Blanche Monnier was found in a tiny room covered in the vermin and her own filth. She was locked there for 25 years by her mother. Her mother didn’t like Blanche’s choice of husband and decided to punish her daughter. In 1901, the attorney general of Paris received a strange note. It said that the Monniers were keeping a person locked in a room against his will. The Monniers were a wealthy family and had a spotless reputation. Madam Monnier was known for her charitable work. Her son, Marcel, was a respectable lawyer. But the attorney general decided to investigate the case. The police made a search in the Monniers’ house but found nothing. Then they noticed a putrid smell coming from upstairs. They discovered a locked door. They smashed the lock and broke in. The room was small and black. The only window was shuttered closed. The smell was so unbearable that a policeman broke the window. The officers saw an emaciated woman chained to the bed. She was surrounded by rotten scraps of food and dirt. Insects were covering her bed and her body. She weighed about 22 kilograms. It was Blanche Monnier who had been living in such conditions for 25 years. Blanche was immediately taken to the hospital. Doctors said that she was quite lucid. 25 years earlier, Blanche fell in love with a poor lawyer who was much older than her. Her mother was against her choice and wanted her to wed a wealthy aristocrat. When Blanche refused to find another suiter, her mother locked her in the room. Blanche’s mother decided to keep her daughter there until she changed her mind. Years were passing by but Blanche remained firm in her decision. Even when her beloved one died she was still locked in the room. Neither her brother nor the servants tried to help her. It was never revealed who wrote the letter to the attorney general. Some believed it was a servant. According to another version, it was Blanche’s brother, Marcel. Blanche’s mother was arrested but she died of a heart attack 15 days later. Marcel was sentenced to 15 months in prison but then released. He proved that he never physically restricted his sister’s movement. Blanche lived in a French sanitarium till her death in 1913.
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