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Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier – the girl who was locked in a dungeon for 25 years

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Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier

The disturbing picture above is not a still shot from a horror movie, but rather is a hospital-room photo of Blanche Monnier, a French girl who was kept captive for 25 years in a padlocked, shuttered room where she was forced to live amidst pests, rats, human excrement, and filth. 

Her discovery occurred on May 23, 1901, after the Paris Attorney General received an anonymous letter indicating a woman was being held captive in a home located on “21 rue de la Visitation” street in a wealthy neighborhood of Poiters, France.

The anonymous letter read in part:

Second page of Blanch Monnier anonymous letter

“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 own filth.”

The letter surprised the police as they knew that 75-year-old widower Madame Louise Monnier Demarconnay and her son Marcel Monnier, a law school graduate and previous sub-prefect of Puget Théniers, lived at the address noted in the letter.  The Monnier family were an upper-middle class family who hailed from the aristocratic Poitiers family and were honored in the region (the Paris suburb of Poitiers was named after them).  Madame Louise’s husband, Emile Monnier, who had been the head of a local arts faculty, died in 1879, many years earlier.  The family had even earned the prestigious Committee of Good Works award, a prize honoring citizens who displayed the highest of virtues.

On the other hand, police recalled that 25 years prior, without drawing any suspicion from the authorities, their daughter, Blanche Monnier, a “joyous and playful” woman with a “wealth of beautiful hair and big, brilliant eyes,” disappeared without a trace when she was 25 years old.

Police discover the captive woman shuttered in a dark room

Police arrived at the home, forced the door open, and found an emaciated Blanche Monnier lying in a pool of feces and food debris on a bed in an upstairs room.  Her head hidden under the covers, the 49-year-old woman, who now weighed a mere fifty-five pounds, was naked, scared, and deranged.  She hadn’t seen the Sun in 24 years.  A witness to the event described how Blanche Monnier was discovered:

“We immediately gave the order to open the casement window.  This was done with great difficulty, for the old dark-colored curtains fell down in a heavy shower of dust.  To open the shutters, it was necessary to remove them from their right hinges.  As soon as light entered the room, we noticed, in the back, lying on a bed, her head and body covered by a repulsively filthy blanket, a woman identified as Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier.  The unfortunate woman was lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress.  All around her was formed a sort of crust made from excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables, fish, and rotten bread.  We also saw oyster shells and bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier’s bed.  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.”

Blanche Monnier’s health

Blanche Monnier in bed

The terrified woman was quickly wrapped in a blanket and rushed to the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Paris, where doctors initially thought that she would die.  Blanche Monnier’s mother, 75-year-old Madame Monnier, was found sitting calmly in the living room garbed in a dressing gown decorated with little black and white squares.  Police searched the home and questioned both the mother and brother.

At the hospital, workers noted that Blanche took great pleasure at being washed and able to breathe clean air.  She exclaimed, “How lovely it is.” 

They noted that she had a great aversion to light, according to her instincts, she couldn’t stand it.  Despite claims by Blanche’s brother that she was “foul, angry, overly excited, and full of rage”, doctors noted that Blanche was calm, never wavering for a moment into fits of anger or excitement.

Imprisoned in her room for 25 years, she refused to forsake her true love

During the subsequent investigation, the truth began to trickle forth (although many questions remain unanswered to this day).  Around her twenty-fifth year, Blanch Monnier fell in love with an older attorney who lived nearby, possibly even bearing a child from the liaison.  Her mother forbade the relationship, first arguing, then pleading. When Blanche refused to not marry the “penniless lawyer,” Louise plotted with her son to develop a plan to stop the marriage.  One night Blanche was locked in an upper room of the house until she agreed to abandon the relationship.  At the time, the mother thought the girl would relent and agree to her demands.

A June 9, 1901, New York Times article explained what happened next:

“Time passed and Blanche Monnier 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.”

Time passed slowly for Blanche, who spent the next 25 years locked away in the room.

Blanche’s brother, Marcel, would later claim that Blanche was insane and never attempted to escape the locked and shuttered room.  But according to court testimony, several witnesses claimed that they often heard Blanche screaming and pleading, including explicit mentions of words such as “police,” “pity,” and “freedom.”  On August 16, 1892, one witness heard Blanche scream the following words:

“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!”

The aftermath

Blanche Monnier in 1901

Blanche’s mother, Madame Monnier Demarconnay, was arrested the next day and imprisoned at around six o’clock in the evening.  Despite the precautions of the police, a surging crowd gathered at the prison with shouts of hatred and revenge.  Madame Monnier Demarconnay was immediately placed in the infirmary (she suffered from heart disease), where she unexpectedly died 15 days later.  It was said that her last words were spoken to the doctors who entered the room just moments before she died.  They recalled that she cried out, “Ah, my poor Blanche!”

Her brother, Marcel, stood trial alone, accused of being his mother’s accomplice.  The trial opened on October 7, 1901.  Marcel was found guilty four days later and sentenced to 15 months in prison. The judgment on October 11 raised applause in the courtroom, and outside on the Palace Square, the crowd showed their approval, screaming and shouting hostile threats at the convicted man.  Marcel immediately appealed the verdict, and in a judgment announced on November 20, 1901, the court of appeal found that he had exercised no violence on the woman, and hence, he was acquitted and released from jail.

Although Blanche Monnier did put on some weight over time, she never regained her sanity.  She died in a Blois psychiatric hospital in 1913, 12 years after she was discovered captive in her room.

Additional Notes

Who sent the letter?

There are two theories about who sent the anonymous letter notifying authorities of the Blanche Monnier‘s captivity.  It was first suspected that her brother had sent the anonymous letter.  Knowing that his mother was close to death, it is surmised that he sent the letter so that his sister would be rescued before he became her sole caretaker.  Later it was thought that an ex-soldier, who assisted one of the housemaids but felt no loyalty to the household, had sent the letter to authorities.  The identity of Blanche’s savior remains a mystery.

Blanche Monnier name variants

The captive woman’s name was Blanche Monnier.  In historical documents, her name was often changed to protect her identity.  At times she has been incorrectly referenced by various authors as Melanie Blanche.

Blanche Monnier Movies

If you are interested in watching movies about Blanche Monnier, there are a few options available.

The Secret of the Locked Room (1962)

This movie is based on the true story of Blanche Monnier. It tells the story of a young woman who is locked in a room by her mother and kept there for years. The movie follows her story as she is discovered and rescued. It is a powerful and emotional film that is definitely worth watching.

The Girl in the Basement (2021)

This is a recent movie that is based on the Blanche Monnier story. It tells the story of a young woman who is kidnapped and kept in a basement for years. The movie is a fictionalized account of the Blanche Monnier story, but it captures the same sense of horror and desperation that she must have felt during her captivity.

Photos and documents

Additional historical photos and document scans regarding the Blanche Monnier case may be viewed below.

Image Credits

In-Article Image Credits

Mattress being thrown from the window of Blanche Monnier's room via Altered Dimensions with usage type - Public Domain
Mattress being thrown from Blanche Monnier's room via Altered Dimensions with usage type - Public Domain
Room where Blanche Monnier was held via Quora with usage type - Public Domain
Blanche Monnier in bed via Vintage.es with usage type - Public Domain
Blanche Monnier (1849-1913) via Wikipedia Commons with usage type - Public Domain. Illustrirtes Wiener Extrablatt 9. Oktober 1901
Blanche Monnier in 1901 via Wikipedia Commons by Caras y Caretas with usage type - Public Domain. 1 January 1901
Blanche Monnier article - New York Times 1901 via New York Times with usage type - Public Domain
French newspaper article about Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier 1901 via Vintage.es with usage type - Public Domain
Second page of Blanch Monnier anonymous letter via Vintage.es with usage type - Public Domain
Second page of Blanch Monnier anonymous letter via Vintage.es with usage type - Public Domain
via Vintage.es with usage type - Public Domain

Featured Image Credit

via Vintage.es with usage type - Public Domain

 

1 thought on “Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier – the girl who was locked in a dungeon for 25 years

  1. I cannot believe that this is not a far more well known piece of history..

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