Blanche Monnier was born on March 1, 1849 and is often known in France as la Séquestrée de Poitiers. Blanche was a woman from Poitiers, France, who was secretly kept locked in a small room by her mother for 25 years. Blanche had not seen sunlight for her entire captivity, according to officials.
Blanche was a French socialite from a well-respected family in Poitiers, France. In 1876, at the age of 25, she wanted to marry a lawyer who was not to her mother's liking. Her mother argued that Monnier could not marry a “penniless lawyer”. Her extremely disapproving mother decided to lock her in a tiny room in the attic of their home. She kept her confined for 25 years. Her mother and brother continued on with their daily lives, pretending to mourn her loss. None of her friends knew her fate and the lawyer who she had wished to marry eventually died in 1885.
On May 23, 1901, the Paris Attorney General received an anonymous letter that revealed her imprisonment. Blanche was rescued by police from horrendous conditions.
Her mother was arrested but became ill shortly afterwards. She died 15 days later after seeing an angry mob gather in front of her house. Her brother Marcel Monnier appeared in court, and was convicted, but later was acquitted on appeal. Marcel Monnier was mentally incapacitated and although the judges criticized his choices, they found that a "duty to rescue" did not exist in the penal code at that time. He claimed that Blanche was not forced to stay in the tiny room. She could have walked away at any time, but made the choice not to.
After she was released from the room, Blanche continued to suffer from mental health problems that soon led to her being admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Boisé, France, where she died on October 13, 1913.
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