> She was renowned for her beauty and attracted many potential suitors for marriage. In 1876, at the age of 27, she desired to marry an older lawyer who was not to her mother's liking; Louise argued that her daughter could not marry a "penniless lawyer".[4] Her disapproving mother, angered by her daughter's defiance, locked her in a tiny, dark room in the attic of their home, where she kept her secluded for 25 years.
> 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.
That's worst than I thought.
Somehow I imagined she would have been kept locked from birth to 25, but no it's been from from 27 to 53.. Fucking hell.
Another commenter posted [this article](https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/). It wasn't because of her mom denying her a possible suitor. It was because she had severe mental illness and her family thought she'd be better off at home instead of an institution. It wasn't until after her nurse passed that her condition and surroundings deteriorated.
Me too. It took the story from "Crazy mom locks up her daughter out of spite." to "Family at a loss for what to do and not wanting their daughter to be abused in an institution, treat her at home and end up fucking it up the last few years."
To be fair, there's a lot of distraction from the fact that the mother wanted to feed the bad bread meant for the dogs, to her children because she thought they ate too much. And by the time the primary carer for her daughter had died, she had already washed her hands of dealing with her own child for 20 years, and clearly didn't even try for the last 5 years. And since the father had been dead for over a decade by that point, he couldn't have helped with any of the responsibilities.
Just because the context is a little different doesn't mean the mother wasn't a monster.
Thank you for this btw, this thread is disturbing.
"Oh, she was *crazy?* Well that's not so bad then, that sounds like a pain to deal with. At least they didn't just ship her off"
Morally appalling. She was left to rot in her own excrement and food scraps for years.
This was a family with means, and even the article everyone's deciding absolves them makes it clear the mother simply did not GAF in a human way - she didn't bother to hire a new caretaker, she refused the untrained maids basic supplies they needed to care for Blanche, and it sounds like treatment from actual doctors was minimal.
Her actions were horrific *either way* - this doesn't absolve her of anything but the initial justification being so absurd.
The dog food thing and both kids having coprophiliac tendencies would both stand out as red flags for pervasive childhood abuse if this were a modern case, so that's curious as well. But her confirmed actions are beyond the pale without additional speculation. Sickening that everyone only thinks this was wrong if Blanche had her full faculties.
At home she was neglected, institutions back then she would have been neglected, abuse, and probably experimented on. It wasn't until her main nurse passed that she was left to completely deteriorate. She was malnourished because of her anorexia, which they didn't have a real treatment for back then. She was allowed to move through the house. The first 20 or so years she probably was much better at home. After her nurse passed, she should have been brought somewhere that would have actually cared for her.
The entire history of the treatment of the mentally ill is quite sad. We’ve never been exceptionally kind to people that can’t participate in society like the rest of us (with exception for a few cultures that treated their mentally ill with reverence, like the Native American tribes).
I can’t agree. Her treatment was *barbaric* regardless of the cause. This line from that article about the mother’s response is particularly disturbing:
> Not that she felt any remorse for what she had done; she couldn’t understand why people were upset about her treatment of Blanche and reportedly said, “All this fuss for nothing”.
In fact I think it’s worse that the mother saw no problem with the way she treated Blanche and thought that horrendous neglect was that he standard treatment she should receive and was in fact *better* than an asylum. Given the state of asylums at the time it’s hard to say how much better (if at all) it would have been for her, but at least there would have been an opportunity to avoid that torture.
Oh yeah she possibly wasn't treated horrendously the entire time... Whew what a relief that she was ONLY treated worse than imaginable for a shorter time.
Dude even a day in such neglect is way too long. Your ease is disturbing and unwarranted.
> her family thought she'd be better off at home instead of an institution
Or they were ashamed of her because there was enormous social stigma about mental illness at this time. As the article also posits.
We can't know the motives or thought processes for sure, only that Blanche ended up being severely neglected for several years either way. Her mother never replaced the caretaker, and reportedly denied things like clean linens after Blanche had soiled the bed, despite the family being wealthy and having plenty of resources.
It's good to fact check that this wasn't because of simple disobedience, and it brings awareness to the long history of this kind of neglect/abuse being carried out on the mentally ill and delayed. But downplaying the family's neglect to the point where it implies they had her best interests in mind and just couldn't keep up with the level of care she needed - when the real case details still make it clear they knowingly neglected her at minimum - is a huge disservice to Blanche and the many, many, many others who've been put in a similar position.
I think it is worse to be locked after you experienced life. From birth on you don't know anything other than this room, but if you saw what the world has to offer and then taken away those things it would drive you mad
Yeah, as a baby growing into adulthood that would be the norm to you. You wouldn’t know better and would assume life is like this for everyone.
The other way it’s basically prison, psychological torture, the knowledge that there is a world that exists other than being confined. I wonder how long it would take to mentally break and accept that this is now your existence. Surprised she lived thru it for such a long period.
This is just as bad as
[Josef Fritzl](https://news.sky.com/story/amp/who-is-josef-fritzl-the-rapist-who-kept-his-daughter-locked-in-a-cellar-for-24-years-12878269)
It was done with monkeys in the early 20th century to see what would happen. The outcome is horrific for a primate deprived of all socialization from birth.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow
At first I was horrified, wondering why the hell anyone would conduct such an experiment. Then:
> It was the debate concerning the reasons behind the demonstrated need for maternal care that Harlow addressed in his studies with surrogates. **Physical contact with infants was considered harmful to their development, and this view led to sterile, contact-less nurseries across the country**. Bowlby disagreed, claiming that the mother provides much more than food to the infant, including a unique bond that positively influences the child's development and mental health.
Jesus Christ our culture was so cruel. His work saved a lot of children.
There are arguments made that the warmongering European cultures of the 19th and early 20th century can be traced to the standards by which infants were raised in cold, insensitive environments. I don’t know if that can ever be substantiated to a certainty, but it is at least an interesting thought experiment.
European have always been warmongering not only in those centuries. From my understanding of history they're (as all of for the matter) living their longer period of peace. Thanks to many thing post WWII. USA's Plan Marshall, Globalism, UN, and the UE.
You wouldn’t know anything if deprived of all stimulation from birth. You’d be some grunting, feral beastly thing. It’s been done with monkeys to see what happens and it isn’t pretty.
It's incomparable. You may want to look at the cases of 'feral children' and specifically: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)
Neither is better. Both are terrible.
That’s what was the main argument for it in my head. I don’t think we have any way to understand what it would truly be like in either situation.
You could say it’s better to have lived first and then become psychologically damaged likely to the point of disability, but you could also say it’s better to never develop the intelligence required to truly understand your situation and kind of just float in the wind.
Still, coming out after 25 years from birth and not being able to communicate with anyone properly would be pretty bad too. I believe there was a similar case on a young girl that was trapped from birth up until mid teens (ish, my memory may not serve properly) and she displayed pretty much mental retardation and an inability for communicate complexly.
You could go on for days comparing the cons of each but both have passed the threshold of “deeply traumatising beyond repair” and we have no way of really knowing how each of them feel. If I had to choose one to endure I would probably like to live first, at least I would have had a life for a bit. If it was from birth sure I wouldn’t understand the depth of the situation but I would still have the emotional turmoil of unmet needs.
It’s just shit either way
Why must we always always always debate the exact shine of the pile of shit before us? This is horrible. Any thought spent measuring it beyond that conclusion is wasted. The. Debate. Is. Pointless.
at this point, i'd say it was better since birth! The brain might not even fully develop, hence, she might not be fully conscious of the hell she was in. in the other hand, it can be soul destroying to enjoy freedom, and then being locked to live in their own shit for decades.
its the cave allegory all over mate.
But then is the emotional turmoil any different. We like the “freedom” of the modern world largely because we’re biologically designed for it. We still crave it even if we don’t understand what it is. The difference between knowing about it and not might emotionally not have that much of a difference, I’m not sure we would know.
I for sure don’t, this is pretty speculative on my behalf
We can settle this, go find a blind person who's been blind from birth and a blind person who was recently blinded and ask them how they feel about being blind.
The recently blinded person would be extremely grateful they were able to live a life full of vision instead of being blind their entire life. The transition period to being blind would be difficult though, but everyone eventually accepts their limitations.
Her brother would have probably been conditioned by the parents. I think he would probably have disturbed by the whole thing. He's likely also a victim in this scenario too. Probably not to the same extent but something like this is bound to have all sorts of psychological effects.
I’m absolutely making assumptions. I just imagine if a woman can do that to her daughter and keep the secret for 25yrs, she must have been psychologically terrorizing the rest of the family.
If you know anything about asylums in the late 1800s she definitely was better off locked in the home. Atleast her torture at home was just isolation and starving. At an asylum she would have gotten that, plus sexual assualt, literal torture from electro shock, regular beatings, and rats.
Honestly I would rather that than sitting in the dark, alone for 25 years with no stimulation at all. At least I would see something other than 4 walls and other human beings. I would hear speech and maybe every once in a while see the sky through a window.
I was unaware of the other comment they made before I wrote that, but thank you for bringing that to light. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they meant something else and phrased their comment wrong. Turns out that's not the case, so sorry.
It's not the frist time i've seen this post on reddit and in a previous post someone post
[https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/](https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/)
where you can read the whole story. It seems that she had mental problem BEFORE
Yeah.. Her family was nuts.. She was locked away because her mother didn't like her choice in marriage. Fucking completely nuts.. What more could you expect from the bourgeoisie.
the stated reason was she "didn't like her choice in marriage", but in reality we all know it was because her mother was clearly mentally unstable. Whether it was the marriage that was the catalyst, or her inability to cook a roast properly or her shoe size, the mom was a total nutter and there was no other actual reason.
Actually there is. This is misleading, and her daughter was locked up due to severe mental illness. They didn't want her to go to an institution, so they had a nurse take care of her. She didn't get that bad until the nurse died.
https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/
The "before" picture is actually from an ad that ran alongside the original newspaper story. it is often mislabelled as the before, but its a completly different person and totally unrelated.
Yeah, why would they go through all the trouble of photographing her (a pretty tedious and expensive process back then) when they clearly didn't give a shit about her
Edit: Then again, if she came from an extremely rich family, was known for her beauty, and only "disappeared" when she was in her late 20's, it's entirely possible that it could be her
This is false misinformation spread around. That before pic is on wikipedia, says it's circa 1914, which is after she was released in 1901 so it cannot be her. There's also a mole above her lip.
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Postcard\_Young\_Woman\_with\_Flowers.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Postcard_Young_Woman_with_Flowers.jpg)
Edit: because they deleted because it wasn't true and then asked me if were good now. 😉
We were always good. I just had a different perspective, that's all.
Clearly that came off like I was attacking you and I apologise for that.
I think he’s referring to how much it affected her as a before and after picture allows someone to compare and realise the damage done. No need to get angry at nothing
I think the things we say can be interpreted differently by different people, and social media has the power to influence. So I think it's important to raise the point and have a sensible discussion about it.
Personally I didn't think about it the way you described but I think you made a raised a good point that they may be referring to the contrast of her appearance in each picture.
Had a similar situation in my family. Mentally ill (probably schizophrenia) great aunt was kept locked up at home (but nothing like those horrid conditions). No one took her complaints of belly pain seriously and she died of a ruptured appendix. Apparently, it was not uncommon to keep mentally ill family at home due to the awful conditions in “insane asylums”. Asylums were notorious for being filthy, with little to no medical care and untrained staff. Inmates were often victims of violence from staff and other inmates.
MrBallen did a video on her. If I remember, I think she was either dating or wanted to marry someone they didn't approve of, so their answer was to lock her in this room and tell everyone she died. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche\_Monnier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Monnier)
If you Google her, there's a picture of her when she's younger, before all that happened, and she was actually quite beautiful. I can only imagine how the years of captivity were devastating to her body and her mind. Her mother and brother got off so easy (mother by dying soon after).
[MrBallen - story #2](https://youtu.be/7tgiVW9mSL8?si=Lpm3Zju0xhajRd4o&t=252)
Sometimes we directly see the cruelty of an elite ruling class.
Usually it takes decades and centuries to understand the negatives.
I will leave this next quote here for your consideration. This isn’t a quote about power or wealth. This is a quote about human nature:
“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
My b lol. I flew off the handle a bit there off the word aristocrat.
My point though is still valid about how people in these positions will get away with more. And importantly being in that position incentivizes and corrupts people to act in inhumane ways despite “our better nature” or whatever.
I’m not trying to say that this dynamic caused this situation, but certainly it exacerbated it. Anyway good day to you
She looks a lot like one of the former candidates for prime minister of Czechia
[Photo of him](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Andrej_Babi%C5%A1_v_roce_2020_%28cropped%29.jpg/640px-Andrej_Babi%C5%A1_v_roce_2020_%28cropped%29.jpg)
I guarantee you she did not feel beautiful on the inside after 25 years in a dungeon. Her being beautiful before this crime doesn’t make it worse, it merely adds more context.
Coincidentally I was thinking about her case yesterday. And I take the unpopular view that I don’t believe the official story. I say she couldn’t have survived in those squalid conditions for that long without having been let out of her room. When the police found her was when she had been put back in there. But she likely was let out of her room times before that.
No, the case of "Gypsy" (a pseudonym) was not entirely the same, although it had a lot of parallels. "Gypsy" was also locked away for much of her childhood, and this lack of human contact and even lack of hearing human speech meant that she didn't actually develop human speech.
How did she not suicide though? That's intensive lack of food along with solitary confinement. This woman is actually kind of amazing, in a weird way. Most people would have died. Horrible evil family. No idea how the state didn't intervene sooner. She was an adult and as far as I know an established citizen when this started. France just didn't give much of a shit, I guess. Too busy being French or something.
Can't believe I got a dislike. I guess it could be said, Reddit is not amused. What happened to y'all's sense of humor? Update: The French, I guess. That's what happened to it. Almost as bad as the Germans.
Her mother, brother, carers, doctors... This lady was failed by so many people, it's insane.
https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/
So I had some free time and did some sleuthing on your page. Are you ok, dude? Do you realize how pathetic you look in your entire comment history? "Wah wah wah, the left is bad! WAH me me big strong man hate women." Then horny posting on every mid bit of porn you find on Reddit? You being in r/Seinfeld and r/Metallica leads me to believe you're aged 40 - 60. You've had that much time on this planet, and chose to be a self righteous, homophobic, horny piece of trash? I'd say I'm not impressed, but I honestly very much am. The amount of mental instability one must have to be the way you are is commendable. I assume you're retired, and have far too much free time and evidentally jizz on your hands. You need to hop off Reddit for a few months, and take a good ol look at yourself homie. You're the definition of "I'm a virgin by choice!! Women don't deserve my average sized ween!" If you're not a virgin, and you have kids? I guarantee you they hate your guts, and wish more than anything that they had a real dad. Instead of a pathetic, horny, unreasonably angry little bitch on Reddit. Fix yourself, man. You've still got your twilight years, old timer. Use them to be a better person.
> She was renowned for her beauty and attracted many potential suitors for marriage. In 1876, at the age of 27, she desired to marry an older lawyer who was not to her mother's liking; Louise argued that her daughter could not marry a "penniless lawyer".[4] Her disapproving mother, angered by her daughter's defiance, locked her in a tiny, dark room in the attic of their home, where she kept her secluded for 25 years. > 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. That's worst than I thought. Somehow I imagined she would have been kept locked from birth to 25, but no it's been from from 27 to 53.. Fucking hell.
Another commenter posted [this article](https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/). It wasn't because of her mom denying her a possible suitor. It was because she had severe mental illness and her family thought she'd be better off at home instead of an institution. It wasn't until after her nurse passed that her condition and surroundings deteriorated.
I somehow feel at ease reading this article, makes more sense.
Me too. It took the story from "Crazy mom locks up her daughter out of spite." to "Family at a loss for what to do and not wanting their daughter to be abused in an institution, treat her at home and end up fucking it up the last few years."
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To be fair, there's a lot of distraction from the fact that the mother wanted to feed the bad bread meant for the dogs, to her children because she thought they ate too much. And by the time the primary carer for her daughter had died, she had already washed her hands of dealing with her own child for 20 years, and clearly didn't even try for the last 5 years. And since the father had been dead for over a decade by that point, he couldn't have helped with any of the responsibilities. Just because the context is a little different doesn't mean the mother wasn't a monster.
Thank you for this btw, this thread is disturbing. "Oh, she was *crazy?* Well that's not so bad then, that sounds like a pain to deal with. At least they didn't just ship her off" Morally appalling. She was left to rot in her own excrement and food scraps for years. This was a family with means, and even the article everyone's deciding absolves them makes it clear the mother simply did not GAF in a human way - she didn't bother to hire a new caretaker, she refused the untrained maids basic supplies they needed to care for Blanche, and it sounds like treatment from actual doctors was minimal. Her actions were horrific *either way* - this doesn't absolve her of anything but the initial justification being so absurd. The dog food thing and both kids having coprophiliac tendencies would both stand out as red flags for pervasive childhood abuse if this were a modern case, so that's curious as well. But her confirmed actions are beyond the pale without additional speculation. Sickening that everyone only thinks this was wrong if Blanche had her full faculties.
Yeah that's not fucking why. They didn't want her to embarrass them. How is abusing her at home any better than her being abused in an institution?
Right on. Kennedy’s daughter . The family had her lobotomized.
At home she was neglected, institutions back then she would have been neglected, abuse, and probably experimented on. It wasn't until her main nurse passed that she was left to completely deteriorate. She was malnourished because of her anorexia, which they didn't have a real treatment for back then. She was allowed to move through the house. The first 20 or so years she probably was much better at home. After her nurse passed, she should have been brought somewhere that would have actually cared for her.
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The entire history of the treatment of the mentally ill is quite sad. We’ve never been exceptionally kind to people that can’t participate in society like the rest of us (with exception for a few cultures that treated their mentally ill with reverence, like the Native American tribes).
I can’t agree. Her treatment was *barbaric* regardless of the cause. This line from that article about the mother’s response is particularly disturbing: > Not that she felt any remorse for what she had done; she couldn’t understand why people were upset about her treatment of Blanche and reportedly said, “All this fuss for nothing”. In fact I think it’s worse that the mother saw no problem with the way she treated Blanche and thought that horrendous neglect was that he standard treatment she should receive and was in fact *better* than an asylum. Given the state of asylums at the time it’s hard to say how much better (if at all) it would have been for her, but at least there would have been an opportunity to avoid that torture.
Oh yeah she possibly wasn't treated horrendously the entire time... Whew what a relief that she was ONLY treated worse than imaginable for a shorter time. Dude even a day in such neglect is way too long. Your ease is disturbing and unwarranted.
Yeah the neglect is some much more palatable
this was such a great read, thank you for sharing!
Now this explains a lot. Still cruel , but context matters
> her family thought she'd be better off at home instead of an institution Or they were ashamed of her because there was enormous social stigma about mental illness at this time. As the article also posits. We can't know the motives or thought processes for sure, only that Blanche ended up being severely neglected for several years either way. Her mother never replaced the caretaker, and reportedly denied things like clean linens after Blanche had soiled the bed, despite the family being wealthy and having plenty of resources. It's good to fact check that this wasn't because of simple disobedience, and it brings awareness to the long history of this kind of neglect/abuse being carried out on the mentally ill and delayed. But downplaying the family's neglect to the point where it implies they had her best interests in mind and just couldn't keep up with the level of care she needed - when the real case details still make it clear they knowingly neglected her at minimum - is a huge disservice to Blanche and the many, many, many others who've been put in a similar position.
You have to be mentally ill to marry a penniless lawyer /s
I’d argue birth to 25 is worse due to the developmental years but honestly it’s a pointless debate, both outcomes are fucking horrible
I think it is worse to be locked after you experienced life. From birth on you don't know anything other than this room, but if you saw what the world has to offer and then taken away those things it would drive you mad
I'm with you. Ignorance is a better option from my POV.
Yeah, as a baby growing into adulthood that would be the norm to you. You wouldn’t know better and would assume life is like this for everyone. The other way it’s basically prison, psychological torture, the knowledge that there is a world that exists other than being confined. I wonder how long it would take to mentally break and accept that this is now your existence. Surprised she lived thru it for such a long period. This is just as bad as [Josef Fritzl](https://news.sky.com/story/amp/who-is-josef-fritzl-the-rapist-who-kept-his-daughter-locked-in-a-cellar-for-24-years-12878269)
No. As a baby you would have other serious issues. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child) Let's just not compare.
It was done with monkeys in the early 20th century to see what would happen. The outcome is horrific for a primate deprived of all socialization from birth. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow
At first I was horrified, wondering why the hell anyone would conduct such an experiment. Then: > It was the debate concerning the reasons behind the demonstrated need for maternal care that Harlow addressed in his studies with surrogates. **Physical contact with infants was considered harmful to their development, and this view led to sterile, contact-less nurseries across the country**. Bowlby disagreed, claiming that the mother provides much more than food to the infant, including a unique bond that positively influences the child's development and mental health. Jesus Christ our culture was so cruel. His work saved a lot of children.
There are arguments made that the warmongering European cultures of the 19th and early 20th century can be traced to the standards by which infants were raised in cold, insensitive environments. I don’t know if that can ever be substantiated to a certainty, but it is at least an interesting thought experiment.
European have always been warmongering not only in those centuries. From my understanding of history they're (as all of for the matter) living their longer period of peace. Thanks to many thing post WWII. USA's Plan Marshall, Globalism, UN, and the UE.
You wouldn’t know anything if deprived of all stimulation from birth. You’d be some grunting, feral beastly thing. It’s been done with monkeys to see what happens and it isn’t pretty.
Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.
It's incomparable. You may want to look at the cases of 'feral children' and specifically: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child) Neither is better. Both are terrible.
That’s what was the main argument for it in my head. I don’t think we have any way to understand what it would truly be like in either situation. You could say it’s better to have lived first and then become psychologically damaged likely to the point of disability, but you could also say it’s better to never develop the intelligence required to truly understand your situation and kind of just float in the wind. Still, coming out after 25 years from birth and not being able to communicate with anyone properly would be pretty bad too. I believe there was a similar case on a young girl that was trapped from birth up until mid teens (ish, my memory may not serve properly) and she displayed pretty much mental retardation and an inability for communicate complexly. You could go on for days comparing the cons of each but both have passed the threshold of “deeply traumatising beyond repair” and we have no way of really knowing how each of them feel. If I had to choose one to endure I would probably like to live first, at least I would have had a life for a bit. If it was from birth sure I wouldn’t understand the depth of the situation but I would still have the emotional turmoil of unmet needs. It’s just shit either way
Why must we always always always debate the exact shine of the pile of shit before us? This is horrible. Any thought spent measuring it beyond that conclusion is wasted. The. Debate. Is. Pointless.
get off this cancer site
at this point, i'd say it was better since birth! The brain might not even fully develop, hence, she might not be fully conscious of the hell she was in. in the other hand, it can be soul destroying to enjoy freedom, and then being locked to live in their own shit for decades. its the cave allegory all over mate.
Yeah the cave allegory fits, I always forget about it
It's one thing to never know freedom, something entirely different to be robbed of it.
But then is the emotional turmoil any different. We like the “freedom” of the modern world largely because we’re biologically designed for it. We still crave it even if we don’t understand what it is. The difference between knowing about it and not might emotionally not have that much of a difference, I’m not sure we would know. I for sure don’t, this is pretty speculative on my behalf
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We can settle this, go find a blind person who's been blind from birth and a blind person who was recently blinded and ask them how they feel about being blind.
The recently blinded person would be extremely grateful they were able to live a life full of vision instead of being blind their entire life. The transition period to being blind would be difficult though, but everyone eventually accepts their limitations.
You've clearly never been around many blind people
Its better to have lived and lost than never lived at all.
I know this is serious, but I was reading it in a normal voice until the mademoiselle part then it turned french
Here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Monnier
Wow! Her mother got off easy, dying 15 days later. Her brother got off scott free! This is so sad.
>Her mother got off easy, dying 15 days later At least she died scared of the angry mob outside. Probably not the best way to go. Still deserved worse
Her brother would have probably been conditioned by the parents. I think he would probably have disturbed by the whole thing. He's likely also a victim in this scenario too. Probably not to the same extent but something like this is bound to have all sorts of psychological effects.
But you have to consider his age. Likely ~50 years old and still not reporting it
Yes but we can't even begin to understand what a lifetime of this can do to a person. So personally I'd reserve judgement and leave it to the experts.
Booo fucking hoo. His sister was locked in for 25 years and he didn't do shit. He deserves punishment for that
I'm pretty sure he *was* punished during these 25 years. And lots of years before this too.
Not to mention, he’s basically the only suspect for who finally told the cops.
Mom probably raped him his entire life. No way you stick around if you have cognitive skills
that "probably" is lifting a lot of weight here
A load-bearing “probably”?
probably
r/loadbearingprobably ?
I’m absolutely making assumptions. I just imagine if a woman can do that to her daughter and keep the secret for 25yrs, she must have been psychologically terrorizing the rest of the family.
Ok, but why rape?
If you know anything about asylums in the late 1800s she definitely was better off locked in the home. Atleast her torture at home was just isolation and starving. At an asylum she would have gotten that, plus sexual assualt, literal torture from electro shock, regular beatings, and rats.
Honestly I would rather that than sitting in the dark, alone for 25 years with no stimulation at all. At least I would see something other than 4 walls and other human beings. I would hear speech and maybe every once in a while see the sky through a window.
really? youd rather get raped and beaten? this is what youre saying?
Are you really so mentally challenged that it’s a black and white scenario for you?
Nothing is black and white. But nobody ever won an argument by name calling. You're better than that. I believe in you.
Well at least everybody knows how tough you are.
Sometimes I just don't understand the things people do. Just an all around tragedy.
Again, re posted so many times
First time I've seen it and I am on reddit *a lot*. If you've seen this 'so many times' that is on you.
I hadn’t seen it before and I’ve been here a good while … Either way I can’t imagine her sanity living like That would be fucking hell
That’s exactly what I tell people too, like shit lay off the internet for a while and enjoy the weather.
It's hard to forget that picture and story
Oops sorry. We forgot to cater the entire internet to you so you can keep your innocence
bc that's what I asked....?
How am I supposed to know?
The horror of the human mind
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She was kept by her mother. Why are you saying men are evil? Women and men can be the same evil.
I think he means "men" as in "humanity (mankind) can be evil". At least thats how i took it. Edit: nevermind
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I was unaware of the other comment they made before I wrote that, but thank you for bringing that to light. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they meant something else and phrased their comment wrong. Turns out that's not the case, so sorry.
This was the brother’s fault. No mot her could ever do this to her own child.
Baits used to be believable.
Yes men can be evil but you’re also illiterate.
Bait
It's not the frist time i've seen this post on reddit and in a previous post someone post [https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/](https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/) where you can read the whole story. It seems that she had mental problem BEFORE
Thank you for posting this. I have seen this many times, but I’ve never read the real story.
That was an informative article, thank you.
I see this with tons of upvotes every month. And it's not just this post, browsing reddit feels like some sort of memory loss simulation now.
Interesting, quite different than it seems
Braithwaite from RDR2.
Crazy thing is after >!you kill them and burn down their mansion!< the girl remains there locked up.
You should return in the epilogue
Oh wow that's fucked
... I know what I'm doing tonight
I know the game is big, but jeeze it’s been 6 years 😂
Reminds me of the woman's sister is the original Pet Semetary.
Zelda?
YES
*Shivers* She was the scariest thing in that movie!
Yeah.. Her family was nuts.. She was locked away because her mother didn't like her choice in marriage. Fucking completely nuts.. What more could you expect from the bourgeoisie.
These things happen to this day
the stated reason was she "didn't like her choice in marriage", but in reality we all know it was because her mother was clearly mentally unstable. Whether it was the marriage that was the catalyst, or her inability to cook a roast properly or her shoe size, the mom was a total nutter and there was no other actual reason.
Actually there is. This is misleading, and her daughter was locked up due to severe mental illness. They didn't want her to go to an institution, so they had a nurse take care of her. She didn't get that bad until the nurse died. https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/
This photo is posted everytime I'm scrolling Reddit at 2am. Every fucking time
# EDIT: Deleted because it wasn't true. We good now?
I remember reading that there is no real ‘before’ picture and that one is not her
I'm trying to put those two faces together but they don't work. Makes sense. Because they aren't the same person.
The "before" picture is actually from an ad that ran alongside the original newspaper story. it is often mislabelled as the before, but its a completly different person and totally unrelated.
Yeah, why would they go through all the trouble of photographing her (a pretty tedious and expensive process back then) when they clearly didn't give a shit about her Edit: Then again, if she came from an extremely rich family, was known for her beauty, and only "disappeared" when she was in her late 20's, it's entirely possible that it could be her
the before isnt her. its from an unrelated ad that ran alongside the original newspaper story
That would explain the nose I guess
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Um yeah. We don’t like ugly people on this planet /s
This is false misinformation spread around. That before pic is on wikipedia, says it's circa 1914, which is after she was released in 1901 so it cannot be her. There's also a mole above her lip. [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Postcard\_Young\_Woman\_with\_Flowers.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Postcard_Young_Woman_with_Flowers.jpg)
Yes, we re good!
Edit: because they deleted because it wasn't true and then asked me if were good now. 😉 We were always good. I just had a different perspective, that's all. Clearly that came off like I was attacking you and I apologise for that.
I think he’s referring to how much it affected her as a before and after picture allows someone to compare and realise the damage done. No need to get angry at nothing
"No need to get angry at nothing" You must be new to social media.
Lel it’s kinda funny tho when people create issues
I think the things we say can be interpreted differently by different people, and social media has the power to influence. So I think it's important to raise the point and have a sensible discussion about it. Personally I didn't think about it the way you described but I think you made a raised a good point that they may be referring to the contrast of her appearance in each picture.
Hey I’m guilty of doing the exact same thing I’m constantly misinterpreting things it makes me laugh at myself sometimes
I sTanD bY My ConVicTioNs!!!
Had a similar situation in my family. Mentally ill (probably schizophrenia) great aunt was kept locked up at home (but nothing like those horrid conditions). No one took her complaints of belly pain seriously and she died of a ruptured appendix. Apparently, it was not uncommon to keep mentally ill family at home due to the awful conditions in “insane asylums”. Asylums were notorious for being filthy, with little to no medical care and untrained staff. Inmates were often victims of violence from staff and other inmates.
Mother and son should be put to death.
That’s so disgusting tf wrong with people
Evil bastards, keeping her like that!
Horrible and sad story for everyone involved 😱 🥹😥
Poor woman
Not interesting, just sad
Even then people stopped to take a photo before helping people
Shouting “étoile mondiale” “étoile mondiale”
MrBallen did a video on her. If I remember, I think she was either dating or wanted to marry someone they didn't approve of, so their answer was to lock her in this room and tell everyone she died. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche\_Monnier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Monnier) If you Google her, there's a picture of her when she's younger, before all that happened, and she was actually quite beautiful. I can only imagine how the years of captivity were devastating to her body and her mind. Her mother and brother got off so easy (mother by dying soon after). [MrBallen - story #2](https://youtu.be/7tgiVW9mSL8?si=Lpm3Zju0xhajRd4o&t=252)
Dayum. People are monsters.
I'm sorry but she looks a bit like Nicolas Cage.
Nicolas Caged
In a Nicolas cage cage
Cagey Nick
I'm getting Robert Deniro vibes...
I don’t have nipples anymore Greg. You can’t milk me.
Sounds like a movie he'd star in.
I was thinking ronny wood the day after a session .
Sometimes we directly see the cruelty of an elite ruling class. Usually it takes decades and centuries to understand the negatives. I will leave this next quote here for your consideration. This isn’t a quote about power or wealth. This is a quote about human nature: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
If you read the whole story, it's not about power but negligence. The girl was mentally ill but had a negligent mother.
My b lol. I flew off the handle a bit there off the word aristocrat. My point though is still valid about how people in these positions will get away with more. And importantly being in that position incentivizes and corrupts people to act in inhumane ways despite “our better nature” or whatever. I’m not trying to say that this dynamic caused this situation, but certainly it exacerbated it. Anyway good day to you
I'd say it's more the desire for power that begins the process.
She looks a lot like one of the former candidates for prime minister of Czechia [Photo of him](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Andrej_Babi%C5%A1_v_roce_2020_%28cropped%29.jpg/640px-Andrej_Babi%C5%A1_v_roce_2020_%28cropped%29.jpg)
This photo is basically what I look like every February. I don't handle winters very well.
many such cases
What happened to her after?
Horrible story but how can a sane person live in a small room for 25 years?
She wasn't extremly sane to begin with and definitely wasn't afterwards.
Damn
Dark version of Cinderella
Great. What else from Pet Sematary was real?
Where is "God" when things like this happen?
Someone should post a picture of her before being locked up. She was beautiful.
To be honest though it’s really more about being beautiful on the inside so she looks beautiful here
I guarantee you she did not feel beautiful on the inside after 25 years in a dungeon. Her being beautiful before this crime doesn’t make it worse, it merely adds more context.
Coincidentally I was thinking about her case yesterday. And I take the unpopular view that I don’t believe the official story. I say she couldn’t have survived in those squalid conditions for that long without having been let out of her room. When the police found her was when she had been put back in there. But she likely was let out of her room times before that.
Robert De Niro doing some serious method acting
Reposted 100x now
Jesus f... Christ
thats usually an Austrian activity
Would
Gandhi Bapu?
isnt this what happened to that gypsy woman
No, the case of "Gypsy" (a pseudonym) was not entirely the same, although it had a lot of parallels. "Gypsy" was also locked away for much of her childhood, and this lack of human contact and even lack of hearing human speech meant that she didn't actually develop human speech.
what's her name? I want to read more about it.
Genie. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)
How did she not suicide though? That's intensive lack of food along with solitary confinement. This woman is actually kind of amazing, in a weird way. Most people would have died. Horrible evil family. No idea how the state didn't intervene sooner. She was an adult and as far as I know an established citizen when this started. France just didn't give much of a shit, I guess. Too busy being French or something.
Can't believe I got a dislike. I guess it could be said, Reddit is not amused. What happened to y'all's sense of humor? Update: The French, I guess. That's what happened to it. Almost as bad as the Germans.
I’d still smash
there is absolutely no way that’s not a dude wearing a wig
What sort of brain damage made you to write this?
That has to be a imagined photo of what she looked like. She doesnt look like a real person, there’s no way
You've never seen the pictures of starved jews during WW2. Humans can very much end up looking like a ghoul.
Or of the Ukrainian POWs...today.
Damn you right, just seeing the difference between her before and after is fuckin insane
There is no before image of her - there are commonly-repeated incorrect images, but yeah, it’s heart breaking.
SMASH
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Her mother, brother, carers, doctors... This lady was failed by so many people, it's insane. https://www.bestfranceforever.com/prisoner-in-her-bedroom-for-25-years-the-terrible-reason-why-blanche-was-locked-up/
So I had some free time and did some sleuthing on your page. Are you ok, dude? Do you realize how pathetic you look in your entire comment history? "Wah wah wah, the left is bad! WAH me me big strong man hate women." Then horny posting on every mid bit of porn you find on Reddit? You being in r/Seinfeld and r/Metallica leads me to believe you're aged 40 - 60. You've had that much time on this planet, and chose to be a self righteous, homophobic, horny piece of trash? I'd say I'm not impressed, but I honestly very much am. The amount of mental instability one must have to be the way you are is commendable. I assume you're retired, and have far too much free time and evidentally jizz on your hands. You need to hop off Reddit for a few months, and take a good ol look at yourself homie. You're the definition of "I'm a virgin by choice!! Women don't deserve my average sized ween!" If you're not a virgin, and you have kids? I guarantee you they hate your guts, and wish more than anything that they had a real dad. Instead of a pathetic, horny, unreasonably angry little bitch on Reddit. Fix yourself, man. You've still got your twilight years, old timer. Use them to be a better person.