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Woman fell in love with wrong man then was locked in attic for 25 years by parents

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT 'The air was so unbreathable, the odour 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 was found in a horrendous state]

View 4 Images

Blanche Monnier was found in a horrendous state(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

In a heartbreaking discovery a woman was found in a nauseating crust made from excrement after her family locked her in the attic for loving the wrong man.

Police Commissioner Bucheton made the horrifying discovery in the rafters of the aristocratic Monnier familys grand home.

He was alerted to a problem through a letter claiming a half-starved woman had been held against her will for over 25 years in a room with "unbreathable" air it smelled so bad.

On the evening of May 23 1901, Bucheton knocked on their door expecting to find nothing as the Monniers were a well-to-do French family, according to the New York Times.

However, Bucheton persisted and spoke to Louise who had survived her husband Emiles passing. The couple were well regarded, charitable and sociable.

The couple had a son, Marcel, a law school graduate. They also had Blanche who was described as "very gentle and good-natured". Blanche had stunned society in her youth with her beauty attracting many young bachelors.

Tragically, under the veneer of lavish parties and social engagements, Blanche was deeply troubled. She had a fraught history of eating disorders and a difficult relationship with her overbearing mother.

[She was locked in the attic for 25 years]

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She was locked in the attic for 25 years(Image: Youtube)

However, Blanche had not been seen in 25 years. When Blanche was still in her mid-20s, she vanished without a trace.

The family had publicly voiced their deep concern and grief for their supposedly missing daughter. Blanches friends assumed she had fled to begin a new life in Paris, escaping her conservative family.

But the police stumbled on a sickening truth. Commissioner Bucheton and his officers arrived at the Monnier household, feeling unwelcome in the home as they searched each room and made their way upstairs where they found a padlocked door.

On opening it they found an emaciated woman in her early 50s, lying in her own filth. Her skeletal, unclothed body was moments away from becoming a corpse and weighed just 25kg. She was only fed scraps for decades.

[Blanche was moved to a phsyciatric hospital]

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Blanche was moved to a phsyciatric hospital(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Officers said the smell was so foul they could not stay in the room. One officer said: "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 odour given off by the room was so rank, that it was impossible for us to stay any longer to proceed with our investigation."

Following a confession from her mother, Louise, it became clear she had imprisoned her daughter for falling in love with what she deemed to be the wrong man.

The Monniers believed Blanche would marry a fellow member of the French elite. However, she had set her heart on a penniless lawyer who was considered completely inappropriate by her family.

[Police could not stand the stench in the room]

View 4 Images

Police could not stand the stench in the room(Image: Youtube)

The New York Times article published on 9 June 1901 said: "Time passed, and Blanche 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."

The case provoked considerable public outrage, with an angry crowd gathering outside the Monniers home. Blanche's mother, Louise, was taken into custody but passed away just 15 days after her daughter was freed.

Her brother Marcel was initially handed a 15-month prison sentence a mere fraction of what his sister had endured but was he was cleared after claiming that Blanche could have chosen to leave at any point.

Blanche, was so traumatised she was unable to return to her previous vibrant social life as her physical and mental health withered away in her time locked up.

She spent the following 12 years of her life at a psychiatric hospital in Bois, where she passed away in 1913. She is remembered by the sorrowful nickname, La Squestre de Poitiers - The Confined Woman of Poitiers. The identity of the letter writer was never been revealed.

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