At a dinner party in 1846, the Hungarian poets Petofi fell in love with Sendle Yulia at first sight, but were strongly opposed by the Yulia family. Love and obstacles became the source of Petofi's creation, and he wrote a large number of beautiful poems in only half a year. Yulia was deeply moved, broke through the shackles of the world and the family, and married Petofi, but the ending was not perfect.
Petofi's poetry may not be familiar to many people, but they should have heard the sentence in "Freedom and Love":
Life is precious, love is more expensive, and if it is free, both can be thrown away.
In 1849, Petofi left the 22-year-old Yulia and his 1-year-old son to sacrifice on the battlefield, sacrificing love and life for the freedom of the country and the people.
(Blanche Monnier)
In the year of Petofi's death, the Montnier family of Poitiers in France gave birth to a baby girl, Blanche Monnier. As an adult, Blanche was imprisoned by his mother for 25 years for the freedom of love and marriage, and finally suffered from mental illnesses such as fecal disease, exposure and schizophrenia. Blanche's tragic experience refreshed the limits of human existence.
(French newspapers published the tragic story of Blanche Monnier in 1901.)
The investigators' report of Blanche's rescue was published in a French newspaper, describing the scene:
A woman lay naked on a rotten straw mat, looking extremely malnourished. On her body formed a shell of excrement, pieces of meat, vegetables, fish and rotten bread... Miss Monnier's bed was crawling with bugs of all kinds. The air in the room could not breathe, and it was difficult for us to stay any longer and continue the investigation.
Blanche was born into a long-established aristocratic family, where the Monnier family was known for its philanthropy. Blanche's father was a headmaster, but Blanche died when he was 20. The mother also came from a powerful family, and in her mother's words, Blanche had an ancient aristocratic bloodline.
(Blanche's mother)
The teenage Blanche is young, beautiful, and kind-hearted, and has a large number of suitors, but all of them are turned away by their mother. In 1874, the 25-year-old Blanche fell in love with an older lawyer and went on a three-day date, but the lawyer was financially strapped and had no background. When the mother found out, she yelled at Blanche: My daughter can't marry a penniless lawyer. Blanche was disgusted and contemptuous of his mother's class ideas, vanity, and courtesans, and said that he would marry a lawyer no matter what.
The originally well-behaved daughter was suddenly so incomprehensible and determined that her mother was furious, and in order not to shame the family, she made the most confusing decision in her life.
She locked Blanche in a small, dark attic and closed the window. Since then, Blanche has been isolated from the world, only her mother and servants will occasionally enter and not even allow her to get out of bed. Blanche spends half of his time in bed, including eating, urinating, and defecating. Later, the servants were reluctant to enter Blanche's attic because the smell was so bad. Later, Blanche often lived off carrion.
In 1901, the Attorney General of Paris received an anonymous letter:
Attorney General, it is an honor for you to see this letter, and I want to tell you something particularly serious. I'm talking about an old "virgin" who was kept in Madame Monier's house, half-starved, and had lived on rotten garbage for the past 25 years—in short, in her own filth.
(Probably written by a servant)
The Attorney General thought that someone had played a prank, how could such a prominent aristocratic family have happened. He told someone else about it, and it turned out that the Monnier family once had a very beautiful woman who suddenly disappeared 25 years ago.
The Attorney General thought about it for a moment and decided to send someone to check it out, stressing that the Monnier family had a high reputation in the Parisian community, and that they must be polite and just walk around.
The investigators came to Blanche's house, and everything looked clean and tidy until they came to the attic. The attic locks had rusted and the room seemed to have been locked for years, but the investigators smelled a rotten smell before leaving. There was only one room, and the smell could only come from downstairs or emanating from the crack in the door, and it was easy to recognize with a slight touch of smell.
(Cabin in Captivity)
Investigators approached Mrs. Monnier and said they needed a key to unlock the door and go inside. Madame Monnier was suddenly very angry and used her status as an aristocrat to suppress the investigators. Given that Madame's attitude had changed so much, the investigators wanted to go in even more. So he smashed the lock on the door and rushed into the room, and there was the scene described in the opening report.
(Photo of Blanche Monnier when he was found)
Because the room was so dark, investigators did not see Blanche the first time they went in, but were smoked out, and then they went in again to remove the seal of the sealed window, and through a glimmer of light they saw Blanche, which was also Blanche's second time in 25 years.
She informed investigators that during her time in captivity, her family and servants provided her with only minimal living conditions, and that she was often forgotten, with no food delivered for several days.
Her health was very poor, she weighed only about 50 pounds, her body was full of food and feces that had long decayed and long hair, the bed and floor were full of bugs, and her feet were completely incapable of standing.
On the way to the hospital, Blanche repeatedly took a deep breath and said:
How wonderful and fascinating the fresh air is.
In the hospital, the doctors were amazed to hear that she had survived in such harsh conditions for so many years.
Blanche's mother and brother, as well as servants, were taken away for questioning. The mother died 15 days after her arrest, and the cause of death varies. Since there was no "duty to save" under the law at the time and there was no evidence that her brother was involved in captivity, she was eventually acquitted. The lawyer died of illness as early as 11 years after Blanche's captivity.
Blanche was diagnosed in hospitals for a variety of medical conditions, including psychological problems such as anorexia, schizophrenia, revealing fecals and fecal cravings. In 1913, Blanche died quietly in a mental hospital in Blois, France.