSèQU

MARVIN GAYE: WHY DID HIS FATHER KILL HIM?

FAL GAY : TO L AVIS DéCèS ET D’OBSèQU

JEANNIE GAY

JEANNE GAY BLASENA

PARTNERS OF JEANNE GAY

JEANNE GAY

BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM JEANNE GAY 17 ANS

Recent Posts

Tags

Contents:

FAY OF JEANNE GAY, MARV GAYE’S SISTER, SETS UP GOFUNDME FOR MEMORIAL

MARV GAYE'S SISTER ZEOLA SAID SHE MANAGED TO FIVE ALHOLIC FATHER FOR KILLG HER BROTHER

JEANNE GAY (SISTER OF MARV GAYE) PASS AFTER SHORT ILLNS – SHE WAS 87

JEANNE GAY

PARTNERS OF JEANNE GAY

JEANNE GAY

FAL GAY : TO L AVIS DéCèS ET D’OBSèQU

MARVIN GAYE: WHY DID HIS FATHER KILL HIM?

FAL GAY : TO L AVIS DéCèS ET D’OBSèQU

JEANNIE GAY

JEANNE GAY BLASENA

PARTNERS OF JEANNE GAY

JEANNE GAY

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* JEANNE GAY 17 ANS

BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM JEANNE GAY 17 ANS