When lawyer André-Francois Raffrey got 90-year-old Jeanne Calmet to sign the sale contract for her apartment in 1965, it seemed like a great deal.
According to the contract, this 47-year-old lawyer was to pay the old woman 2,500 francs every month. In return, he was to acquire her expensive apartment in the town of Arles after her death.
Since Calment was 90 years old and a heavy smoker, Raffrey didn’t expect to have to wait long. But there he was terribly mistaken.
Jeanne Calment lived on for 32 years before she died in 1997 – then aged 122. At that time Raffrey had been dead for two years and therefore he never got this apartment for which he had paid a lot of money for about 30 years.
Calment first quit smoking cigarettes when she was 117 years old – not because of her health, but because she could no longer light the lighter herself.
