August 1, 2021

locked 25 years in a room

Blanche Monnier’s mother did the unimaginable in an effort to prevent her daughter from falling in love with a commoner. The attorney general of Paris got a bizarre letter one day in May 1901, claiming that a famous family in the city was hiding a filthy secret. Despite the fact that the letter was unsigned and handwritten, the attorney general was so concerned by its contents that he decided to investigate right away.

The cops may have had some reservations when they arrived at the Monnier estate: the affluent family had a pristine reputation. Madam Monnier was well-known in Parisian high society for her philanthropic efforts, and she had even been honoured with a community award for her services. Marcel, her son, had succeeded in school and was now a respected lawyer.

Blanche, the Monniers’ lovely young daughter, had not been seen in almost 25 years. The young socialite, described by friends as “very kind and good-natured,” had just disappeared in her prime, just as high-society suitors began to come knocking. No one gave this odd incident any consideration anymore, and the family carried on with their lives as if it had never occurred.

Blanche Monnier Has Been Found

The cops conducted a routine check of the estate and found nothing unusual until they detected a foul stench emanating from one of the upper rooms. The door had been padlocked shut, it was discovered after further inquiry. The cops shattered the lock and stormed into the room after noticing something was wrong, completely unprepared for the horrors that lay inside.

The room was completely dark, with the single window shuttered and covered behind heavy drapes. One of the policemen quickly ordered the window to be smashed open due to the overpowering smell in the darkroom. As the sunshine poured in, the cops saw that the foul stench was caused by decaying food scraps littering the floor around a dilapidated bed on which an emaciated woman was tied.

Blanche Monnier had not seen the sun in more than two decades until the police officer opened the window. Since her unexplained “disappearance” 25 years ago, she has been kept nude and tied to her bed. The now-middle-aged lady was covered in her filth and surrounded by the vermin that had been drawn in by the decaying leftovers, unable to even get up to relieve herself.

The shocked officers were unable to remain in the chamber for more than a few minutes due to the overwhelming stench of dirt and decay: Blanche had been there for twenty-five years. Her mother and brother were put under arrest, and she has transported to a hospital right away.

Blanche was conscious and commented on “how wonderful it is” to breathe fresh air again, according to hospital personnel, despite being very starved (she weighed just 55 pounds when she was rescued). Her whole tragic tale started to surface gradually. Blanche had found a suitor all those years ago. However, he was an elderly, impoverished lawyer, not the young, wealthy aristocrat her family had thought she would marry. Blanche declined to marry a more acceptable man, despite her mother’s insistence.

Madame Monnier retaliated by locking her daughter in a padlocked chamber until she submitted to her will. Blanche Monnier refused to give up despite the passage of time. She was kept in her cell even after her lover died, with only rats and lice for companionship. Over the next twenty-five years, neither her brother nor any of the household servants helped her; they subsequently said they were too afraid of the mistress of the house to risk it.

Blanche’s rescue letter was never identified; one storey is that a servant exposed the family secret to Blanche’s lover, who was so shocked that he rushed directly to the attorney general. The public anger was so strong that an angry crowd gathered outside Madame Monnier’s home, causing her to have a heart attack. Her daughter would be freed 15 days later, and she would die 15 days later.

The situation resembles that of Elisabeth Fritzl, who was imprisoned in her own home for twenty-five years. Blanche Monnier experienced permanent psychological harm as a result of her decades-long incarceration, and she died in a French sanitarium in 1913.

Aishwarya Says:

I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.

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