By Elspeth Read
In 1897, Blanche Monnier, at 25 years old, was described as a joyful and playful woman, with a wealth of beautiful hair and big brilliant eyes. Blanche lived with her widowed mother and older brother, Marcel, in 21 Rue De La Visitation, a wealthy neighbourhood in Poiters, France.
Although Blanche’s father died in 1879, the Monnier’s lived very comfortably on the fortune he left behind due to his successful career as director of an arts faculty in town. Blanche’s mother, Madam Louise Monnier, was viewed as an upstanding member of the community, having been awarded by the Committee of Good Works for generous contributions to the city.
As a young French socialite, Blanche wanted to fall in love and leave the clutches of her strict home life. One day, Blanche met a man, somewhat older than her and an unsuccessful attorney. The two fell in love and saw each other in secret, fearing Blanche’s mother’s disapproval.
Madam Monnier condemned the relationship, seeing the attorney as beneath the family’s societal status and not fit to marry Blanche. Whispers circulated about the couple’s ongoing relationship, including a rumour of an illegitimate child. When Madam Monnier caught wind of the gossip, she was mortified and forbid Blanche from seeing the attorney ever again.
This did not deter Blanche, however, too in love to care about insubstantial rumours and her mother’s overbearing and old-fashioned ideals. Blanche and her mother got into a heated argument, in which Madam Monnier even attempted to beg her daughter not to see the man again, but Blanche continued to sneak out to see him anyway.
So Madam Monnier and Blanche’s brother, Marcel, devised a plan to force Blanche to bend to her mother’s will. When Blanche returned one night from seeing her lover, she was ambushed by her family on the stairs and dragged to the attic room, where she was locked inside. The shutters had been barricaded shut, allowing very little light to enter the room.
The pair planned to keep Blanche imprisoned until she agreed to call off the relationship, and figured she would quickly relent. However, locked in the dark and dirty room, Blanche’s resentment towards them only grew, and she vowed to never give in.
Faking Blanche’s mysterious disappearance, Madam Monnier and Marcel continued as though nothing had changed, society quickly moving past the tragedy. The pair even publicly mourned Blanche whenever the opportunity arose to solidify their story. They fed her scraps of food and ignored the increase in rats that were attracted to Blanche’s vomited food in the attic.
Marcel was also powerless in the household, living at home unmarried in his 50s, manipulated by their mother and never questioning Blanche’s treatment. It is obvious Madam Monnier had a tight grip on him and wanted the same on her daughter.
Finally, in 1901 an anonymous letter was sent to Paris Attorny General stating that a woman was being held against her will in the attic of 21 Rue De La Visitation, the letter stated that the woman was half-starved and living in putrid litter for the past 25 years.
The authorities were surprised by the accusations but still went to the house to investigate, if only to prove the letter false. When the police officers arrived at the Monnier estate, there was no response from within, except an elderly Madam Monnier, who peaked out of a nearby window and then continued to ignore the door. After forcing their way into the home, the officers followed a foul through the house, up towards stench up towards the attic. On finding the old door locked with a rusty padlock, the police had no choice but to break it down. Inside, they found Blanche Monnier.
After 25 years of starvation, squalor, and near-constant darkness, Blanche lay in a pool of her own excrement on a rotten mattress. She hid her face and head under a filthy blanket, terrified. Although 49 years old, she only weighed 55 pounds and was described by a witness on scene as:
“Laying completely naked on a straw mattress… all around her was a sort of crust made from excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables, fish, and rotten bread… bugs ran across the bed… the air was unbreathable, the odour given off by the room was so rank that it was impossible for us to stay any longer to proceed with our investigation”.
One of the officers on scene wrote in his statement that:
“We immediately gave the order to open the casement window. This was done with great difficulty. The old, dark curtains fell a heavy shower of dust. To open the shutters, it was necessary to remove them from their hinges.”
It took an entire group of police officers to remove the shutters, there was no possible way that the now feeble woman could have ever done so herself, despite her apparent attempts.
Blanche, scared and deranged, was wrapped in a blanket and rushed off to the Hôtel Dieu Hospital in Paris. At first sight, the doctors did not believe that Blanche would live due to how emaciated her body was.
Meanwhile, 75 years old Madam Monnier was found sitting calmly in the living room of her home at her writing-table, poised and refined, Marcel standing beside her. Although Marcel claimed that Blanche was “foul, angry, overly-excited, and full of rage”, back at the hospital a very different picture of the woman was being painted.
Blanche was bathed, clothed, and fed, incredibly grateful for the kindness the nurses offered her. She even remarked “how lovely it is” to breathe fresh air, although she still held an aversion to the light due to being kept for so long in the dark. Doctor’s remarked on how calmly she behaved, never once flying into a fit of anger or acting erratically as Marcel had claimed. He even tried to later claim that Blanche was insane and had never once tried to escape the locked room. But, according to court testimonies from neighbours, Blanche was heard screaming and begging to be freed, clearly shouting out words such as “police” “pity” and “freedom”. It’s highly likely the anonymous letter to the authorities was from one of them. One testimony stated hearing Blanche cry:
“What have I done to be locked up? I don’t deserve this horrible torture. God must not exist then, to let his creatures suffer in this way? And no one to come to my rescue!”
Both Madam Monnier and Marcel claimed that Blanche had brought the past 25 tortuous years on herself. Marcel even went so far as to claim that they felt moved to keep her locked away as only a crazy person would choose to stay in confinement, rather than break off a relationship. Madam Monnier was arrested and charged, however died in hospital just 15 days into her sentence due to a heart condition exacerbated by the protestors who surrounded her cell.
Marcel was also sentenced to 15 months in prison, however, being a lawyer he appealed and was unfortunately acquitted, much to the horror of the crowd in the courtroom. Marcel Monnier was deemed mentally incapacitated, and although the judges criticized his choices, they found that although he failed to do anything to help Blanche, there was nothing in the laws at the time to state he technically had to, and he never acted out violently against her.
Blanche had nowhere to go after the trial, she didn’t want to return to her family home to live with her brother, so she was taken to the only place a person in such mental duress could be: an asylum.
Although Blanche was taken care off and steadily regained weight, she never fully regained her sanity. She was diagnosed with various disorders, including anorexia nervosa, schizophrenia, exhibitionism, and coprophilia and died in 1913 in Blois Psychiatric Hospital just 12 years later.
Sadly, the attorney Blanche loved had passed suddenly in 1885, 6 years prior to her freedom. It is unclear if Blanche was ever told, but her family obviously didn’t feel that his passing was a good enough reason to release Blanche.
Blanche’s sanity has been debated over the years, some suggesting she showed signs of disturbance prior to her confinement, others that she was perfectly sane going into the attic and the solitary confinement drove her to madness.
Regardless of when Blanche’s mental illnesses first began, her imprisonment in her own home was revolting and truly hellish, something a human being should never have to live through.
In 1930, André Gide published a book titled ‘La Séquestrée de Poitiers’, translating to english as The Sequestree of Poitiers, or The Confined Woman of Poitiers. The book was a direct retelling of true-life events with little change, and thus the title became a monika for Blanche Monnier in the French public’s eyes.
Interestingly, while the true author of the anonymous letter never came forward, many have suggested that it was Marcel himself who wrote the letter. Some debate that he did it out of guilt, some due to the fact his mother was soon to die and Blanche would become his responsibility. Some have suggested a soldier who was courting one of the housemaids sent the letter, having no loyalties to the Monniers.
We will never know who wrote the letter, whoever did though was braver than an entire household of maids, servants, and all of their neighbours combined over 25 years. Truly, if these tragic events occurred today, all would be held accountable in part to the aiding and abetting of Blanche Monnier’s imprisonment.
Comments
Post a Comment