Chained to a bed for 25 years by her own mother, she has grown into the sofa
The case of Blanche Monier became one of the most notorious crimes in France of the XIX century — for a quarter of a century, an aristocrat and once enviable bride was held captive by her own mother, communicating only with rats that infested her room. We tell you why Blanche became a victim of her own family, and how the prisoner managed to escape after many years of imprisonment.
Before the conclusion
The woman accused her daughter that, having the opportunity to marry the most wealthy and noble suitors of the city, she chose a simple lawyer who was not only not a representative of an aristocratic family, but also did not have sufficient wealth and was much older than the girl.
However, Blanche was not afraid of the prospect of quarreling with her mother — the girl decided not to give up and continue her relationship with her lover, secretly meeting with him in different parts of the city and planning to escape one day, leaving her parents’ house. This went on for some time, but in March 1876 Blanche suddenly disappeared.
Disappearance
The public was shocked by the sudden disappearance of a famous socialite, but Madame Manet assured neighbors and friends that Blanche had an accident, as a result of which she died. This version satisfied everyone except the girl’s lover, who did not give up trying to find her and put a lot of effort into finding out at least something about her whereabouts — unfortunately, his efforts were not crowned with success.
In fact, Blanche was alive — the girl turned out to be a prisoner of her own mother, who locked her daughter in a dark tiny room in the attic of their mansion in the center of Poitiers and gave her an ultimatum: renunciation of relations with a lawyer or imprisonment.
The determined Monier did not agree to her mother’s conditions and preferred to remain in captivity rather than renounce love — so she found herself a prisoner, deprived of the opportunity to see sunlight, eat normally and communicate with anyone other than her own mother.
In conclusion
Life in captivity turned out to be a real hell — very soon Louise Monier began to go crazy from her own powerlessness before her daughter’s will and began to treat her incredibly cruelly. She did not give her normal food, leaving leftovers on the floor of the room as dinner, ignored requests to bring water for several days, took warm clothes and sleeping accessories from her “cell”, deprived her daughter of the opportunity to wash, comb her hair and even go to the toilet.
In 1885, Monier’s lover died — when the last person who did not give up trying to find her passed away, the girl finally resigned herself to her fate. At that time, she had been in captivity for nine years, and began to gradually lose her mind from despair. By the way, the conditions of her detention continued to deteriorate — for all these years, Blanche’s mother never allowed her to leave the room, and the girl slept in a pile of food waste and her own excrement. The only living creatures she could communicate with were the rats and bedbugs that infested her place of detention.
Anonymous letter
This continued until 1901, when on May 23, the Attorney General received an anonymous letter stating the following:
“Mr. Attorney General, I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious incident. I’m talking about the woman who’s locked up in Madame Monnier’s house. For the last twenty-five years, she has been living half-starved on rotten bedding in the attic.”
When the police asked for permission to inspect the house, Madame Magny replied with a sharp refusal. This alerted the authorities, and they decided to break down the door to the mansion. Once inside, they went to the place of Blanche’s imprisonment indicated in the letter — the attic, and were shocked by what they saw.
Opening the door, the detectives saw a 52 — year-old woman lying on a rotten floor surrounded by rats, insects and scraps — she was extremely emaciated, her weight did not exceed 25 kilograms, and she did not look like a human. According to the police records, they saw a thin creature with long matted hair that covered her naked body:
“Exhausted, deprived of sunlight and cut off from any social contact, Blanche seemed like a frightened animal when we took her out of the room.”
Further developments
Of course, the victim’s mother and brother were immediately arrested, but Louise Monier did not live to see the trial — the woman died 15 days after her detention, unable to withstand the yoke of public anger.
The work “La Sequestree de Poitiers” by Andre Gide, dedicated to this story
Unfortunately, Blanche Monier never managed to return to normal life — the prisoner’s psyche was crippled, she suffered from anorexia nervosa, exhibitionism and other behavioral disorders. The woman spent the rest of her life in a psychiatric hospital in the French town of Blois. She died in 1913 without regaining her sanity.
