Socialite lfie3/6/2023 ![]() ![]() One Nato employee told the investigators that he had a brief romantic relationship with “Rivera”. Her acquaintances said that by taking on the role of secretary at the Naples branch of the international Lions Club, she was able to befriend many Nato staff and other affiliates. She set up a jewellery boutique called Serein and led an active social life. Posing as “Rivera”, the illegal moved between Rome, Malta and Paris, eventually settling in Naples, home of Nato’s Allied Joint Force Command, around 2013. Sometimes, they stay living in their fake identities for decades. Moscow’s intelligence agencies have used illegals since the early Soviet period. ![]() “Rivera” was what the intelligence community call an illegal, a deep-cover agent trained to pose as a foreigner. He walked free to the horror of the crowd in the courtroom.īlanche Monnier, also known in France as La Séquestrée de Poitiers, died in 1913 in a sanitarium in Bois.In fact, she was a career GRU officer from Russia, according to research by Bellingcat in partnership with a number of media outlets including La Repubblica in Italy and Der Spiegel in Germany, and shared with the Guardian before publication. ![]() He was later acquitted on claims that Blanche could have left at any time, but chose not to. She died in prison 15 days later, after confessing the abysmal abduction to police.īlanche's brother Marcel stood trial for helping her mother in the ordeal and was initially sentenced to 15 months in prison. Madame Monnier, who had won an award from the Committee of Good Works for her generous contributions to the city, was immediately arrested. She was extremely malnourished, weighing just 55 pounds. She was completely naked and lying on a rotten straw mattress, which had been soaked through by urine, feces. In the back corner, covered by a filthy blanket, was a skeletal, but still living Blanche Monnier. Police could not open the shutters until they removed the hinges.Īnd when daylight finally spilled into the musty chamber, a shocking sight came into focus. When they entered the room, they found a casement window covered by heavy curtains and coated in a layer of dust. They followed the stench upstairs to the attic. When no one answered, they forced it open - and were hit with a wretched smell. The door was locked when authorities arrived at 21 rue de la Visitation. ![]() Perhaps the letter was a twisted hoax - then again, what if it was true? Police decided to investigate. Still, they recalled the public heartbreak 25 years prior, when the Monniers’ daughter Blanche vanished without a trace. The police were skeptical of the letter’s allegations. Marcel was a law school graduate and a former administrative official with the Puget-Théniers commune. Her late husband Emile had been the head of a local arts faculty. She lived in an affluent neighborhood along with her son, Marcel. Madame Louise Monnier Demarconnay was an upstanding citizen. 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 twenty-five years–in a word, in her own filth. Monsieur Attorney General: I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious occurrence. According to the anonymous letter, a woman had been held captive under horrific conditions at 21 rue de la Visitation for 25 years. In May 1901, the Paris Attorney General received scribbled text describing the ghoulish events of a house in Poitiers, France. But behind the appearance, they were hiding a terrible secret. Her mother and brother mourned her, and went on with their daily lives. Nobody in France saw her in public again. As Blanche withered away, her lawyer lover died in 1885.īlanche just vanished. For 25 years, Blanche only ate scraps from her mother's meals. But Blanche did not gave in.Īnd so, Madame Louise kept her daughter prisoner. Madame Louise felt she had found the perfect solution to her problem. She told her daughter that the door would remain locked until Blanche agreed to break off the courtship. Realizing that she would never persuade Blanche away from the penniless lawyer, Madame Monnier locked her up in a tiny room. Blanche refused, at which point her mother begged her daughter to end to the affair. Madame Louise forbade Blanche from seeing the man. She fell in love with an older, broke lawyer, who her aristocratic mother disliked, and set her heart on marrying him. In Paris 1876, 25-year-old Blanche Monnier was a typical socialite scrambling to find a suitor before it was too late. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |