Nobody was able to ignore a letter that arrived at the Paris Attorney General’s office in 1901. The author disclosed a startling fact: Blanche Monnier, a Poitiers native, had spent an incredible 25 years imprisoned in a tiny attic room.
Blanche’s condition was depicted in the letter as “half-starved, living on a putrid litter,” with filth all around her.
A scene right out of a horror movie greeted the police when they got there.
I was born into a respectable household.
We must go back to France in the 1870s, a turbulent and dramatic era, in order to completely understand the terrible and tragic story of Blanche Monnier do Marconnay.
Blanche was born in Poitiers, France, in 1849 into a respectable, traditional bourgeois family. The town is renowned for its Romanesque churches and is a historic location with rich traditions. Charles and Louise Monnier, Blanche’s parents, were well-established members of the community.

Madame Louise Monnier, her mother, was well-known for her charity endeavors and even won a community award for them. The family left a strong legacy: their son Marcel had graduated from law school and was now employed as an administrative official, and Louise’s late husband had been the head of a local arts faculty.
Blanche was a vibrant young lady who longed to forge her own way, and Marcel admired his mother. In sharp contrast to her family’s more conventional expectations, she exuded vitality and independence with her wide eyes, thick, curly hair, and lively demeanor.
These characteristics will ultimately prove to be Blanche’s undoing. However, nobody could have predicted what would happen to the well-liked socialite in 1876.
disappeared completely
Blanche Monnier attracted the interest of numerous prospective suitors that year. She was largely considered a delightful young woman, with her physical attractiveness making her a desirable match in society. She was described as “very gentle and good-natured.”
She was frequently in the spotlight due to her family’s high standing, and it appeared that she would soon find a suitable husband. However, one day she simply vanished.
According to subsequent press stories, Blanche was 26 years old, still enrolled in law school, and living at home at the time.
Eventually, Blanche’s loved ones started to question her whereabouts. However, her mother gave them all the same response. Louise Monnier claimed that her daughter was either traveling or had “gone away.” After a while, so much time had gone by that many members of Blanche’s family and acquaintances thought she had relocated overseas. People ceased to inquire about her as they were never given definitive answers.
She was incarcerated in her own house, living in appalling conditions, but no one knew it. It would take 25 years for someone to find her, and when they did, an unthinkable tale came to light.
A cryptic message
The Paris Attorney General’s office received an enigmatic anonymous letter on May 23, 1901.
Attorney General Monsieur, I have the privilege of alerting you to a very severe situation. For the past 25 years, a spinster has been imprisoned in Madame Monnier’s home, living in filth and half-starved,” the letter stated.
The police encountered opposition when they tried to conduct an investigation at the Monnier villa. Crime Wire claims that Louise Monnier resisted their attempts to enter, even disregarding their presence and sticking her head out the window.
Then, as they pushed the door open, a strong stink hit them. The strongest odor was coming from a locked attic door, which they found when they went upstairs.

The officers struggled to unlock the door and succeeded in prying open a boarded-up window. When daylight eventually made its way into the little space, it showed a bleak image. They broke down the padlocked door and pushed their way into the attic.
Blanche, now in her early 50s, lay there in the room’s corner, bony and gaunt, gazing at the meager rays of sunlight that hardly reached her. She weighed just fifty-five pounds, covered with dung and rotten food, and surrounded by insects. She was no longer the young woman she had been; the surroundings were appalling.
Later, one officer recalled:
The moment light came into the room, we saw a woman named Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier sleeping on a bed in the back with a disgustingly dirty blanket covering her head and torso. The poor woman was on a mattress of decaying straw, resting naked. A kind of crust formed around her, composed of old bread, bits of meat, vegetables, fish, and excrement. Additionally, we observed cockroaches and oyster shells scurrying around Mademoiselle Monnier’s bed.
On the dirty walls: a message
“Shall I ever regain my freedom, or am I to be for ever consigned to this living tomb?” Blanche wrote on the dirty walls surrounding her during moments of epiphany, according to a 1901 article in the New Zealand Times.
Doctors at the Paris hospital initially thought the frightened woman wouldn’t make it, so they wrapped her in a blanket and hurried her there. Her hair was matted down to her legs, and she was terribly emaciated.
Madame Monnier, Blanche’s 75-year-old mother, sat placidly at her desk wearing a stunning black-and-white outfit as Blanche was being carried out of the villa. She admitted to locking up her own daughter and was taken into custody right away.
The cause of the incarceration
Louise claims that it all started one evening in 1876 when Blanche crept stealthily up the stairs to her chamber in an attempt to avoid waking her brother and mother. She was unaware that they had already woken up and were waiting for her upstairs.
They had come up with the idea of locking Blanche in a tiny attic room until she consented to break up with the lawyer she had fallen for. Louise later told the police that Blanche was more determined than they had thought. Blanche chose to wait for her mother once she became accustomed to the complete darkness and understood that there was no way out. Louise, on the other hand, was as obstinate and would not let her daughter go.
What, then, was the cause of this entire situation? For what reason would Louise confine her own daughter for twenty-five years? Love is the solution.

Blanche finally fell in love with a man after years of looking for a compatible partner. His lack of wealth and the fact that he was not from an aristocratic family were the issues. Despite becoming a lawyer, he was essentially broke. While some sources characterize her love as a young barrister with “brain but no money,” others claim he was significantly older than Blanche.
Blanche was aware that Madame Louise Monnier, her mother, would never condone him.
Initially, Louise threatened to confine Blanche in the tiny attic room until she broke up with him and promised to find a better husband. However, the days grew into weeks, months, and years.
The final words of Louise Monnier
Louise refused to release Blanche’s daughter, even after her beloved died in 1885. The harsh hold of her mother’s dominance never relaxed, and Blanche continued to be imprisoned in that small, dim chamber, her heart exploding every day.
Despite her severe malnourishment, Blanche was remarkably lucid, according to hospital staff. She even called the simple sensation of inhaling fresh air again “lovely” to convey her happiness. The fact that she had lived at all was, in many ways, a miracle.
Following Blanche’s release, the case underwent yet another significant development that made headlines all over the world. One morning in the jail infirmary, Louise Monnier died of a heart attack after telling the police her story.
Her body was unable to withstand the stress, even though it had only been 15 days since her imprisonment. In actuality, she was largely hated. There were even reports of a vengeful mob assembling outside her house, apparently in search of retribution.
Louise is believed to have moaned, “Ah, ma pauvre Blanche,” in reference to her daughter.
Monnier, Marcel
Charges would be brought against Blanche’s brother for helping his mother abduct and jail his sister.
Marcel Monnier was given a 15-month prison sentence a few days after the trial started on October 7, 1901. The verdict caused the courtroom to erupt in cheers, but the elation was short-lived. Marcel filed an appeal, arguing that Blanche had never been put in jail and could have left the house at any time, but she didn’t.
In November of 1901, Marcel was found not guilty. Despite his legal knowledge, the court determined that he lacked the mental capacity to step in and free his sister. Although the judges chastised him for his passivity, they pointed out that at the time, there was no explicit “duty to rescue” established by the penal code, therefore it was impossible to punish him.
Blanche Monnier was saved by whom?
Many people have pondered throughout the years who wrote the letter that finally resulted in Blanche’s rescue. The enigmatic missive, which was sent to the city’s public prosecutor, didn’t seem to have been delivered via ordinary mail.
Who delivered it is still a mystery. According to some theories, it might have been written by a former soldier who had a relationship with one of the maids but had no loyalty to the Monnier family. Blanche would have most certainly perished in her little prison without the letter, even if we may never find out who sent it.

Blanche Monnier lived in seclusion for 25 years, and her narrative is a mystery that has generated a lot of conjecture. Although it is evident that she was kept in a small attic for many years, it is difficult to confirm the specifics of her imprisonment. It was challenging to obtain a clear picture of what actually occurred because media reporting from the early 20th century were frequently prejudiced or lacking.
We do know that Blanche’s experience garnered a lot of attention, especially after her narrative was recounted in André Gide’s 1930 novel La Séquestrée de Poitiers. The names of the major protagonists are the only alleged changes made to the eerie story by Nobel Prize-winning author Gide.
Netflix’s Blanche Monnier
There isn’t currently a feature film on Blanche Monnier available on Netflix or anywhere else. However, a lot of books have been written about her narrative, and there are also documentaries on the subject.
Although there are still many unanswered issues regarding the specifics of her story, it is indisputable that Blanche’s bravery in the face of unthinkable circumstances merits recognition.
Even while we will never completely comprehend the intricacies of her life, her tale never ceases to enthrall and motivate. Remember to tell others about this amazing adventure; sometimes, the most significant histories are the ones that are secret and terrible.