Episode 3: The Living Skeleton - Shame, Stigma & Solitary Confinement: Blanche Monnier
Listen to episode here:
It’s 1901, France. An anonymous letter alerts authorities to a peculiar case. An accusation that a prominent wealthy family have imprisoned their only daughter in a dingy attic for decades. Police raid the townhouse only to find an emaciated figure, crouching in the darkness on a filthy straw mattress. A dead father. An evil mother. An indifferent brother. An entire town afraid to question the most powerful family in the region. A lost love. And finally, a forgotten daughter left to die a slow, agonising and solitary death, as she starved in a tiny, darkened room. This is what we’ve been told, but it may not all be entirely true. This is the story of Blanche Monnier.
The Discovery
Sitting in his office, Monsieur Léon Bulot, Attorney General of Paris was alerted to a meticulously handwritten letter addressed to him. This letter made a seemingly incredulous claim about a prestigious family of noble origins. It wasn’t signed, and there was no way to trace the sender. It read:
‘Monsieur Attorney General, I have the honour 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 25 years – in a word, in her own filth’.
Police were dispatched at once to the provincial town of Poitiers, 430km from Paris. It was 5pm before Commissioner Bucheton, a senior police officer with the regional police force, along with three agents arrived at the door of the Monnier residence. Upon entering the large townhouse, Commissioner Bucheton and his men conducted a room-by-room search, beginning on the ground floor. They searched for any sign that something was amiss. They climbed each floor and moved through the building, checking bedrooms and studies, and drawing rooms until they arrived at a heavy door leading to an attic on the top floor of the house.
The door was chained and padlocked shut. They were entirely unprepared for what they would find behind the attic door. The putrid stench hit them first. They used what they could to cover their noses and mouths. The room was dark, dank, and unventilated. An unnamed eyewitness, most likely Bucheton or one of his agents, wrote the following account:
‘We immediately gave the order to open the casement window. This was done with great difficulty, for the old dark-coloured 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 witness continued:
‘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’.
Blanche was severely malnourished, covered in sores and lesions, and unable to speak coherently. She was immediately transported to the nearest hospital by ambulance to receive medical treatment. While doctors were able to stabilise her condition, her mental and physical health would never fully recover.
Background
Blanche Monnier was born on 1st March 1849 to Charles-Émile and Louise-Leonide Monnier, a wealthy French aristocratic family, and prominent Catholics. She had an older brother, Marcel, born the previous year. The Monnier family were highly respected in their community. Blanche’s mother, Louise was the daughter of a successful stockbroker, and married Charles-Émile when she was just 22. Multiple accounts paint Louise as a difficult and domineering woman, who was miserly, highly-strung and had issues around personal hygiene. A maid who worked in the Monnier household testified that Madame Monnier wore the same filthy dress each day, and that when her children were young, she heavily monitored and restricted the food they were allowed to eat.
How exactly Blanche ended up confined to the attic is unknown. The story that we have been told is that Blanche’s father Charles had died, and her mother needed her to marry well to secure the fortunes of the Monnier family. In 1876, Blanche fell in love with a Protestant lawyer who was much older than her and lived in the same town. Her mother forbade her to marry what she called a ‘penniless lawyer’. Blanche was locked away in the attic as punishment until she changed her mind and agreed to marry a man of her mother’s choosing. She never did.
Neighbours and townspeople were told a variety of stories to explain away Blanche’s sudden absence. They were told that she moved away. That she left the country. Had moved to Scotland. That she was staying with family. Some reports even claim that her family told people she had died and publicly mourned her loss.
Alternative Telling
Blanche is said to have had a happy childhood, yet as she grew older, she clashed more and more with her mother. She began to study religion and even considered becoming a nun. She began to spend more and more time alone in her room and disclosed to those closest to her, several mystical experiences. She also began to restrict her food intake, perhaps under the guise of religious fasting.
In 1872, when she was 23, Blanche became ill with a fever, and while her body recovered, it is said that her mind never did. Blanche was locked in her parent’s attic in 1876, at the age of 27, but her father, Charles, was still alive then, and didn’t die until six years later in 1882. It is very possible that Charles was fully aware of and approved of Blanche’s confinement. Residents of Poitiers assumed that Blanche had moved away or died, and eventually stopped asking about her. This part is true.
Was Blanche’s deliberate concealment an attempt to avoid the public embarrassment of a mentally ill family member and the reputational damage it could inflict on the Monnier name? The truth is that we just don’t know. We don’t even know if there ever was an engagement or a love-match relationship, or if this was invented by the press or others at the time to further embellish an already unbelievable story.
The few details we have about her mysterious suitor point to an individual who may well have existed, and he and Blanche may indeed have planned to marry or had some kind of friendship or relationship. The Monnier matriarch was also not near destitute, as some have suggested, or in need of the fortune that a strong marriage match would provide, should her daughter marry a wealthy suitor.
Blanche’s Care
There is ample evidence, including court testimony and witness statements, that Blanche’s mother, Louise, did provide some care to her daughter during her forced confinement. Two doctors were tasked with Blanche’s care over the years. At some point between 1872 and 1876, the Monnier’s hired a nurse, Marie Fazy to care for Blanche. It was reported that Marie was a devoted companion to Blanche for at least twenty years, attending to her every need, and even sleeping in the same room as her. Marie died in 1896. This was five full years before Blanche was discovered, alone in the dingy attic of the Monnier residence.
After her rescue, Blanche was examined by a slew of doctors and medical professionals. She was cleaned, her wounds dressed and received the medical care that she had been lacking. She was diagnosed with a range of conditions, including anorexia hysteria, schizophrenia, exhibitionism and coprophilia.
Upon Blanche’s discovery and rescue, there was uproar in the town of Poitiers, and indeed, in all of France. The case became international news. The press labelled her the ‘Living Skeleton of Poitiers’. It was a media sensation. Both Louise and Marcel were arrested. Louise’s health had been deteriorating for some time prior to this latest crisis, and she died of a heart attack in prison, while awaiting trial. Her last words were supposedly, ‘Oh, my poor Blanche!’. After her death, all attention switched to her son, Marcel, who bore the brunt of the outrage felt by the public.
Testimony
Marcel Monnier was charged with complicity to violence. His trial began on the 7th of October 1901 and lasted for five days. It emerged that Blanche’s presence within the home was not a secret. Everyone who worked within Madame Monnier’s household was aware of Blanche’s condition but were forbidden from speaking of this outside of the walls of the home. After Marie’s death, Louise did not replace her with another nurse. Instead, she hired a succession of young and inexperienced maids, who were, as Franc puts it, ‘entirely incapable of managing the needs of a very sick woman’.
Evidence presented at trial suggests that Louise hampered any efforts to properly care for her daughter. For example, one maid testified that she requested clean bed linen and nightshirts for Blanche, and Louise refused, stating that she would only rip them off her and soil them again. In 1899, Louise hired two young maids, Juliette Dupuis and Eugénie Tabeau to look after Blanche. In early April 1901, approximately six weeks prior to Blanche’s discovery, Louise became extremely ill. With Louise temporarily incapacitated, it fell to Marcel to assume responsibility for his mother’s household, including overseeing Blanche’s care.
Downfall
This brings us back to the anonymous letter that was sent to the Attorney General of Paris. Even now, more than one hundred years after the fact, we are no closer to uncovering the writer of this letter. Speculation was rife in the press and among the public. Over the decades since, many have suggested that it was Marcel himself who had written the letter. Others are just as convinced that one of the recently hired maids, Juliette or Eugénie, or someone close to them was responsible for exposing the dark secrets hidden within the walls of the Monnier residence.
During his trial, Marcel’s defence lawyer argued that there had been no violence levied against the victim, and that it could not even be proven that she was abducted or imprisoned. Monsieur Marcel Monnier was found guilty of the charge against him and was sentenced to fifteen months in prison. At the time of sentencing, there was no law in place in France that compelled an individual to assist a person at-risk of harm. Immediately after the sentence was read out in court, Marcel and his lawyer appealed the verdict. They argued that Marcel was not responsible for the crime since he was not the legal owner and guardian of the Monnier home. The appeal was successful, and Marcel walked free in November 1901, mere weeks after the end of his trial.
Blanche spent the days and weeks after her discovery being treated by nuns at Hotel-Dieu before being transferred to the Psychiatric Hospital in Blois, a town south of Paris. By then, she had recovered as much as was possible. Blanche remained at the hospital for the rest of her life, before dying on 13th October 1913, at the age of 64. After the trial, Marcel fled Poitiers and lived out his retirement years in a chateau in the Pyrenees. He died the same year as his sister.
We have heard two distinct stories here, both differing narratives, and both knotted together at key points. Where they meet and diverge will probably always be a point of contention. As with every story, the truth likely lies somewhere between the two accounts. Had she not been discovered crouching in that filthy attic, we would never have known Blanche’s story. Her death would have been a footnote in history, like so many that came before her. Tiny tragedies are still tragedies, even if no one is there to bear witness to them.
Sources
‘Blanche Monnier’, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Monnier
Denninger, Lindsay, ‘What the Crown Left Out About Nerissa & Katherine Bowes-Lyons’.
Dimuro, Gina, ‘Blanche Monnier Was Kept Hidden In Her Room For 25 Years, Just For Falling In Love’
https://allthatsinteresting.com/blanche-monnier
Franc, Jackie, ‘Prisoner in her bedroom for 25 years: the terrible reason why Blanche was locked up’.
Ivry, Benjamin & Gide, André, ‘The Confined Woman of Poitiers’, New England Review, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Summer, 2003), pp. 99-132, Middlebury College Publications.
Gonzales, Inigo, ‘This Woman’s Family Locked Her In A Bedroom For 25 Years, Leaving Her Emaciated And Insane’.
https://www.ranker.com/list/mademoiselle-blanche-monnier-facts/inigo-gonzalez
Gritt, Emma & Kent, David, ‘Woman locked away in attic for 25 years and left to rot because mum didn’t like lover’.
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/world-news/woman-locked-away-attic-25-24916461
Jablonowski, Julia, ‘From Hysteria to Anorexia Nervosa: An Evolution of Medical Terminology’.
https://histmed.collegeofphysicians.org/from-hysteria-to-anorexia-nervosa/
‘Jill Meagher’, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jill_Meagher
‘Kelut Volcanic Eruption. 1901’
http://volcanolive.com/kelut.html
‘May, 1901’, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1901
Newsroom Infobae Staff Writer, ‘The beautiful young woman who lived for 25 years locked up by her mother’s decision and the anonymous clue that rescued her when she weighed 24 kilos’.
Nithursan, M., ‘The Girl Who Was Locked in a Dungeon For 25 Years’.
https://medium.com/@Nithur/the-girl-who-was-locked-in-a-dungeon-for-25-years-16947e5698
‘Peter Sutcliffe’, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe
‘Pet’s Sematary’, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Sematary
Pidd, Helen & Topping, Alexandra, 'It was toxic': how sexism threw police off the trail of the Yorkshire Ripper’, The Guardian, 13th November, 2020.
‘Poitiers’, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poitiers
‘Rosemary Kennedy’ Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy
Schizophrenia, Mayo Clinic
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443
Staff Writer, ‘The Disappointments Room (2016)’, History vs Hollywood
https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/disappointments-room/
‘The Disappointments Room’ (Film), Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disappointments_Room
‘The Story of a Nightmare: Blanche Monnier’
https://web.archive.org/web/20180930154532/https://historykey.com/story-nightmare-blanche-monnier/
Vincenty, Samantha, ‘All About Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, the Queen’s Hidden Cousins’.