For a period of 25 years, a french woman who went by the name Blanche Mounier, was locked up in a room because she fell in love with a man her mother didn’t approve of....CONTINUE READING
According to historydaily.org and Mirror.co.uk, Blanche Mounier was originally from Vienne, France. In 1876, when she was 25, she met someone she loved and wanted to get married to, but this man did not live up to her mother’s expectations.
Since Mrs. Monnier was a widow, she hoped that her daughter would marry a rich man so that they could continue to live the wealthy life they were already accustomed to.
But Blanche told her mother that she would never marry the man her mother choose for her. According to her, she will always prefer love to money. Her mother, Mrs Mounier, and her son Marcel ended up chaining her to a bed and locking her up in a room without windows.
The Neighbors who heard Blanche scream, asked her mother what the problem was with her but and she replied them saying that blanche had lost her mind and gone crazy. Eventually everyone started ignoring her screams.
Years later, her family acted like as if she was dead and they mourned her publicly, making people believe that she was really dead. After the fake act of mourning, they pretended like as if she never existed and they continued with their everyday activities like as if nothing had ever happened.
For a period of 25 years blanche was locked up in this room and a maid threw crumbs of food into the room for her to feed on. Gradually she became mentally ill and she lost her ability to speak properly.
In 1901 the police decided to investigate the case and during the course of their investigation, they found a locked up door in the Garret of her mom’s house and when they opened the door, they were very surprised to find 50 year old blanche in the room looking very unkept and malnourished.
When the officers tried to open the windows, they found out that she was afraid of sunlight, probably because she had been locked up in the dark for 25 years. She was immediately taken to a psychiatric hospital and her mother was arrested.
Her mother later died of a heart attack in prison 15 days after her arrest while her brother Marcel who was part of the plot ended up escaping punishment. At first he was sentenced to 15 months in prison but he was later exonerated and set free on claims that blanche could have left anytime she wanted to but she choose not to.
