{"id":12610,"date":"2024-06-16T19:09:41","date_gmt":"2024-06-16T19:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=12610"},"modified":"2024-06-16T19:09:41","modified_gmt":"2024-06-16T19:09:41","slug":"horrific-story-of-woman-who-was-held-captive-for-25-years-by-her-own-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=12610","title":{"rendered":"Horrific story of woman who was held captive for 25 years by her own mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blanche Monnier was forced to face the consequences of her mother after dating a man she didn’t approve of<\/h2>\n

Warning: This article contains content which some readers may find distressing.<\/em><\/p>\n

A French woman was trapped in her own home for 25 years after making a love match that her mother disproved of.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The late Blanche Monnier was born on March 1, 1849, in Poitiers,\u00a0France<\/a>\u00a0to a respectable, middle-class family.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s said that the Monniers, who lived in a three-story manor home, were a well-known clan whose conservative ancestors were reportedly integral to establishing the small town.<\/p>\n

Ruling the roost was\u00a0matriarch<\/a>\u00a0Louise who wanted her socialite daughter to find a suitable husband.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s alleged that she began to feel disgruntled as Blanche turned down a stream of suitors during courting season.<\/p>\n

In 1876, Blanche turned 27 and expressed the\u00a0desire to marry<\/a>\u00a0an older lawyer, whom Louise had deemed \u2018penniless<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Blanche<\/div>\n

Blanche Monnier was imprisoned by her mother Louise. (Apic\/Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

Due to the anonymous man allegedly being disliked by the mother-of-two, Blanche was forbidden from seeing him – but that didn\u2019t stop her.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s said that the woman continued to date this older law practitioner and rumors of their\u00a0relationship<\/a>\u00a0began to circulate around Poitiers.<\/p>\n

In March 1875, Louise was seemingly angry with her daughter\u2019s defiance and experienced her final straw after Blanche returned to the family home after another meeting with the lawyer.<\/p>\n

Following the rendezvous, Blanche mysteriously went missing and soon the town began questioning where the popular young woman had gone.<\/p>\n

The Monniers claimed that their daughter had been sent to a medical facility for\u00a0mental health<\/a>\u00a0problems and the lawyer eventually died not knowing the fate of his beloved.<\/p>\n

But Blanche wasn\u2019t institutionalised – she was being kept under lock and key at the Monniers manor.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s said that in 1901, the office of the Paris Attorney General of France received a harrowing letter from an anonymous source.<\/p>\n

The correspondence, written in French, has since been translated to English and reads: \u201cMonsieur Attorney General: I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious occurrence.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Blanche<\/div>\n

Blanche died a decade after being freed. (Caras y Caretas)<\/cite><\/div>\n

\u201cI 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 own filth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite being sceptical about the initial message, officials were later deployed to the Monniers home where Louise admitted that the allegations were correct.<\/p>\n

She took the inspectors up to the third floor where Blanche had been kept as a malnourished prisoner for 25 years.<\/p>\n

One\u00a0policeman<\/a>\u00a0later recounted that Blanche was \u2018lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress\u2019 surrounded by a crust made from \u2018excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables, fish and rotten bread\u2019.<\/p>\n

“We also saw oyster shells and bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier\u2019s bed,” he continued. “The air was so unbreathable, the odor given off by the room was so rank, that it was impossible for us to stay any longer to proceed with our investigation.”<\/p>\n

Following the discovery of Blanche, Louise was arrested and the woman was taken to hospital where it was thought she could die due to lack of sustenance.<\/p>\n

Louise claimed that her daughter had become ill and suffered a mental breakdown and that she did \u2018all she could\u2019 to keep her alive.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Louise never faced trial as she died 15 days after her capture, at the age of 75.<\/p>\n

Instead, her son and Blanche\u2019s brother, Marcel Monnier, appeared in court and was initially convicted of criminal confinement and the torture of his sister.<\/p>\n

He maintained his innocence but was later sentenced to serve 15 months behind bars.<\/p>\n

However, he was eventually acquitted on appeal; he was deemed mentally incapacitated and judges found a \u2018duty to rescue\u2019 did not exist in legislation.<\/p>\n

Following Blanche\u2019s hospital stay, she regained weight and partially recovered from her horrifying ordeal.<\/p>\n

She suffered from anorexia nervosa and schizophrenia and lived out the rest of her life in a sanitarium.<\/p>\n

Blanche died on October 13, 1913 at the age of 64 and became the subject of author Andr\u00e9 Gide\u2019s 1930 book,\u00a0La S\u00e9questr\u00e9e de Poitiers.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s said that the Nobel Prize in Literature-winning writer changed little of this haunting tale but the name of the protagonists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blanche Monnier was forced to face the consequences of her mother after dating a man…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":94,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}