Blanche Monnier: Coprophilia

What happens when a woman supposedly disappears for 25 years, only to be discovered locked away in her family’s home, naked, starving, and living in her own filth?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan explore the infamous story of Blanche Monnier, the French woman whose discovery in 1901 shocked the world and created one of the most disturbing captivity stories in history.

We’ll tell the story everyone thinks they know, a beautiful young woman allegedly locked in a dark attic by her mother after falling in love with a man her wealthy family considered beneath her. But then we’ll dig deeper into the surviving testimony, court records, family history, and French sources to see what actually happened inside the Monnier household.

Because the popular version of the story leaves out some pretty important details.

We’ll also look at Madame Monnier’s strange relationship with her children, Marcel’s role in the family, the testimony of former servants, the mysterious circumstances surrounding Blanche’s care, and the bizarre details that emerged during Marcel’s trial.

And because this is Torture: A Dark History, Kevin and Dan bring their own darkly uncomfortable humor to a story that proves sometimes the truth is considerably stranger, and more complicated, than the version that makes the best headline.

If you’re interested in Blanche Monnier, French true crime, psychological torture, mental illness, family abuse, historical mysteries, captivity stories, Victorian France, and the disturbing history behind one of the most famous cases of alleged imprisonment, this is one mystery you’ll want to look at twice.

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