And finally…glamorous Parisian widow fails in bid to inherit toothless hermit husband’s property fortune

Sandrine Devillard, 43, a blonde estate agent and self-styled pop singer married Alpine landowner Marcel Amphoux, 68, amid controversy after residents of his village turned out to boo and heckle throughout the ceremony and the priest used his semon to talk of “manipulation”.

Mr Amphoux, a farmer, owned five shepherd’s huts close to ski resort Serre Chevalier - real estate which was said to be worth millions and which Devillard had attempted to buy before striking up a relationship with the landowner after he refused to sell to her.

While she retreated to Paris after their marriage, Mr Amphoux continued to live in one of his mountain huts without electricity or running water.

However, Ms Devillard sought to silence her critics with a bizarre self-penned song and music video about her devotion to her husband, who makes a brief appearance as she cavorts in the mountains.

https://youtu.be/cBt3-dplHhg

Then, a year after their wedding, Amphoux was killed in a road accident which involvied two friends of his wife, both of whom survived and escaped any convictions for wrongdoing.

Despite the widow, immaculately dressed in black, trying to hurl herself into his grave, suspicions of her real motives persisted and seemed to be confirmed when villagers claimed she had told tenants that they were being evicted because the huts were now hers.

However, a French court has now ruled a will that unexpectedly surfaced following the crash, and seemed to have been written immediately before Amphoux’s untimely demise, does indeed cut her out of any inheritance.

Scribbled on the back of an envelope, it states that the shepherd’s huts – potentially worth hundreds of thousands of euros each if rebuilt as ski chalets – were to be left to their local tenants.

Ms Devillard had disputed the document since it appeared in 2013 but French authorities have now declared the document “genuine”.

The document was written “in the weeks just before Marcel’s death”, said his lawyer, Jean-Michel Colmant. “Everyone who has seen it confirms that it is in Marcel’s writing. He has clearly stated that he wishes to leave nothing to his wife.”

But Ms Devillard challenged the validity of the will in the courts, claiming it was not his hand-writing and that he had been the victim of “abuse of trust”, “attempted extortion” and forgery by the new heirs.

On December 12, however, the Gap public prosecutor announced that her claims had been quashed.

Citing the investigating magistrate in charge of the case, prosecutor Raphael Balland said that handwriting experts had concluded that “the will is by his hand”.

He added: “While Marcel Amphoux was clearly greatly solicited by his entourage, it remains difficult to determine any abuse as fraudulent manoeuvres revealing embezzlement.”

“For there to be abuse of weakness, one must first prove weakness. There is no evidence to prove this.”