Today we go to France where we will talk about a woman who spent (25) years in the attic of her aristocratic home beginning in the late 19th century. It's said she wanted to marry a 'penniless lawyer' but her mother refused the arrangement. After some arguing, the mother decided to lock her daughter in the attic. Twenty five years. There is a lot to this story, so let's get on with it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
I put my flannel on over my flannel, put my skull cap on, tied in the back.
You know how I do it.
I take one of those beer cozies, you know, one of those, like, little foam holders to put your beverage in, but I put a kombucha in there, you know, gotta do it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, gotta do it the right way.
With a straw, mind you.
Gingerade, my bro, so delish.
Then, I just walk around in my designer cut-off shorts and my used Crocs that I found at a thrift store.
One dollar.
Steal of a deal.
And then...
Yeah, dude, you got it.
And then I just walk around and I get as many free samples as I can before they kick me out.
I never actually buy anything, you know what I mean?
Nice. Well, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Now, is that flannel over flannel?
And a follow-up question to that is, a long-sleeve flannel underneath a short-sleeve flannel?
Wouldn't have it any other way, man.
You gotta have the short over the top.
Has to be.
I don't see how it could be any other way, honestly.
And, not only that, but it has to be unbuttoned.
And if you didn't hear me, I've been rocking one of those sweet skull caps, bro.
It's got Chuck Norris on it.
Super dope.
Oh my god.
Well, you're gonna have to send me some pics of your new digs, because I am liking that fucking unique style.
And, anyway, how long are you usually able to walk around and get free samples before they actually kick you out?
Oh, you know, it really depends.
Saturdays are better than Sundays, though.
That's basically for sure.
Wait, so you go both days.
Is that what you do before we record?
I mean, sometimes.
Yeah, sometimes I do.
I mean, you know, if I have the time, of course.
Damn, bro.
Really? You hit the farmer's market up on both Saturdays.
And Sunday for free samples.
Hell yeah, dude!
The freebies?
All about the samples.
It's just like Costco, man.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Well, I am not judging you.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Well, you're welcome.
And now, why don't you give our listeners what they came here for?
Actually, no, wait, wait, wait.
I have a couple updates.
Really quick, like.
Alright, so...
That lady, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vagina Scented Candles.
Oh, yes, yes.
The trial about the guy accusing her of skiing into him, causing him injuries and all of that, and he was trying to sue her for $3.1 million originally, and then went down to $300,000, and then she countersued.
Right. But anyway, it turns out that it didn't happen the way he was saying it happened at all.
And logistically, it couldn't have occurred the way he said it did.
So Miss Paltroni won the suit and the dude, Sanderson, well, he looks like a fool.
Miss Gwendolyn Paltroni was awarded the amount that she requested.
And it was either an act of compassion for the dude and a show that it wasn't about the money for her or it was an extremely passive aggressive.
Yeah, you know, I caught the headline and I was checking it out.
And yeah, I was surprised.
But at the same time, I feel like I would have felt worse about it if she had been like, alright, now you're going to give me all your money.
I would have been like, what a piece of shit.
You know what I mean?
True. I guess you'd have your opinion either way it went.
Yeah, totally.
I think just to ask for a dollar in all of this is just a big slap in the face.
But at the same time, is it or is it just like, hey man, look, I just won a dollar and I'll give that to a charity.
Yeah, I'll spend it on some of my goop.
So on her way out of the courtroom, she passed by Sanderson and she put her hand on his shoulder and she said, I wish you well.
And then just walked out with a smile on her face to go back to work selling her candles.
Yeah, I did hear about that.
And the guy, almost in like a tone of conceding victory to her, was like, thank you, dear.
Like, that was his response.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it could have...
It's almost like two adversaries.
Like, she knew what he was trying to do, and he tried with his full weight to, like, get this thing done so he could get some money from her.
She wins the case, and she was like, nice try, buddy.
I wish you well.
And he's like, yeah, well, I tried.
He even said, well, I guess, what do you expect taking on a celebrity?
Sure. So he even said that.
Bitterly. It's like, yeah, what did you expect?
Yeah, what did you expect, bro?
Come on, Sanderson.
Especially if it really didn't happen the way that he said it happened.
It's just funny, though, because she did say immediately, I thought it was a sexual assault.
I thought that was just hilarious.
Yeah, that's kind of shitty that that was just thrown in there.
But whatever, you know.
Yeah, whatever, man.
She's fine and the world carries on.
As usual.
It's just famous people getting more famous.
Like this next one.
It's a huge one.
The people of the state of New York against Donald J. Trump.
Oh, yeah.
The Trumpster back in the dumpster.
Yes. Oh, shit.
Oh! Brago from Mar-a-Lago, man.
Yeah. Just keeps bopping up.
Dude, well, I mean, this is the first of its kind, Scott.
This is historic.
Trump has always wanted to be in the spotlight, as you know, and now he's been indicted and has been charged with over 30 counts, ranging from various misdemeanors to at least one felony.
It's a bunch of shit about falsifying business records and the whole hush money case with retired porn star Stormy Daniels spanking him with that John Deere tractor magazine.
And his ex-attorney, Michael Cohen, who had been found guilty for his part in the same matter, and he was sentenced to three years in prison back in 2018.
He has since been released and is now working in one of those seedy underground backroom card game casinos in Manhattan as a blackjack dealer.
Got the visor, bow tie, green striped shirt, dress shoes, the whole thing.
So he's doing good with all that unaccounted for money stashed away and hidden from the IRS.
Oh yeah, just laundering the shit out of it.
To the casino, you know?
But the Donald is to surrender this Tuesday, the 4th of April, 2023.
He will go in and go through the process of fingerprints, photographs, and paperwork.
And then he's going to enter a not guilty plea, as is expected.
And since he's an ex-president, he's going to have his secret service with him at all times.
So he'll be surrounded by all his men and then a shit ton of cops who are against him at this point as he's an accused and potential criminal, right?
Oh yes, the tables have turned.
Yeah, and then all these lawyers will be everywhere saying, I declare!
I do declare with the utmost declarance!
But they say that he'll be treated as...
You know, any criminal is treated, but we all know he'll be treated much nicer than the average criminal.
Yeah, usually they just pick a guy up from the back of the belt and the back of the shirt cuff, and they just huck you into the police car, you know?
Your legs slam on the car on the way in, and they're like, oh yeah, enjoy the ride!
You know, slam the door on you.
It's not gonna happen to him.
So, the news guy said that he won't be handcuffed and he won't be placed in a holding cell.
So, yeah, right off the bat, he's not being treated like any ordinary criminal.
Totally. Elementary students have been arrested in their classroom for far less, but he'll go in front of a judge and the charges will be read to him.
And after that, he'll enter his not guilty plea.
What if he, like, goes in there, just walks up to the stand, and says, totally dead-faced, And it only makes common sense.
Either way, I'm happy.
I'm happy either way.
I love China.
Oh, Jesus.
And his legal team just shits a brick.
Jaws. Don, what are you doing?
Don! Jaws drop.
Yeah, I don't even know, man.
That would catch everyone off guard.
It'd be pretty fucking incredible if he did that.
Absolutely. It'd be like, you know what?
I gotta respect that, Donald J. Trump.
You're gonna make this at least, like, tricky for you.
You know, looks at the legal team, and he's like, your move.
You know?
Yeah, and so all of this is happening in New York, and surprisingly, New Yorkers aren't really big fans of the Trump.
And, I mean, that's where the jury pool is gonna be chosen.
So, meaning that his side is probably going to push to move the trial, if it goes to trial, to a different location.
And on top of it all, he's pushing to run for president again.
So, this is very interesting.
And Donald himself said that the judge who will be presiding over the criminal case hates him.
Of course he does.
Well, he's definitely going to get the convict vote.
Probably after this, they'll be like, my boy, Donald J. Yeah, and Mike Pence.
You've got to think about your constituents.
He's just being aggressive with his campaigning, really.
That's all he's really doing.
Yeah, I feel like this is just – we'll get into it.
So Mike Pence, the vice president for Trump, was subpoenaed to testify, as well as his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, and probably a bunch of other people.
But Pence is on Trump's side and is against – Pence is against the law being carried out as if the law doesn't apply to certain people.
Yeah, I know.
Usually it's supposed to also be like a jury of your peers.
Are they going to have a jury of billionaires?
It's going to be like Bezos and Musk sitting in the courtroom.
Musk is just talking about AI and Jeff Bezos is just mistreating workers or something.
I don't know.
Oprah's in there.
Look under your seats!
Kylie Jenner is in there.
Yeah, she's billionaires.
Fucking taking selfies.
Yeah, she's taking selfies with Bezos.
Bill Gates is in there.
Giving everyone a vaccine.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, that's gonna be his whole jury right there.
Judge is gonna be like, jury, what do you find?
And they're gonna be like, I don't fucking give a shit.
Yeah, what are we here for?
What are we doing?
Yeah, what are we...
Yeah. This isn't good content.
Yeah, my Instagram followers are dropping.
Yeah. Well, Scott, what do you say about giving the world your tres por tres?
Oh, yes, yes.
Well, you know what I'm going to give the people today?
Rather than the award-worthy tres por tres.
What's that?
Nothing. But what will we give the people?
I'm going to give them a little update on the Brian Koberger case.
So, you know.
Quash the fears and all that.
Oh, okay.
Good, good call, man.
It's been a while since we've talked about him.
Totally, totally.
Brian Koberger, for those who still don't know, is the suspect of a quadruple homicide in Moscow, Idaho, that took place in the morning hours of November 13th, 2022, and he's currently being held in an Idaho jail.
There have been a few things kind of going on with the case, and it's been a while since we've touched on it, so first I just want to mention that the prosecution took a bit of a punch to the gut recently.
Ooh, but not as bad as Houdini though, right?
I mean, they're not taken out of the race, are they?
No, no, nothing that severe.
But there is an issue, however, involving one of the officers in the case, and there is an internal affairs investigation going on.
This has raised issues of potential, like, Brady-Gilio material.
Brady material is in reference to the case Brady v.
Maryland, where the U.S. Supreme Court held that there must be a timely disclosure to the defendant of favorable material information that is known to the government.
Oh, this could be pretty severe.
Yeah, and Giglio adds to that and includes the responsibility to disclose any information to the defendant that could impeach a witness.
And this is usually a law enforcement officer or perhaps an informant.
And in this case, it's an actual police officer working for the prosecution.
I mean, I don't know much about it, but...
I mean, it almost sounds like it could be grounds for mistrial, maybe.
Well, apparently, this information that has been given to the defense may very well destroy...
The credibility of a very credible witness for the defense.
Okay. Yeah.
Nima Romany, a former federal prosecutor, told Fox News that this may be anything.
It could be beating his wife.
It could be driving fast and he's pulled over, pulling out his badge when he shouldn't, like trying to use his power for ill-gotten gains.
I mean, it could even be smoky weed.
Yeah. Okay.
So that may hinder the prosecution a little bit.
Right. Yeah.
Right. Whoa.
Whoa. So they sent it to a lab in Texas.
Wow. Well, I guess desperate times.
Call for desperate measures in this case.
Yeah, apparently.
So that lab used proprietary technology, that being familial DNA testing, and we know that the police raided Brian Koberger's parents' trash outside their home and collected DNA from it.
The problem here, though, is that the sheath may not have belonged to Koberger.
Whoa. Yes, yes, the bombshell.
As Romani said, it's uncommon for such a bloody crime scene to only have one single source of DNA connected to the defendant.
The defense will argue that it was transferred or planted.
There may also be a lot of other people's DNA at the scene because it was a party house, after all.
I mean, you know, it's in a college town.
These are college kids.
And the defense will probably argue that law enforcement didn't rule them all out as suspects.
Wow, I mean, that's pretty big.
It's a ballsy move.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a ballsy move for sure.
The trial for Brian Koberger is set for November 13th, later this year.
But on June 26th, there's also a preliminary hearing, which the judge expects to last for at least five days, which seems like a long time for one of those.
Yeah, I mean, that's like a whole trial in itself.
I mean, holy shit.
Like, I know...
It's where you introduce witnesses or evidence or whatever, but according to nolo.com, a typical preliminary hearing may take about a half hour to two hours, and some only last a couple minutes.
Yeah, exactly.
So this is already going to be going above and beyond, and now I bet there's pressure on the prosecution to throw everything they have out there, like that whole throw something at the wall and just hope that something sticks, especially in the face of this possible...
Finding their witness to be non-credible.
Oh no!
Oh shit!
I've knocked over the array!
Sorry man.
We lost a signal.
We lost a dish!
We got a dish down!
Sorry, I gotta put my dog down on the ground.
He's thirsty or something.
Hey, Scott, can I ask you a question?
Well, you know me, and my reckless infidelity with random questions.
Ask away.
What is your worst fear?
Um, hmm.
Boy, that's a deep question.
I have several fears, but I think, and they kind of, you know, they rearrange themselves.
But right now, my worst fear would probably be a meteor smashing into the Earth, ending civilization as we know it.
Where they were then forced to, like, shelter in caves, try to survive.
Really, like, Armageddon?
Yeah. Deep impact?
Yeah, I'm talking full, end-of-the-world type shit, dude.
Was Armageddon, that was just a comet, right?
That was...
Like, they sent them to a comet to blow the comet up?
Yeah, they had to send them, they had to send, yeah, send them to, like, a meteor or something like that.
Yeah, some shit.
Or, yeah, I don't, or maybe it was the center of the...
An asteroid.
Which one was the center of the Earth, where they had to, like, go down there and...
Fuck, man.
They had to launch a missile into the core of the planet or something.
Holy shit, I have no idea.
You know?
Because that's going to work.
Something that's as hot as the surface of the sun.
Yeah, that'll work.
Just lob a missile at it and it'll be fine.
Yeah, it'll spark things up.
Yeah, it'll stabilize things right out, you know?
Well, it's good to know you were a sphere.
So moving on...
Let me tell you a story about a woman who is said to have been locked in a small attic room by her own mother and brother for 25 years, being fed what scraps they would toss inside for her, if there were any scraps at all.
On May 23rd, 1901, the Paris Attorney General would receive an anonymous letter, which read in part, Monsieur Attorney General, I have the honor 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.
The authorities would soon surround the house in question at 21 Rue de la Visitation and not receiving an answer.
They would then break down the door and enter the home.
Oh, pardon.
It was the residence of a French aristocratic mother and son, the husband and father having passed away many years prior.
The authorities would announce why they were there, and the mother and son would appear unmoved by the entire event.
The police would then go through the house searching for any sign of the alleged missing woman.
They would go from door to door, turning each room over on itself until finally, upstairs, they would find...
As the story goes, a padlocked room.
The officers would eventually break the door down and would be hit square in the face with one of the foulest odors any nostril had ever smelled.
Once the men could gather their senses, they would notice an extremely malnourished woman, basically flesh and bone, huddled on a disgustingly soiled bed in a corner.
She squinted at what light had crept into the dark room.
She was as much in shock of them as they were of her.
The mother, aging and frail, and the brother were arrested and brought to the jailhouse.
This is when facts about the missing woman would come to light, shall we say.
I like what you did there.
Wow, that is extreme.
I mean, just on a soiled mattress in a dark room.
It's not good.
The police were privy to the fact that some 25 years earlier, the daughter of the Monnier family had gone missing.
The mother and son would all but fake the daughter's death, even mourning her in public.
They would continue to go on with their lives, harboring a giant secret for the next 25 years.
Wow, 25 years.
That's insane.
Keeping that going for 25 years.
Oof. Quarter of a century.
So extreme.
So gnarly.
Yeah, so gnarly, dude.
So who were the Moniers?
The Moniers were French socialites, wealthy citizens who took their public image to be of the utmost importance.
They lived in a very large three-story home.
Some would call it a mansion with an attic and employed a handful of housemaids.
They also owned another home in the countryside and had multiple other properties which they rented out.
Charles and Louise Marnier were a conservative bourgeois family of noble origins.
Charles was an academic and became the dean of the University of Portrait, and the family was known for their charitable works and generous contributions, even receiving awards in recognition for those contributions, one of which was the Committee of Good Works,
which was given to people who displayed the highest of virtues.
Jeez. Oh, man.
So, like, definitely one of those families that cares too much about how they're coming off, you know?
So they must have had some kind of social reason for...
Locking this woman away.
So Louise was the typical aristocratic housewife who basically stayed home and did whatever such a woman of leisure would do in the mid to late 19th century, while the rest of the women worked alongside men at various capacities.
Fuck, who knows?
With all those housemaids there, what is there for her to do besides lay in bed all day and, like, drink herself to sleep?
Like, literally.
Everything is taken care of.
Right. So she was said to be a very difficult woman to live with and had a very domineering disposition over those she was said to love.
She was always high-strung, nervous, and just outright miserly.
Just a horrible personality to be around, I'll bet.
I'm sure we've all met, you know, one or more of those types of people in our lives, unfortunately.
Well, I think we all know a Kathy Bates somewhere.
We all met one of those in our lives.
Yeah, totally.
So Louise was a very bad mother.
Which was testified to later in court.
It was told how she would complain that her children ate too much food, and so she started feeding the bread that was meant for their dog to the children instead of wholesome bouff bourguignon and salmon and papillote.
Wow, I wish I ate that well.
I mean, not obviously the dog bread, but salmon and papillote and the bouff.
You know, love me some bouff, dude.
I don't know about you.
Bro, did you know, you heard these bodybuilders these days are eating dog food because of the high protein content?
Ugh, gross.
I mean, I know it was kind of a trend a few years back that some bodybuilders would buy breast milk because of all of the vitamins.
Yep. Yeah, dude.
So I would not put it past a bodybuilder to eat some random ass shit.
So now they're just opening cans like old Popeye doing the spinach thing.
Ew. But now they're just fucking ripping up cans of dog food.
Just on some pedigree, you know?
Oh, man.
Oh, I got the tiny steak tips.
All right.
But this isn't to say that the family didn't have money to afford food.
On the contrary, the Monnier family was certainly wealthy and could afford all the food that they wanted, yet Luis was just reluctant to feed them the bare minimum of sustenance.
Fucking miserly, bro.
Yes. And what does misery love?
Company? Misery loves company.
She also had terrible hygiene and would wear the same clothes for weeks on end.
Okay. Marcel Manier would be born to the fun and exciting couple in 1848 and would go on to become a lawyer and work in local government.
He would marry a Spanish woman who was said to be, quote-unquote, of noble birth.
Ooh, lucky, lucky.
So they lived in a townhouse across the street from the family home.
He was said to be a very respectable character.
He was learned and held an equally respectable position working for the community.
And later, Scott, it would be found that he was a bit of a coprophiliac.
Coprophiliac? Now, I don't think that's a kind of wine, so you're going to have to tell me what that is.
Well, let me continue.
Okay. In one telling of the story, it is said that he preferred to take his dookies in a bedpan rather than in the toilet, like a civilized Frenchman.
And one day after taking such dookie in a bedpan, he took that bedpan into the living room area where his daughter and his wife sat doing what they were doing, probably knitting or reading tarot cards or something.
Yeah, totally.
But Marcel came in and set the bedpan down and proceeded to close all the windows so that they could better appreciate the smell.
Ew, I'm really sad that I asked what it was because I can definitely see where this is going.
Yeah, you know who else was into coprophilia?
Honestly, I don't, bro.
Adolf Hitler.
Oh. And this isn't a personal assail against the world's most hated Nazi.
It was just, it was apparently well documented.
In fact, Dr. Walter Langer, a psychologist from Harvard, wrote a book called A Psychological Analysis of Adolf Hitler, His Life and Legend, which was published in 1943.
And the CIA actually hired him to gather all this intel from everybody about Hitler, and then he wrote a report in that book.
Is the report.
So in it, he describes Hitler's fetish.
And what he loved the most was to have women squat over him and give him the Duke.
Oh, no.
The old Duke.
Yeah. Ew.
And he preferred that they take laxatives.
No! Whoever is familiar with Hitler in a story, you're probably also familiar with his niece, Jelly Robble, and her alleged suicide.
And, well, it's said that she was most likely on both the giving and receiving sides of the act with Hitler, her uncle.
So, her suicide makes much more sense than Hitler simply refusing her to see her boyfriend as the popular story goes.
Much like today's story, actually.
Yeah, I could see being duked on enough times to...
Maybe want to take myself out of the equation.
I guess that makes sense.
But even one of his closest men, Ernst Röhm, discussed his fetish at a party and U.S. spies were able to gather that information.
So he was also known to have a mighty, mighty micropenis and only one testicle.
Poor fella.
Well, whose county, anyway?
No wonder he was so angry.
And why everything he built for the war effort had to be extra massive, like that Schwerer Gustav, that huge railway gun.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was...
Definitely compensating.
Oh, man, yeah.
Well, this next one, Scott, this one might hit home for you, buddy, seeing that you're a master pianist or a maestro, if you will, along the likes of Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, or even Beethoven on your worst days.
Yes, I have been known to be a bit of a master pianist.
A master dick?
Whoa! I didn't say that, bro.
Come on, man.
I meant tickling the old ivories.
All right.
I'm going to see if I can get this full name right.
Johannes Christos Thomas Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.
Oof! Is that how the name is?
Yeah, that is a mouthful.
Yes, the man who brought you Serenade No.
13, Ina Kleine Nachtmusik, and Symphony No.
41, Jupiter.
Yes, he enjoyed the warm poo-poos on his body, and there is much more solid...
Oh, whoa, dude, no association, alright?
You're always trying to do that to me, bro.
I'm not going for it.
You're not biting for that one?
No! Mozart would write letters to multiple family members about such matters.
He was literally obsessed with feces.
He wrote songs about it all day long.
But there have been roughly 40 letters compiled which mention feces in one way or another.
And these letters are an exchange between Mozart and two of his friends, one male and one female, but mostly between him and his very close family.
So there's one he wrote to a male friend, another he wrote to a female friend, one he wrote to his mother and sister together, one only to his mother.
Then there are four letters concerning his sister, six concerning a female cousin, Six concerning his lovely wife, and interestingly, there are 20 concerning his father, Leopold.
Oh, man.
All of these, you're saying, containing some aspect of, you know, like, copophilia?
Copophilia, yeah.
Oof, jeez.
Would you like to hear the contents of one of his letters?
Oh, what the hell, I'm feeling frisky.
All right, well, I mean, some are quite creative, as you'd expect from the genius that Mozart was.
To his younger cousin Maria...
Who we spent a lot of time with.
He wrote...
And here's another.
Indeed, you let it all out.
You expose yourself.
You let yourself be heard.
You give me notice.
You declare yourself.
You indicate to me.
You bring me the news.
You announce unto me.
You state in broad daylight you demand.
You desire, you wish, you want, you like.
You command that I, too, should, could send you my portrait.
Eh bien, I shall malfail it for sure.
Oui, by the love of my skin.
I shit on your nose, so it runs down your chin.
Well, it's crazy you got that audio, man.
I know!
That's like totally how he sounded.
It's survived a long time.
That's wild.
The grooves are definitely smoothing out by this point.
Yeah. Anyway, yeah, so Mozart liked rim jobs too, both giving and receiving, of course, and yeah, so he ate a bunch of poop.
Wow, real man's man.
Well, that's pretty incredible, and now I'm starting to wonder if the tonsillitis that he would suffer from throughout most of his life was caused by fecal matter, you know?
That's a good fucking point, because yeah, he would get tonsillitis a lot, all throughout his life, and up until his death, and I mean, it's said that he died from something called Schoenlein-Henock syndrome?
And that can be caused by hepatitis, and as you know, all the hepatitis can be transferred through feces, but most commonly, hepatitis A, everyone knows that.
Yeah, so he's, like, playing piano, he's got his ink and quill out there, and then he's also dipping it into some shit, you know, like, while he's writing these symphonies and giving it a couple licks, and just like, oh, yes.
Flavor of the day.
Yep, just kills him, eventually.
He worked himself to death.
Well, yeah, because he was eating shit at the same time.
Marcel was also domineered by Louise, and the extent of her psychological abuse and brainwashing on him would be evident later on, although he was treated much more fairly than poor Blanche.
On March 1st, 1849, Blanche Monnier would be born to the well-respected and anything but jovial parents.
She would be raised as any bourgeois daughter would be.
Blanche would grow to be a notably beautiful woman and was renowned for her beautiful looks.
She enjoyed attending parties and socializing and was certainly on the radar of many a suitor.
Everyone described her as being very gentle and good-natured.
Through her teen years, she took an interest in religion, naturally, and studied at the Christian Union and was hoping to become a nun, naturally.
That is, until she started to have mystical experiences, which pretty much kept her confined to her bedroom where she would also start fasting.
She would also suffer from anorexia, and of course, as many girl teens do, she would argue with her mother almost incessantly about everything under the sun.
Their relationship would be tumultuous, to say the least, and it seemed that they could not meet eye to eye on most things, if any at all.
So pretty much, she'd probably just do whatever her mother told her not to do, and wouldn't do all the things her mother wanted her to.
I mean, I think most of us have probably gone through, you know, similar phase with our parents.
Fuck, man.
Don't even get me started.
Bruh, I hear ya.
It was during this time that she is said to have gotten ill, and as we know now, she was suffering from mental health issues.
Things seemed to have cleared up over time, though, and her mother was no less controlling and domineering.
Louise would demand that Blanche find a husband, a husband that she liked.
It didn't matter if Blanche liked the man.
If mother didn't like the man, then the man was to be told off and to never speak to Blanche again.
By 1876, Blanche, Being about 27 years old and was still unmarried, was desperately trying to find a decent man to take her away from her overbearing mother.
And soon, Blanche would meet an older man who was a local lawyer, much like her own brother Marcel.
Everything seemed to finally be working out for poor Blanche, who only wanted to get away from the family home and live a wonderfully happy life with the well-to-do lawyer.
And the two could start their own family and live happily ever after.
Unfortunately. Louise did not see this man as a viable suitor for her daughter and told Blanche that she would not be marrying a penniless lawyer, as she called him, and now demanded that she rid of this wretched bottom feeder of a man.
But it really wasn't about the man being a penniless lawyer as much as it was him being of a lower class of citizen.
Fuck, well we all know what that's like, don't we?
Kicked to the curb and sat out for Sunday's lunch.
Yep. So this man wasn't from a noble or prominent family like the Maniers, and therefore wasn't seen as being worthy of having her daughter's hand.
But Blanche wouldn't budge.
As it's told, Louise would at first demand that Blanche end the relationship with her potential husband, but Blanche wouldn't relent.
It's said that Louise would then start to beg Blanche to rethink her decision and leave the man, and still, Blanche refused.
The arguments would only escalate, which pushed Louise to do the one thing that she knew would work.
So she decided that she would lock Blanche in a small attic room and told her that until Blanche would agree to never speak to the man again, that she would be locked in that room until she would.
Louise thought that this would work, that this was the solution to get her daughter to leave the man that she loved.
It was sure to be foolproof.
The only problem was that Blanche was as hard-headed as her own mother and too could play her game vis-a-vis.
So where's the dad in all of this?
That's my question.
Is he playing an active part in this?
Or is he not give a shit?
Or is he just like, yeah, what's he up to?
You know, so as far as the story is told, Charles Monnier, the dad, seems to be a passive participant in all of this.
As far as the story is concerned, Charles is always on the sidelines, and from what I've read, he's not mentioned as being a complicit part of this whole story.
Kind of raises questions because Luis is said to have locked Blanche in this small room in 1876, and Charles would die in 1882, six years later.
Exactly. So my question is, did he not know what was going on for those roughly six years?
I'd say he did.
That would be absurd to think he wouldn't have known what was going on.
Yeah, I mean, there's no way.
So he had to be partly responsible, but, you know, if he died six years later, maybe there was some kind of failing health, and he was just like, I can't even deal with all this shit right now.
Right. So I think he was just passive in this situation.
Like, Luis was that terrifying and domineering of a woman that he just kind of stepped back and didn't, you know, get himself involved.
That's what I think his role was.
But in that role he played, whatever role he played...
I think he was still certainly responsible for allowing it to go on and continue for six years.
Oh yeah, he is hella complicit, for sure.
And seeing that Louise was the mother of the household and was in charge of the daily goings-on, she saw to it that Marcel would follow her obediently, as she so desired Blanche to do.
The family also had housemaids, many of them, who were ordered to keep silent about the captivity of Blanche.
They were told to not speak to her and essentially forget that she was locked up in that upstairs room.
But of course, over time, people started to notice that Blanche wasn't keeping up appearances.
Friends of Blanche hadn't seen her in weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years.
As stated, Charles Manier would die in 1882, according to their family tree, leaving Luis and Marcel to look after the mansion with their various housemates, and poor Blanche, locked away upstairs.
at the very top of the house in the attic.
Louise and Marcel would put on an act, essentially faking Blanche's disappearance and assumed death.
And they would even be seen in mourning of the deceased socialite who had so much ahead of her in her life.
So you have this son that's just going along with the crazy-ass mom.
Dad's not in the picture anymore.
And just, like, so hard-headed that they just, like, manufactured this terrible lie.
You know?
And told everyone that she was dead.
Meanwhile, she's in the fucking attic.
Just, you know.
Like rotting away.
Yeah. For a while, there was attention being given to the missing woman, but there was no official investigation by authorities into her disappearance, simply because of the family's prominence and their apparent show of sadness in assumption that, you know, their daughter had died.
Friends and family came to show their support, and they all seemed to buy into the act.
The police had no reason to pursue any investigation and wrote her disappearance off as a death in the family.
What about the dude?
Like, the guy that she wanted to marry?
I mean, he had to be, like, distraught.
Yeah, I mean, of course he was concerned.
But, you know, Luis hated the man, so he was the reason why she had to lock her daughter up in the attic in the first place, you know?
It was his fault.
True, true.
Damn him!
How dare he?
Either she refused to ever exchange words with the man, or, you know, just ignored him altogether, or she told him what she was telling everybody else, you know, that Blanche was dead, and that was that.
End of story.
Right. And the guy would actually die in 1885, but Blanche would still be up in the attic, and she'd be there for another 15 or 16 years.
That only leaves more questions.
But the dad...
He's just going along with this shit for six years, going along with the act that his daughter's dead.
She's actually locked away in the attic room.
I mean, he's for sure in on the whole thing, bro.
There's no doubt in my mind that he played a direct role, but since he died early on, he escaped the burden of responsibility.
True. And so everyone went about their lives as one would do in late 19th century France.
The artistic and literary fields were booming.
The Impressionist painters had begun surging.
And then the avant-garde movement came along, which is simply a French term to imply something ahead of its time or being progressive, if not radical, in the face of the present societal acceptances.
Sure, sure.
Like the umbrellas.
I mean, those things were not catching on for a bit.
Or bicycles.
Stupid contraptions.
Fuck those.
Super glue.
Ask Jeeves.
Jeeves was way ahead of his time.
The fork.
The post-it note.
Oh, that's a good one.
Snuggies for dogs.
Daylight savings time.
Oh, yeah.
The Ford Pinto.
Oh, yeah, that's a good one.
Subprime mortgages.
Oh, yeah, the Segway.
True. The butter stick.
It was like a chapstick, but it was larger and butter.
Yeah. Fake ponytails.
Oh, yeah, those are kind of sweet.
The portable standing chin rest, you remember that one, way ahead of its time.
Yep. Fish training kits.
Train your fish, and there's a fish walker, so you can take your fish for a walk on little rollies.
So dumb.
You said umbrellas, but there are shoe umbrellas.
I think we're just talking about inventions at this point.
Yeah, I think we've sort of, uh...
Veered from our original topic, but they were all avant-garde at one point, nonetheless.
True, true, true.
But, like, I guess what I'm thinking is, like, David Lynch films, for example, which were different.
Eraserhead, dude.
Ha ha ha!
Like, what the fuck is that shit?
Gangster as fuck.
I know, like, the baby is basically the center of the film and, like, it's hideous, but what the hell's going on with that?
Dude, it's actually a long-held secret on how David created the baby.
It's speculated that it might have been a skin rabbit or lamb fetus, but it is something to behold.
And David himself said that it was born nearby.
Or that it was, quote, maybe it was found, end quote.
To me, that indicates that it was a dead animal or parts of multiple dead animals.
Oh, yeah, totally.
Anyway, it didn't get good reviews by the critics back then.
It actually got horrible reviews.
And the film was released in 1977 alongside other films such as The Hills Have Eyes and Star Wars, The Deep, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and High Anxiety.
So, I mean, there was an eclectic variety of films being created and released that year.
Not only that, but just like...
Blockbusters, dude.
Oh yeah, man.
Coming out left and right.
And in fact, Mel Brooks of the aforementioned High Anxiety actually loved the film.
And Mel didn't even know who David was, but when his name started to be circulated for being the possible director of another film, The Elephant Man, he had to go meet him.
Man, that one hit hard.
Poor John Merrick just being deformed and rejected everywhere he goes.
And then Anthony Hopkins.
Yeah, Anthony freaking Hopkins.
Goes and takes Merrick on the road for a circus as part of a freak show.
Poor little fella.
Yeah, and he was getting mistreated his whole life, and while back in London after being paraded around as a freak, and everybody paying Anthony Hopkins to see him, he gets chased down in the streets and beat, and he famously cries out, Anthony Hopkins should be ashamed of himself.
Yeah, he should.
Anyway, Mel Brooks was the producer, or a producer, of The Elephant Man.
And so he went and saw David's film and absolutely loved it.
And so he went straight to David and hired him on the spot for being director.
And so Mel is quoted as saying to him, You're a madman!
I love you!
You're in!
Oh, I can totally hear it.
Yeah, that's probably exactly how it went down.
Yep. And Stanley Kubrick even said it was his favorite film.
So that's huge.
Dude, I've loved, like, every Kubrick film, bro.
Every one.
Every one.
They're all so weird.
Talk about avant-garde.
Oh, exactly, right?
Yeah, bringing it back.
What the hell are we talking about, man?
Let's get back to Blanche.
Oh, yeah, totally.
Which is also what I prefer to do with my fries at home.
Oh, yes, definitely Blanche the fries.
Those Springfield cave fries.
Oh, yep, yep.
Right next to the government.
And butter.
And pecans.
And pecans.
So Blanche is locked up in the attic and so much time has gone by that the entire family, her friends and acquaintances, they'd all move on with their lives and accept that Blanche had passed away, as happens to people every now and then.
Still kind of strange that one day she was there and the next day she was just like suspiciously gone.
I mean, that had to be totally weird for some of the family friends that were seeing them more often than other people.
I mean, even if someone was kind of sick, unless it was something really serious, you'd still see them from time to time.
I mean, yeah, yeah.
It seems likely that someone was suspicious of it all.
I mean, people had to have known how controlling and demanding Luis was over Blanche.
You know, there had to have been obvious signs.
People had to have seen that.
You know, there had to have been some degree of suspicion from someone.
Yeah, considering the extent that she's gone by locking her up, I mean, she'd have to be noticeably overbearing.
I'm sure everybody knew, and it seems that Charles was basically a cuck, you know what I mean?
She was probably doing other dudes and making him watch.
She controlled the affairs of everything and everyone, so it just seems that he had to be a really submissive guy to this domineering woman.
Just look at her!
Look at that picture, bro!
I wouldn't want to mess around with that.
Oh no, dude.
No, not that.
That's not good.
It's no bueno.
Right, and it seems he just stayed back and didn't interfere with her at all.
He just kept his head down while there, and he was probably away from the mansion as much as possible to keep his appearances and be this outstanding, aristocratic, prestigious citizen of the arts, you know, sipping on absinthe and dining on the finest cheeses with other prominent and distinguished gentlemen of the time,
doing much the same thing as Charles was.
Oh, well, yes, indubitably, yes.
So how was Blanche living up there?
I mean, was Louise bringing her food?
Were the servants allowed to bring her food?
Do we know?
What was going on there?
So, there aren't really a lot of details concerning the daily routines of Blanche, but based on the trial that took place, we get a pretty good idea of what was said to have happened over the 25 years that Blanche lived in that room.
Now, there may be a bit of a misconception about this entire case being a matter of Blanche-held prisoner in her own home.
This may very well be a matter of a woman who was suffering from severe mental health issues.
And the family, the Maniers, being of high esteem and looked upon, they needed to present themselves in the best of light.
Right. They had a social image to uphold.
That mattered then as much as many think it matters today.
Like, talk about mental health problems.
Dude, it's sad.
The state of society, in the United States at least, is doleful.
I say it all the time, but we are heading directly to where Mike Judge predicted in Idiocracy.
I mean, we're out of here, but this is only the beginning.
Oh yeah, totally.
I just saw a clip the other day of the national, what is it, the slapping competition?
Oh yeah.
Like those people line up and slap the shit out of each other, and I was just like, Idiocracy.
Just like totally made me think of Idiocracy.
Yeah, I mean, just look everywhere.
Everything that goes on is...
And I'm sure, you know, I'm completely sure that it'll be Idiocracy combined heavily with Ready Player One.
Totally, yes.
I was just talking about that to one of my friends recently, that VR is just going to get more and more realistic, and people are going to stop going out.
I mean, they even have this thing on Oculus, like that VR setup.
It's called VRChat, and you design an avatar, you go into this world, you meet with other people.
Through the interwebs in there.
You can meet up and do games.
You can hang out.
You can play cards.
I mean, there's just, like, all kinds of things that you could do.
It's cool.
It's great, you know?
But, man, like, people don't want to go to work.
They want to stay home and work.
Yeah, everybody's gotten really comfortable just living their life through a screen.
Yeah, everyone's always on their phone.
And now when this VR, everyone's going to have it eventually.
You know, in the future here.
Oh, yeah.
And that's the direction.
And other movies like Escape from New York.
Ah, Snake Plissken.
I don't give a fuck about your war.
Or your president.
Yeah, and Judge Dredd.
Yes, Judge Joseph Dredd.
Fuck the bench.
He takes crime into his own hands, bro.
Double whammy.
Fuck yeah, Mad Max.
The Knight Rider.
What is his name?
The Night Rider.
The Night Rider.
Remember him when you look at the night sky.
I will.
Yep, yep.
Did you know that Mel Gibson went to the audition just to accompany his friend who was going to try out for it?
Really? Yeah, but he had recently been in a fight and had some nice shiners.
So when he dropped his friend off, he was just standing around and one of the casting agents took some pictures of him and told him to get in touch with the agency once he was healed.
He did that and the director, George Miller, hired him on the spot.
Mel Gibson's friend did not actually get the part.
Oh shit, that's right, yeah.
And George also paid a lot of the crew with beer.
Oh man, times were different back then.
So instead of placing Blanche in a mental asylum or a psychiatric ward of some kind, they just kept her home where she mainly stayed in the attic room.
You know, she had nurses and aides who would come take care of her and take care of her general needs.
And her main nurse, who had the most training and experience, was a woman named Marie Faze.
Did you just say Mazzy Star?
Uh, no.
Marie Faze, that sounds nothing like Mazzy Star.
Oh. I want to hold the hand inside you.
I want to take the breath that's true.
I look to you, and I see nothing.
I look to you to see the truth.
Well, I think it's strange you never knew, Scott.
Continuing, Marie Fasey would look after Blanche for 20 years.
In that time, it is said that Blanche was thoroughly washed and her room was meticulously cleaned.
And from the testimonies given during the trial, which began on October 7, 1901, It was testified, too, that Blanche was freely able to walk around the house and do as she pleased, and she even played the piano for some time until her mental health had gotten to a pretty bad state.
So contrary to how the press was putting it, she wasn't locked away and forgotten about.
At least, that is the picture painted by those who gave testimony, which was mainly Marcel.
And the housemaids.
Oh, man.
Well, I mean, if the housemaids went along with the original, like, they were instructed not to talk to her, just to pretend like it wasn't happening, they would say anything, bro.
Right. That's what I'm saying.
So Charles, the father, he, you know, he had to have been complicit in how all of this was handled, but he, like all the others, did go about their own lives and just left the nurses and the maids to deal with the declining health of Blanche.
And so when he passed, it only worsened the symptoms that she was suffering from, which is expected.
And, you know, it was found out later, after so many years, 25 years, that Blanche was suffering from schizophrenia.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Yeah, and this diagnosis was in the 1900s.
So you can only imagine what the DSM-5 would diagnose her as today.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Like, for the listeners who don't know, the DSM-5 is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition.
That's right.
And did you know that it lists gender identity disorder, GID, as a diagnosis?
And according to the DSM-5, GID is when a person feels that their physical gender does not match their true gender, the gender that they identify with.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so everything kind of that's happening today, you know, more and more actually has a classified...
Actually has a classification and like a term that goes with it.
It's interesting.
Well, it's like all these kids today are like parents are promoting kids to be transgender.
And like if the DSM-5 is labeling gender identity disorder as a diagnosis, then just imagine how many people in this world have a diagnosis undiagnosed.
Oh, man.
Yes. Undiagnosed.
Yeah, yeah.
And Tennessee just banned drag shows, but a federal judge put a temporary hold on it, and other states are sure to follow.
It's just crazy, man.
This country is something else, but there is a lot of professional and medical criticism about the DSM-5.
That I was not aware of, and it's actually pretty interesting.
Oh, yeah.
I was actually, for lack of better words, scrolling and came upon something from ontario.cmha.ca, which is a Canadian website.
Yeah, shout out to Canada.
They're actually saying that one of the main criticisms of the DSM-5 is that the diagnostic thresholds have been lowered all across the board, making it so much easier to diagnose a person with a mental disorder and pathologizing just normal emotional reactions to shit and behavior.
And the DSM-5 really advocates to medicate with prescription.
Yeah, and I was surprised to read that the National Institute of Mental Health, the NIMH, withdrew their support from the manual two weeks after the updated version was published in 2013 because they just didn't agree with all that stuff.
And they decided to pursue their own mental health diagnostic system and propose the Research Domain Criteria, the RDOC.
And that is more focused on the genetics of what is going on in...
Yes, they will certainly get to the root of the problems that we humans have.
They definitely will.
So it was explained that Blanche steadily declined over the years, and more and more, she would seclude herself in her attic room.
And there were doctors who would come by and check on things.
Three doctors over the 25 years.
There was Dr. Gurnau, who is said to have made the first diagnosis.
And what diagnosis this was, I'm not sure.
Schizophrenia was first formally described as a mental illness by Dr. Emile Krapelin in 1887, so it is possible that early on, Blanche may have been diagnosed with dementia praecox, which has the same symptoms and means early dementia.
So when Dr. Guerinow died in 1882, Dr. Chetta Vernier was his replacement.
And during the trial, he would say that the last time he had seen Blanche was around 1896, about five years before the trial in 1901.
And she would have been about 47 years old at that time, and the symptoms were well-progressed.
And that was the last official doctor visit that she would receive.
And a third doctor would come by, but not for Blanche.
This doctor was Dr. Sharon.
That was due to feces thrown all over the walls.
How do you like the smell?
Is it good?
Does it smell good enough for you in there?
Dr. Sharon would only come by because he became Louise's doctor.
And she would be about 77 years old at this point and requested a doctor of her own.
Dr. Sharon would testify that he wasn't even aware that Louise had a daughter.
And it was in his opinion when he did see Blanche?
That Blanche was incurably crazy.
Mad. Bonkers.
Lost her marbles.
Sure. Gone bananas.
Unglued. Cuckoo for cocoa puffs.
Cracked. Nutty as a fruitcake.
Out to lunch.
Out of one's tree.
Round the bend.
Bats in the belfry.
Mad as a march hare.
You guys are fucking stupid.
Shut up already, stupid idiots.
Whoa, Wayne Dale out of left field with his impressive demonstration of intelligence and interpersonal communication.
Well done, Wayne Dale.
Yeah, whatever, Wayne.
Wayne Firkendale.
Mr. Big Shot over there with your obvious toupee and fanny pack.
Quite the striking style you're rocking today.
Hey, Wayne, you must have been born on a highway because that is where most accidents happen, right?
Am I right, Wayne Dale?
Shut up.
Y'all are a bunch of dirty mudflaps.
Hey, yeah, your family tree must be a cactus, right, Wayne?
Because everyone on it is a prick.
Shut up, stupid turds.
You guys are dumb.
Like two nails in a...
Damn it.
Just get back to the story already, or I'm gonna come out there and read it myself, you frickin' stupid idiots.
Yeah, sure, whatever, Wayne Dale.
Whatever you say, big fella, your vernacular is intimidating and worldly.
I'm sure you do fantastically.
Ooh, sorry, ladies and gentlemen, for that embarrassing interruption by the man who does everything around here except the important part, the talking.
Goes to show.
But yeah, that's really embarrassing, Wayne.
You should be proud of yourself for that monumental mistake.
Well done.
Good job, Wayndale.
I'm a good person.
I deserve to be loved.
Alright, so then there was speculation as to why the Maniers would choose to keep Blanche at home rather than put her in an asylum.
And as said towards the beginning of this episode, the aristocratic families had an image to present, and anything that could be criticized was hidden, sometimes at great cost, and this could very well be the reason why.
We also need to remember that this is the 19th century, turn of the 20th, and asylums and the institutions weren't all that great, and even at that time didn't have the greatest of reputations.
And this still rings true to this day with those institutions that don't have a lot of oversight in the daily operations.
Wait, wait, wait.
Wait just a Zimbabwean bobsledding second, man.
So she wasn't actually held captive in the attic to keep her from marrying that penniless sewer trash lawyer guy?
Well, it's a complicated situation, Scott.
So, Marie Faise would care primarily for Blanche for 20 years until her own death in 1896.
She would live there with them.
In fact, Marie would live in the same room as Blanche throughout that entire time.
Whoa! Holy shit, dude.
And she probably died in her bed in that room then, too.
Her ghost is probably still in there.
Oh, I don't even want to think about it.
Dude, most likely.
That's not good for schizophrenia, you know.
Damn, poor Blanche was already religious.
You know, religion and schizophrenia sometimes seem to go a bit hand-in-hand.
So she was dealing with all that madness, and then you have this lady who dies in the same room as her.
Now she's alone with the ghost of...
Mazzy Star, dude.
Marie Fasey.
But yeah, that's what I was thinking.
It would be quite a time in that room.
And so when Marie Fasey died, Louise would hire other women to replace her, but they weren't trained to deal with schizophrenic patients and had no experience with being a nurse of any kind.
They were just simple housemates.
Must not have checked their LinkedIn's.
No, either she skipped reading over their resumes and cover letters or she just didn't care.
Not only that, but Louise had them stay in the same room as Blanche.
They had to live in the same room and take care of her every need on a daily basis, despite there being plenty of unused bedrooms in this mansion.
Each woman who took the position wouldn't last long.
There would be a parade of new housemates coming in
Yeah, you know, I put out an ad to have housemaids living in the same room as me, but so far no takers.
No takers?
What about that mailman?
Is he around there?
Does he come around your house anymore?
No, he has G.I.D.
So he doesn't come around your neighborhood?
I'm using that.
Right in the middle of everything.
Sorry, man.
Also, before Charles had died, they were having issues with Blanche being fully nude and standing at the window of her room in full view of the streets below, and she would perform various forms of exhibitionism to the onlookers below.
So either lucky them or poor them?
Yeah, hard to say after it's already been a few years.
So this prompted them to board up the window in that room, which is the reason why the window was boarded up.
It was not to keep her captive.
Ew. Oh my god, dude.
So to live in there with her, all the incontinence, the smells that would be so bad, and on top of it, it's all dark as fuck in there, creepy sounds, you know, because you know Blanche is up walking around at night in full-blown schizophrenia mode.
You're trying to sleep, and all you hear are these weird little footsteps in the dark.
Going over here, stopping.
Going over there, stopping.
It's silent.
Then you start hearing breathing near you.
And all sorts of strange shit would happen.
Creepy shit, man.
No thank you.
Marie Faise must have had some notable ovaries in her to put up with all that shit on a nightly basis for 20 fucking years.
Hell yeah, dude.
Gonads aplenty.
But Louise herself had all but given up on poor Blanche.
She played no active role, personally, in her daughter's care.
She would hire women to take on the role of caretaker.
Being elderly herself, it's no wonder that she didn't want to hike up numerous flights of stairs and then down again, you know?
Should have installed one of those stairway chairlifts, you know?
Oh, sure, sure.
Those things are kind of dangerous, though.
Have you seen the movie, Christine?
Yeah, the stairway chairlift that develops an evil mind of its own, hell-bent on killing the elderly who ride it.
But it comes on slowly, you know?
It gets you to trust it first, and then over time, it stops suddenly, causing you to almost fall, but just a little bit, until one day, dude.
One day, you ride it up to the top of your 30-stair stairway because who doesn't have a 30-stair staircase?
And bam!
Suddenly, you just get bucked off and you tumble to your death all 30 stairs.
Steven Spielberg, we will sell you the rights to this.
Or no, no, no.
It should be a Tarantino film.
Hell yeah, bro.
Or maybe a Tim Burton movie.
Or no, dude.
Wes Anderson.
Ooh, I'm so down to work with Wes Anderson.
Wes, contact us.
We'll go over the storyline.
Hit us up, bro.
We got material and we're here all the time.
Like, literally all the time.
All the time.
But she was no less of a miserable person to be around at this point.
Being old and shit.
And one of these maids had gone to Luis once to request clean linen and a nightgown for Blanche because she was incontinent and shitting everywhere.
But Luis flatly refused to give her any.
Did the maid at least, like, maybe go get them herself?
I hope she did.
I'm... Sure she did.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm sure.
Yeah. Well, she would also receive welcome company.
Marcel, her brother, would often visit her.
Oh, well that's nice of him.
A lot, actually.
Very good of him.
What a nice brother.
Daly, in fact.
Oh, uh, brother of the year.
Scott, you remember how he was, uh, into coprophilia?
Oh. Right.
Well, it was also found that Blanche was a coprophiliac as well.
Oh, man.
Ay-yi-yi.
I mean, I guess you got her locked up in the attic, you know?
All sorts of weird shit's gonna develop, you know?
Well, while there is no evidence that they participated together in their shared fetish...
But it's interesting that they both developed the same fetish.
Yeah, I was just wondering.
I knew we had talked about there was a stench and incontinence up there in the room.
You say Marcel visited her all the time.
I'm like, damn, that guy was a soldier putting up with all that smell and whatnot.
It's starting to make a lot more sense now.
Yeah, we can let our minds wonder what happened up in that attic between brother and sister.
They were only one year apart, and so to grow up in the same household and, I don't know, develop that same fetish?
Strange. Very strange.
But it's said that Marcel would visit Blanche to read her the daily newspapers and talk for a while, gossip and whatnot.
So now we get to around the year 1900.
Louise's health was now in steady decline, and she became sickly.
This is when this mysterious note alerting authorities of a woman being held in a room would be delivered to the Paris Attorney General.
At first, they were hesitant to act just because of the family's reputation, but they also knew that they had a job to do.
And it's kind of funny, I didn't mention this before, but Luis, when the police walked up toward the front door...
She poked her head out of the window when she noticed them coming and then just kind of sat back and did nothing all fucking miserly.
And, you know, the police knocked and knocked, but she just sat there.
And so, you know, police just fucking busted the door down.
That's so weird.
You just get the owner of the house just sitting there looking at you with her shawl and her glasses and not saying anything.
They're like, yeah, can we come in?
And nothing.
She's just looking at him like, okay, we're going in now.
They just go in.
So, the note came at a time when someone knew that Luis was about to die and could no longer do anything for Blanche, as in hire maids to take care of her.
So, apparently, witnesses say that Luis became too ill to even give her staff the daily orders.
Damn, so who actually wrote the note?
Well, no one knows, dude.
It's thought that it was a boyfriend of one of the new maids, who was either Juliette Dupois or Eugenie Tabo.
And some think it may have been Marcel himself.
Oh, okay.
So maybe he's just got a little guilty or worried because, you know, at least she's had maids calling on her at the mom's orders and now she's about to die and he's like, well, we gotta get this taken care of, you know?
Right. He still has a little piece of heart.
Yeah. What is known is that by the time the authorities had reached Blanche, she was 50 years old and covered with feces and scraps of decomposed food all around her.
Her bed was said to be a quote-unquote filthy straw mattress that appeared to be caked with excrement, rotten food, and insects of all kinds which made the mattress their comfortable home.
And one officer on scene would say, As soon as lights entered the room, we noticed in the back, lying on a bed, her body and head covered by a repulsively filthy blanket, we also saw...
Fragments of meat, vegetables, fish, and rotten bread.
We also saw oyster shells.
And of course, a woman identified as Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier.
After we identified her, we did what all officers of the law are trained to do.
And we had our official break and picnic.
We took immediately these oyster shells, this rotten bread, meat, vegetables, and fish.
And we made the most harmonious stew with it.
Claude spread the blankets on the ground, of course, and we sat and ate and made merry.
Claude brought out the crunchiest baguettes from the corner store, and I, of course, brought with me my mom's croissants.
And we had red wine aplenty.
There was baked brie, and there were capers, of course.
And soft-boiled eggs, you know, eggs?
And also, the ham.
Ah, yes, there was beautiful ham.
Perfect for the baguettes.
So after all that, the unfortunate woman was of course lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress.
All around her was formed a sort of crust, like the baguettes that I mentioned earlier, made from excrement.
And bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier's bed.
Blanche weighed only 55 pounds, or about 25 kilograms, and her hair had never been cut.
Needless to say again that the smell was exceedingly pungent, and the authorities worked quickly to get her to a hospital.
Mother Louise and Brother Marcel would be placed under arrest.
Seeing that they were a reputable family and had received the Committee of Good Works Award, which is only given to people who displayed the highest of virtues, they were allowed to stay at their home.
It was also helpful that Marcel himself was a lawyer.
Unfortunately for Luis, once the news got out about the situation, an angry mob of citizens would approach the home, which caused the elderly woman to die of a heart attack, apparently some days later.
When questioned before her death, she would say that Blanche brought the condition she was in upon herself by refusing help.
She would say that Blanche had violent tendencies and mental health problems ever since she was a teenager.
And Marcel would back up those claims and add that she chose to stay in the room and that she was foul, angry, overly excited, and full of rage.
Even once, I was reading the newspaper, and she threw her chicken bones all over me.
I'll never forget it.
Oh yeah, I'm sure he totally hopped on to what his mother was saying, you know, because he was such a mother's boy.
I'm sure he also, you know, being a lawyer, he probably also didn't want to get in trouble or admit that he knew something worse was going on.
And so, like, why wouldn't he say that?
Despite what Marcel said, the doctors noted that Blanche never once wavered out of fits of anger or aggression in any way.
And so Marcel would go to trial and would be convicted of complicity to violence after five days of hearing testimony.
Of course.
I'm glad that they weren't stupid.
Because there's just no way that she locked herself in that attic, I don't think.
I mean, the last thing we knew, she was trying to marry that guy.
That's all she wanted.
Yeah, marry that guy.
That's all she wanted.
And then they threw her up there and threw away the key.
Shit. But seeing that Marcel was a lawyer, he immediately appealed.
And the appeal was granted because it was found that he was deemed mentally incapacitated.
Of course.
Plus, they determined that since he was not the owner of the residence, that it was not his responsibility to take care of the residence of said residence.
And in addition...
There was no law in place at the time which made it a criminal act to neglect someone in need of help, so he was allowed to walk free.
And it is said that those present in the courtroom went absolute apeshit crazy.
Oh, of course, you know, people were probably throwing not only tantrums, but their shoes and boots.
There were reports.
Actually, it was the courtroom of us who captured the historical moments.
Yes, yes, yes.
They were sketching page after page of the chaotic scenes happening in the courtroom live recording.
Men and women alike were ripping out their own hair in distressing torment from the ruling.
They were even ripping out each other's hair.
Pure madness.
Meanwhile, the stenographer's probably typing away every little detail heard in that courtroom, from the muddled yells coming from piles of angry bodies to the desperate pleas for stale air and cigarettes, you know.
Marcel would go to sell off all of the properties that he would inherit from the death of Louise, his mother, and he would move somewhere to the coast.
But Blanche, poor Blanche, did not fare so well.
She would be diagnosed with numerous disorders, and her health was obviously not all that great.
She couldn't care for herself, and it was decided that she would be placed in a psychiatric hospital in Blois, France, for the remainder of her life.
Ah, that's just so sad, dude.
And at this point, it's like a chicken and the egg situation, right?
Because she was probably fine when she was locked in the attic, but developed these mental disorders after being in there for over 25 years.
Yeah, man.
You'd think you would develop some shit being isolated in an attic, a dark attic, too, at that.
For sure.
So Blanche Monnier would die on October 13th, 1913, at age 64. And Marcel would die the same year.
So what do you think, Scott?
Do you think that Blanche was held prisoner, or do you think she was kept safe by her very involved and loving mother who only had Blanche's best interest in mind?
Or do you think it was an unhealthy combination of the two?
I'm gonna go fully for she was held prisoner.
I don't have a good argument for her being kept safe because the last report they had was her just wanting to marry that dude and she was super young.
And then they tossed her in there.
And we know how domineering and controlling the mom was.
Like, other people knew that.
True. You know?
It wasn't just some kind of rumor or whatever.
So I think it was totally the mom just pissed that this girl wouldn't do what she wanted her to do.
And she threw her up in the attic because she figured, Well, shit, no one's going to ask.
What we say is the truth, and we have enough power that if we say something to the people around us, they're going to believe us.
And they did.
They did exactly that.
Yeah, it all worked out in their favor.
And it gets a bit touchy if you consider that there was no law in place at the time that made it illegal to basically do what they did by just, you know, if Blanche was mentally ill and her family was unable to control her and left her to her own devices as she wanted.
If that is true, then there really wasn't a crime committed, right?
She was right about 25 years old when it began.
And then you have the testimony from the housemaids and the brother, Marcel, who are the only sources for the information that is available, other than the news outlets who portrayed this story immediately as if it was as heinous as could be.
But it's really easy to print this off as being just a sinister tale because people love that shit.
People love a shocking story.
Just look at the National Enquirer.
It started in 1926, and it's still printing papers.
So imagine that you're a reporter at the turn of the century.
And you're vying for a good story.
Cha-ching!
Hot off the presses.
Beautiful girl held captive and chained in an attic of 25 years, fed only scraps of food, only barely surviving, and held by none other than her own mother and brother in a sick and twisted real-life case of Rapunzel.
You know?
It's so.
Yeah, I mean, that's so for sure, I have to say.
If I saw one of those magazines, you know, on the rack at a checkout, you bet your ass I'd be buying that.
For sure.
But who knows?
Maybe they did keep her captive against her will and tortured and abused her for 25 years.
It wouldn't be the first time that has happened.
Take Lydia Guerrero, who was held by her stepfather for around 28 years in France and was able to escape only after he died in 1999.
And she was abused the whole time.
This next one is a very famous case.
Elizabeth Fritzl.
She was held by her dad in Austria for at least 24 years.
She was discovered in 2008, and she birthed many children to him.
Laura Mongeli was held in Italy for 25 years by her father and then her brother.
And she was discovered in 2009.
Alba Nidia Alvarez was held by her father for 25 years.
Absolutely. What a hopeless and just terrible existence for 25 plus.
years that's sad to me dude so sad it it hits man and and i'm sure you're aware of the turpin case which got worldwide attention media um back in 2018 and the parents david allen turpin and louise anna turpin who
met at princeton in west virginia but they had 10 children who they starved beat strangled and kept a prisoner for a great number of years something like 28 or 29 and it's a
Yeah, I think I remember, like...
Were those the ones that were kept down in the cellar or something like that?
And then they'd pop up and I forget how they were discovered.
I might be mixing it with something else, but, you know, they were like, I remember they were radical Pentecostal Christians and the dad said that God called on them.
And yeah, it was not a good situation.
Yeah, I'm not sure if they kept him in a cellar or anything.
I don't know.
I don't know where they kept them, but...
No, dude.
As of 2022, some of the children, the Turpins, brought two new lawsuits against the parents for forcing them to eat their own vomit and told them to commit suicide, which thankfully they did not do.
Ew! Gosh, that's so disgusting.
What fucking parent, man?
I just don't understand.
Same. And then there was or is something like one point five million dollars for these children.
But there was a court appointed public guardian who was in charge of all their finances.
And apparently they failed to file the annual accounting or some shit, which put all that money up into a cloud and the children.
Some of them are well into the 20s and 80s.
Yeah. Ugh.
Man, that's terrible.
So is that it?
Is that it?
I do believe so.
Is that it?
Yeah, let's wait for the old thumbs up from Wayne Dale.
Can we wrap it up here?
I don't even know what's going on.
What's he doing over there?
Oh, God.
What the hell is happening?
I don't even know.
Hey, Wayne!
Hello, Wayne!
All right, looks like we're...
Yeah, fuck it.
All right, well...
His thumb came...
Oh, you got it?
Okay. All right, well...
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for listening to today's show.
We can't thank you all enough.
And please, if you would, like, share, and most importantly, subscribe to the Paranautica Podcast.
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Sources for today's show include bestfranceforever.com, retronews.fr, El Histor Veradique de la Sequestria de Portrait by Jean-Marie Augustine.
That is a book.
Nailed it.
Ah, thanks, man.
I've been really practicing just reading this right here.
Totally. And another book called The Sequestration of Portraits, An Unprecedented Legal Case by Vivian.
Jean Nguyen de Nantes.
Well, thanks to everyone, and until next time, have a good one.
