When she was merely 120, Jeanne Calment was asked her vision of the future. ''Very brief,'' she replied. There were those who didn't quite believe her.

''We ended up believing she was immortal,'' said Felix Ramadier, a retired worker in Arles, the southern city where she lived and died, after she finally succumbed on Monday - at 122 the world's oldest person.

Doctors said Mrs Calment's heart simply stopped beating after eating her usual breakfast at the retirement home where she had lived for 12 years.

Her death sparked an outpouring of tributes. ''She was a little bit the grandmother of all

of us,'' President Jacques Chirac said.

Many marvelled at how she had lived through so much of a nation's history. She was born during France's Third Republic, lived through its Fourth, and into the Fifth. She was 14 when

the Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, and was into her 80s when Charles de Gaulle became president in 1958.

Her doctor, Catherine Levraud, said Mrs Calment cared much about how she appeared, and spent time making herself up before going out in public. When she celebrated her 121st birthday in February 1996 with a ceremony at City Hall, she rinsed her white hair purple for the occasion.

She also released her CD, Time's Mistress. It featured her reminiscing to a score of rap and other tunes.

Born on February 21, 1875, Mrs Calment became the most famous person in Arles since Vincent Van Gogh, whom she met when he spent a year there in 1888 and bought some paint at her uncle's shop. She later called him ''an awful man''.

If her family are any judge, Mrs Calment was destined to live a long life. Her father lived until age 94; her mother until 86; her brother until 93.

She was always healthy, and rode a bike until she was 100. But she made room for the less healthy things in life: cigarettes, her beloved port wine, her afternoon chocolate.

Though she lived a simple life, Mrs Calmest had her tragedies: her daughter died as a result of illness, her husband died after eating tainted cherries, and her grandchild was killed in a car accident.

She found things, though, that made her happy, and became a media star when her age became a source of wonder. A steady stream of journalists interviewed her. And she learned to use a computer, and an Internet site was set up under her name.

Recently, her health had deteriorated - she was blind and nearly deaf. Last year a legal guardian was appointed.

In her later years she lived mostly off the income from her apartment, which she sold more than 30 years ago to a lawyer. Andre-Francois Raffray, agreed to make monthly payments in exchange for taking possession when she died. He never did. He died more than a year ago at age 77; his family had to continue making the payments.

Even so, his widow, Huguette, said she was saddened by Mrs Calment's death. ''She was a personality,'' she said. ''My husband had very good relations with Mrs Calment.''

Although publishers of the Guinness Book of Records said they can't yet determine the next holder of the age record, it might be Adjust Watts, a nursing home patient in Pensacola, Florida. But her age couldn't immediately be verified.

Social Security records indicating Ms Watts will be 121 on August 15 are insufficient proof, said John Hansen, research manager for the Guinness Book in Stamford, Connecticut.

A Brazilian woman, Maria do Carmo Geronimo, claims she is 126, born on March 8, 1871. Her supporters say confusion over her birth document, a baptismal paper issued by Roman Catholic missionaries instead of a birth certificate, keeps her from being listed in the international edition of the Guinness Book.