The Heartbreaking Story of Blanche Monnier, Locked up for 25 Years
- Instagram.com/bylingbilder
VIVA – A French socialite from a well-respected, bourgeoisie family in Poitiers of old noble origins, Blanche Monnier has a heartbreaking life story. Although, she was known for her physical beauty, and attracted many potential suitors for marriage.
In 1874, at 25, she wanted to marry an older lawyer who was not to her mother Louise’s liking; she argued that her daughter could not marry a “penniless lawyer”. Her disapproving mother, angered by her daughter’s defiance, then her mother locked Blanche in a tiny, dark room in the attic of their home, where she kept her secluded for 25 years.
Until finally, years ago, Blanche’s beloved lawyer died and Blanche’s fate is still a mystery. Then, one day in 1901, when the Paris attorney general receive a strange anonymous note.
“Monsieur Attorney General: I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious occurrence. I speak of a spinster who is locked up in Madame Monnier’s house, half-starved, and living on a putrid litter for the past twenty-five years, in a word, in her filth.” As reported by The Vintage news.
Kisah Blanche Monnier.
- U-Report
The letter surprised the police turned out that Madame Louise Monnier (Blanche's mom) could do such a thing. She was a respectable citizen of Paris, from an aristocratic family who often made donations. The police then confirmed the truth of the message.
Police officers were sent to inspect the house, and although they were denied entrance at first, they forced the door open and got inside. They searched the home and discovered a tiny, dark, foul-smelling room on the second floor. And when they pried open the windows, there was Blanche Monnier.
Or at least what was left of her. Covered in food and feces, with bugs all around the bed and floor, was the 50-year-old Blanche weighing barely 50 pounds. She didn’t resemble a human. Malnourished, lacking sunlight, and cut off from any social contact for 25 years, Blanche seemed like a scared animal when the officers took her out.
Her mother was immediately arrested but died in prison after only 15 days. Before her death, she confessed to the inhumane treatment of her daughter.
An article in the New York Times published on June 9, 1901, reads: “Time passed, and Blanche was no longer young. The attorney she so loved died in 1885. During all that time the girl was confined in the lonely room, fed with scraps from the mother’s table when she received any food at all. Her only companions were the rats that gathered to eat the hard crusts that she threw upon the floor. Not a ray of light penetrated her dungeon, and what she suffered can only be surmised.”
As for Blanche, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She never returned to society. She lived until 1913 and died in a sanatorium in Bois.
