The Blind in French Society from the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille 9780804772389

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the blind in french society from the middle ages to the century of louis braille

The Blind in French Society from the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille

Zina Weygand Translated by Emily-Jane Cohen

stanford university press stanford, california 2009

Stanford University Press Stanford, California English translation © 2009 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. The Blind in French Society from the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille was originally published in French in 2003 under the title Vivre sans voir. Les aveugles dans la société française du Moyen Age au siècle de Louis Braille © 2003, Éditions Créaphis. Foreword © 2009 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. Support for the translation and publication of this book was provided by C. Michael Mellor. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weygand, Zina.   [Vivre sans voir. English]   The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille / Zina Weygand ; translated by Emily-Jane Cohen.    p.  cm.   Translation of: Vivre sans voir. 2003.  Includes bibliographical references.  ISBN 978-0-8047-5768-3 (cloth : alk. paper)   1.  Blind—France—History. I.  Title. HV1965.W4913  2009 305.9’08109440903—dc22 2008041758

Contents

Abbreviations

vii

Foreword, by Catherine Kudlick

viii

Preface, by Alain Corbin Introduction

x 1

part i. from the middle ages to the classical age: a paradoxical vision of blindness and the blind Chapter 1. The Middle Ages

11

Chapter 2. The Beginning of Modern Times

24

Chapter 3. Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age

36

part ii. the eighteenth century: a different look at the blind Chapter 4. Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments

57

Chapter 5. Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired

80

Chapter 6. The Move of the Quinze-Vingts and the Annuity from the Public Treasury

110

part iii. the french revolution and the blind: an affair of state Chapter 7. The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind (1791–1794)

121

vi  Contents Chapter 8. The National Institute for Blind Workers

136

Chapter 9. The Merging of the National Institute for Blind Workers and the Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts

158

part iv. blindness in france in the early nineteenth century: realities and fictions Chapter 10. The Blind in France at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

173

Chapter 11. Social Representations and Literary Figures of Blindness in the First Third of the Nineteenth Century

189

part v. blindness in the century of louis braille: from productivist utopia to cultural integration Chapter 12. The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire: Implementing a Productivist Utopia

219

Chapter 13. The Quinze-Vingts Under the Restoration: A “Memory Site” of the Ultra-Royalist Reaction

253

Chapter 14. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration

261

Conclusion

293

Notes

301

Bibliography

392

Abbreviations

AN Archives AP Archives XV–XX Annales ESC BIUM

French National Archives Archives de l’Assistance publique Archives des Quinze-Vingts Annales: Economie, Sociétés, Civilisations Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Médecine (Paris) BNF Bibliothèque Nationale de France BVH Bibliothèque Valentin Haüy CTHS Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques CTNERHI Centre technique national d’études et de recherches sur les handicaps et les inadaptations ENS Ecole Normale Supérieure GIAA Groupement des Intellectuels Aveugles ou Amblyopes IDEF Institut de l’Enfance et de la Famille IDERM Institut d’Etudes et Recherches Maçonniques INJA Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles INSERM Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale IFF Inventaire du fonds français (Inventory of the holdings of the Cabinet d’Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris). MNATP Musée National des Arts et des Traditions Populaires OCDS Order of the Discalced Carmelites PUF Presses Universitaires de France RHMC Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine SEDES Société d’Edition d’Enseignement Supérieur UER Unité d’Enseignement et de Recherche

Foreword By Catherine Kudlick

In this erudite, sensitive, witty, and impeccably documented book, Zina Weygand draws from the rich tradition of the French Annales school, while also offering something completely new. Thanks to her energy and creativity as a researcher, we meet scores of people who might otherwise be “victims of the vagaries of existence,” from the first troupe of blind actors to the “individualist, dirty, noisy, and quarrelsome” residents of the Quinze-Vingts hospice, not all of whom were—to invoke her phrase—choirboys. Weygand uses these stories and better-known figures such as Denis Diderot and Louis Braille to offer a new understanding of the Enlightenment and its legacy. This is not a case of overcompensating for the seeming marginality of her subject by making a bold claim. Rather, Weygand’s in-depth study of the reciprocal relationship between the social treatment and representations of blind people from the Middle Ages to the middle of the nineteenth century invites readers to reconsider the ocularcentric roots of modernity. After all, what better place to think about the perverted power of the visual and visual culture than in an institution for the blind? Until just a few years ago, historians wouldn’t have had the gumption or the analytic tools to pose such a question. And even today a wary few might still find the history of blind people a useless, if quaint, undertaking. But thanks to the emerging field of disability history to which Weygand has been a tireless and highly original contributor, scholars will find questions and resources that breathe new life into the study of the French past. Influenced by work in gender, sexuality, and race, this critical approach to disability invites us to rethink everything from ideas about physical and cognitive normality to the role of the senses in shaping

Foreword   ix discourses of the modern. Provocateurs laboring in this young field assert that disability must take its place alongside these other groups to help us unpack what we take for granted and why. Thus, just as anyone hoping to understand what it meant to be European must engage with questions of how Europeans described the world beyond, so too scholars analyzing the power of visual culture need to grapple with the people who appeared anathema to it. Like her forebears of the Annales school, Weygand ultimately offers a history of the present. “When it comes to attitudes toward disabled people,” she explains in the introduction, “it appears that our society remains, in many respects, a prisoner of a past that refuses to die.” Though largely spared the humiliation that made them buffoons of farce and the victims of trickery in the premodern era, blind people at the beginning of the twenty-first century remain misunderstood and marginalized, as evidenced by an unemployment rate of over 70 percent. They, like people with other disabilities, face rampant discrimination often disguised as benevolent paternalism or complete erasure from anything but maudlin, sentimental stories. In bringing a far richer and more complex world to life, Weygand has provided the golden hammer for driving nails into the coffins of old ideas and practices. Catherine Kudlick is Professor of History at University of California, Davis. She is the author of Cholera in Post-Revolutionary Paris: A Cultural History and, with Zina Weygand, Reflections: The Life and Writings of a Young Blind Woman in Post-Revolutionary Paris. She is currently President of the Disability History Association.

Preface By Alain Corbin

There are works of history that satisfy the desire for a temporal change of scenery and stimulate reverie; others, more rare, deeply move their reader. This is the case with Zina Weygand’s book. It obliges each of us to interrogate that share of the irrational that remains deep within us when we confront blindness. Our culture of universals, so magnified during the celebration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution, distances us from the Anglo-Saxon culture of difference. There results an inevitable backwardness. In France, specialized histories of disabilities and handicaps are few and far between. In this barely cleared field, Zina Weygand is a vital figure. For several decades now, she has been methodically studying the representations and circumstances of blind people in the past. The point of departure for her research concerns the inheritance of the Age of Enlightenment. From Locke to Condillac, the adherents of sensationalism posited that sensory experience was at the center of cognitive processes. They expected that an operation on a newborn that would permit the child to see would reveal the truth of the sensible. This crucial experiment, Zina Weygand assures us, was the founding myth of Enlightenment philosophy. Diderot, from the publication of the Letter on the Blind to the drafting of his final Additions thirty-four years later, struggled, for his part, to penetrate the world of the blind, thenceforth desacralized by surgery. Thanks to him, the sightless person became “the subject of a dialogue between equals.” This discussion of difference led to a rereading of the hierarchy of senses and to the promotion of touch. It gave rise to a hymn to vicariance—the substitution of one sensation for another. This new way of seeing transformed attitudes. While the image of a blind citizen “capable of

Preface   xi attaining culture, employment, and dignity” slowly began to take shape, the sensitive soul was moved by disabilities. Philanthropy and a passion for pedagogy, not to mention the rise of silent reading among cultivated elites, led to the desire to educate the congenitally blind. Zina Weygand quickly understood the need for a genealogical approach. To accurately measure the importance of the revolution that took place in the Age of Enlightenment, it was necessary to plumb historic depths. Fabliaux, medieval theater, romance literature, not to mention fairground exhibits, reveal the great complexity of images, sentiments, and attitudes. Blindness long inspired terror. The figure of the blind buffoon, clumsy and coarse, exorcised this sentiment. Derision was directed at the drunken beggar, cynical and debauched, often duped by his guide. The disability, a visible mark of a hidden defect, also aroused repugnance. Blindness, along with its companions, ignorance and vice, symbolized blindness of spirit, a dimming of the intelligence. At the same time blindness solicited compassion. It called for charity. Confraternities of the blind multiplied in the thirteenth century. The good Louis XI founded the Quinze-Vingts. On Holy Thursday, he washed the feet of disabled people. These last benefited from the privilege to beg freely, something not taken away from them until the dawn of the nineteenth century. According to an exchange of gift and countergift, it was expected that the misfortunate pray for their benefactors. The miraculous cure of the newborn in the Gospels made of him an individual who was doubtless better able than others to reveal the grandeur of God. At the dawn of modern times, admiration grew for those who, already in antiquity, were celebrated for their rich interior visions. Deprivation of the spectacle of the world and useless knowledge facilitated spiritual illumination. The blind man of the thirteenth-century mystical theologians knew much more than did scholars, whom he was capable of confounding. In the century of the optical revolution and the Lessons of Darkness, there emerged the figure of the “blind subject, alone and singular,” and on many occasions, Rembrandt celebrated the dignity of the solitary blind man. Another tension, one that has to do with social issues, structures Zina Weygand’s book. A moving cohort of visually impaired members of the elite stands in contrast to the crowd of the indigent blind, and the

xii  Preface reader gets a good sense of the profound gap between them. At the end of the eighteenth century, steadfast souls outlined a model of cultivated sightlessness from which Valentin Haüy, protagonist of the book and creator of collective teaching for those blind since birth, took inspiration. February 19, 1785, the date of the establishment of the first free school, divides this history into two periods. From then on and through numerous incidents, the desire to educate, to encourage free speech, to allow blind people to attain happiness, to ensure their right to carnal relations preys on the minds of responsible parties. At the end of the ancien régime, demonstrations at court, spectacles staged for learned societies, public functions, and participation in religious ceremonies paved the way and won people over. The sad performance that, as late as 1771, had marked the festivities of Saint Ovid’s fair became a thing of the past. The fact remains that, with the political torment of the ensuing century, the history of the education of the congenitally blind, so carefully traced by Zina Weygand, is one of contradictory episodes. What persists is a faith in the possibility of apprenticeships, even when belief in the social usefulness of victims of blindness wavers. The incessant rearrangement of the taxonomies of jobs they are said to be capable of is evidence of this hesitation. Hopes peaked between 1791 and 1794. What followed was a long decline of the dream of citizenship. The desire for social control tended to replace the desire for promotion. But the concern for education and social integration expressed in the Law of July 29, 1794, was never abandoned. Recourse to archives enables Zina Weygand to paint a moving picture of the situation of blind children admitted into the institutions reserved for them. Their fate varied to a rhythm of displacements and disgraces. The Consulate and the Empire elaborated formidable regulations that we must measure by the yardstick of those who organized life inside secondary schools. The precision and rigor of the schedule, the putting to work, the elaboration of a range of punishments, the constant surveillance to control behaviors offends our current sensibilities. Zina Weygand also makes the crowd of blind people who contributed to the picturesque of the early nineteenth-century city come to life before our eyes. Singers and wandering musicians, animal trainers, peddlers, fortune-tellers, distributors of lottery tickets, and prostitutes make up a gallery of types whose variety reflects the multiplicity of causes of

Preface   xiii blindness. From 1749, the date of the publication of the Letter on the Blind, at the end of the monarchie censitaire,1 a process, far from linear, reshaped the history of blindness. As the decades passed, there arose a collective belief that the visually impaired individual could have a private life and could bloom in fields beyond that of music alone. Talented historian of culture that she is, Zina Weygand is able to reveal the process that allowed blind people to leave the sphere of otherness behind while revealing what a slow process it was. She is even better at displaying the simultaneous representations at work between 1800 and 1850. Three strata, in part consisting of cultural flotsam, are essential to the reading of moralizing novels and of melodrama. The burlesque, the derision that stigmatized the blind person, was still in evidence, as were the feelings of the sensitive soul, forged in the previous century. The main thing was nonetheless the sudden appearance of the romantic vision of blindness. The latter revived, in its own way, recent attitudes toward the ability to perceive invisible realities. The character of Dea gives meaning to The Laughing Man, the great nocturnal novel by Victor Hugo. It symbolizes the abandonment of all references to the blackness of the soul. The book concludes with the touching presence of Louis Braille. He gave the visually impaired access to silent reading and to written communication with the sighted. Here the talent of Zina Weygand becomes particularly evident. Her dense writing, limpid and without artifice, takes its strength from the quality of her restraint. In simple phrases, without ever falling into dithyrambs, she justifies the magnitude of the cult dedicated to the benefactor of the blind. Zina Weygand’s book does not only participate in the grande histoire of disabilities and handicaps. Beyond that, it contributes to the history of the senses, of their hierarchy, their equilibrium, their correspondences, and also to the history of vicariance, a fundamental concept throughout this work. The emergence of spectatorial attitudes has been much studied: the elaboration of new ways of seeing, the intensification and subsequent relaxation of a policing of the gaze, the revival of procedures of ocular infractions between the end of the ancien régime and that of the nineteenth century. Zina Weygand’s book participates decisively in this abounding sensorial anthropology.

the blind in french society from the middle ages to the century of louis braille

Introduction Ignorance of the past not only confuses contemporary science; it confounds contemporary action. —Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft 1

Despite the progressive acknowledgment, over the course of the twentieth century, that so-called handicapped people have the right to education, professional training, and employment, blind people today still face great difficulties in fully integrating themselves into French society. Moreover, in a “disenchanted” world, they still face irrational behaviors that condition—at least partially—the place accorded them by society. When it comes to attitudes toward disabled people, it appears that our society remains, in many respects, a prisoner of a past that refuses to die. We believe that history, to the extent that it permits us to better grasp the origins of certain individual and collective behaviors, the sources of the exclusion and suffering of disabled persons, has a role to play in any reflection on the social problems engendered by handicaps today. This conviction and the hope to make a contribution, as small as it might be, to the construction of a society more hospitable to the blind are at the origins of the present study.

   Introduction

The Blind in French Society Today Words: From Etymology to Metaphor The word blindness [cécité in French] comes from the Latin caecitas, itself derived from caecus: blind person. As for the word for blind person [aveugle], it is likely a deformation of another Latin expression, ab oculus (literally, “without eyes”). In this way, from the word’s origins, we find the idea of a total absence of sight comparable to an enucleation. To this day, a blind person is generally considered to be living in the deepest darkness, even if we no longer think “without eyes” when we utter the word blind. It is worth noting the negative connotation of this term that designates a person by what he or she is supposed to absolutely lack. It is equally worth remembering in passing the pejorative value of the word blind in its metaphorical applications, particularly in the intellectual and moral domains: “whose judgment is clouded, who lacks light, reason; that which clouds judgment, which deprives of reason; that which does not allow for reflection, examination; who acts without discernment; oblivious, ignorant, etc.”2 Legal Definitions of Blindness If we move from semantics to legislation, there exists in France, since the ordinance of July 3, 1945, concerning the protection of persons disabled and incurable, a legal definition of cecity based on optometric criteria: practical blindness is recognized when visual acuity3 of the best eye is inferior to 1/20 or when the visual field4 is limited on either side by more than 20 degrees. Using a white cane is authorized when visual acuity is equal or inferior to 1/10. This legal definition conditions the allocation of social and financial aid and the indemnification that follows accidents. It does not take into account, however, what is commonly called the capacity for “practical vision.” This last depends on multiple factors and can be appreciated only after in-depth assessment that includes the following: • A test of the visual field far away and up close, if possible in attenuated daylight and not in a dark room

Introduction    • • • •

A plotting of the central and peripheral visual field A study of color vision A study of light sensitivity Possibly, an electrophysiological exploration

The assessment should also take into consideration the ability of the subject—extremely variable from one individual to another—to adapt to his or her visual situation.5 In effect, “for the same category of visual impairments, affective, intellectual, motor and social reactions of a partially sighted or blind person can differ, facilitating or aggravating the consequences of the infirmity.”6 There exist, then, different types of blindness, and not all blind people are affected by the total absence of visual perception the vocabulary suggests. Some Epidemiological Data After having tried to define blindness and after having indicated the reductive and approximate character of all definitions, we can ask ourselves how many blind people currently live in France. Here again, nothing is simple: estimations effectively range from 40,000 to 62,000 depending on the sources. On the one hand, the numbers vary according to the type of blindness considered: legal blindness, locomotive blindness, professional blindness, total blindness, partial blindness. On the other hand, and most importantly, there is no obligation to declare generative diseases of blindness in France, and censuses themselves are sometimes contested. If this gives us cause to rejoice as far as individual liberty is concerned, epidemiologists deplore it. They bemoan the lack of prospective studies concerning the evolution of ocular ailments that cause blindness and partial sightedness in our country: the total number of blind people, probably already underestimated at present and of which persons over sixty-five doubtless represent more than half, stands to grow with the increase in life expectancy. Those responsible for public health regret the absence of precise and reliable data that would permit them to undertake effective preventive action in the area of blindness and partial sightedness. In spite of the insufficiency of precise epidemiological information, we can say that chronic glaucoma and ocular traumatisms are the highestranking causes of visual handicaps in Western Europe. The seriousness

   Introduction and the frequency of diabetic retinopathy, of detached retinas, and of congenital cataracts are equally known statistics for our country. That said, France has been spared trachoma, xerophthalmia, and onchocercosis, which are, respectively, and in order of importance, the first, second, and third causes of blindness in the world. And cataracts, in any event, are easily curable, even if they rank fourth in the world as the cause of blindness (due to the lack of necessary means to operate under good conditions in poor countries). Social Legislation Whatever their number, and whatever the causes and precise nature of their impairments may be, blind people in France today have their place in the juridical state and not just when it comes to financial assistance. The right to reeducation, to professional training, and to employment, granted to disabled ex-servicemen by the Law of April 26, 1924, on May 5 of the same year was extended to those injured in the workplace and then to all disabled people (who, at that point, officially began to be called “handicapped”) by the Law of Obligatory Employment of November 24, 1957. But it was not until the Law of Orientation in Favor of Disabled Persons of July 30, 1975, that obligatory education (included in vain for blind and deaf children in the Law of March 29, 1882) was finally realized—with mainstreaming as a priority. Resistance to mainstreaming and the need to legislate anew on July 10, 1987, in favor of the employment of the disabled attest to the difficulties encountered in the application of the 1975 law. This is not the place to discuss the issue, but we can ask ourselves if, when it comes to blind people, these difficulties are a consequence of what Pierre Villey calls “the prejudice of blindness”: “A society is composed of individuals who pass away and prejudices that remain. True or false, prejudices shape the lot of individuals. Even more than by his infirmity, the social status of the blind person has been fashioned by the incorrect idea the sighted conceive of it.”7

Introduction    Representations and Social Treatment of Blindness: The Interest of a Historical Study Pierre Villey attributes the origins of these prejudices to the almost visceral fear sighted people have of blindness: The sighted person judges the blind not for what they are but by the fear blindness inspires. . . . Stronger than all external observations, the revolt of his sensibility in the face of “the most atrocious of maladies” fills a sighted person with prejudice and gives rise to a thousand legends. The sighted person imagines himself struck by blindness. Since the blind behave in ways quite different from his own, he senses everything he will lose and not what he will find [through a better use of his other senses]. An abyss opens up before him.8

For Villey, the psychological origin of this prejudice explains its permanence and universality. Thirty years after Villey, another blind intellectual, Pierre Henri, taking into consideration theories that the former could not have known, dedicated himself to illuminating the social components of what he no longer called the “prejudice” of blindness, but rather its “concept.” The concept of blindness transmits itself and behaves like a social force, like one of the numerous collective representations that dominate knowledge and orient behaviors. It imposes itself upon the sighted person, constraining him to think in a certain way despite evidence and individual experience, and it determines his behaviors with respect to the blind. The concept also imposes itself externally on the latter, conditioning their reactions and shaping their mentalities such that their psychology would have been different had they not adjusted to or resisted the concept.9

“Prejudice of blindness,” “concept of blindness,” Henri, like Villey, in order to explain resistance to the blind’s integration into the “world of the sighted,” “after two millennia of logical thinking and one hundred and fifty years of attempts at social reclassification of the visually impaired,”10 recurs to the notion of representation. If we follow these two authors, in order to understand what a blind person is and what the place of the blind is in society, it is not enough to define (with difficulty, moreover) blindness; it is not enough to enumerate and to legislate. We have to take into account the image the sighted

   Introduction have of blindness and the blind: “Sociologically, a blind person is not just an individual who does not perceive forms and is constrained to think and act accordingly. He is a being who, willy-nilly, incarnates the image the sighted have of the blind and is treated in conformity with this representation.”11 Villey and Henri were themselves blind. Their intellectual and human qualities, their careers, and the success of their personal lives testify to all that is possible in spite of the disability, and at times, thanks to it, to the extent that it obliges the people it affects to maximize their remaining abilities. These men must have suffered nonetheless from the ignorance and behavior of the so-called able-bodied toward the blind. That is probably one of the reasons they sensed the extent to which it was important to take representations into account in any study of blindness and its consequences: The prejudice of the blind . . . can be corrected by facts at any moment. It has persisted, however, by flouting these facts.12 Lacking objective data, the popular imagination has free reign. Suddenly, when it comes to a blind person, exaggerated expressions and epithets in the superlative rush in.13

Even while adhering to Villey and Henri’s analysis of the weight of representations on the social treatment of blindness, it seems important to us to foreground the way in which this treatment, during different periods in history, was able to act in turn on individual and collective representations of blindness and the blind. The great significance of a historical study of the blind in French society will be to demonstrate the reciprocal though not simultaneous influence of representations and social treatment over the course of time. This is to say that such a study cannot but inscribe itself in the longue durée, and that, with respect to this history, we are not far from adhering to Jacques Le Goff’s thesis of “a long, very long, Middle Ages whose structures evolve but slowly [until] the middle of the nineteenth century.”14 There exist, however, in the course of this long process, pivotal periods when new sensibilities appear, sources of social mutations and the generation of new institutional structures that, in turn, cause representations to evolve. The period that stretches from the second half of the

Introduction    eighteenth to the first half of the nineteenth century is one of those “key moments” in the history of the blind. In 1749, Diderot published the Letter on the Blind for the Benefit of Those Who See in which he put the philosophical speculations of his time concerning the status of the sensorial in the elaboration of human knowledge to the test by observing “a sensible blind man.”15 In 1771, the Abbé Charles-Michel de L’Epée organized the first public presentation of the young deaf-mutes he had been educating for several years using the “language of methodical signs.” The same year, the spectacle of a burlesque concert by the blind of the Quinze-Vingts hospice, held up for ridicule to the visitors of Saint Ovid’s Fair, inspired Valentin Haüy, an obscure translator, expert in writing systems, and reader of Diderot, with the idea of helping the indigent blind escape their humiliating circumstances by educating them through the tactile reading “of books whose characters are in relief.”16 What amused the public of the fair without reservation, filled the heart of the philanthropist with “profound dismay,” and he judged the “display” [“monstration”]—to which the blind seemed to lend themselves willingly—“a dishonor to the human race.”17 The social innovation born of this new way of looking would contribute (albeit with difficulty) to the transformation of the collective sensibility toward blindness and the blind. In February 1785, at the initiative of Haüy and with the assistance of the Philanthropic Society, the Institute for Blind Youth was founded, the first school in the world whose mission was to give free instruction to the blind poor based on the principle of sensory substitution, previously used for the private education of a few individuals from well-to-do families. On September 28, 1791, two months after having nationalized the Institute for the Deaf and Mute, created thirty years before by the Abbé de l’Epée, the Constituent Assembly nationalized the Royal Institute for Blind Youth. The principle of state responsibility for the education of the sensorially impaired was thus posited. The Blind Youth obtained this right definitively with the Law of 10 Thermidor Year III (July 29, 1795) that christened the establishment created ten years earlier by Valentin Haüy the National Institute for the Blind and created “eighty-six free positions [one per administrative département] for as many blind pupils . . . , nourished and supported at the expense of the Republic.18 Subsequently, no

   Introduction government would ever revisit this principle. Instead, the modalities of custodianship would vary according to different political regimes. In the meantime, while the institute run by Haüy offered an intellectual, musical, and manual education to a small number of blind young people in order to render them “useful to themselves and to society,” the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, founded by Saint Louis between 1254 and 1260, continued to help an equally limited number of blind adults from all over the country by lodging them as boarders or granting them nonresident pensions. Though the ideology of the moral, intellectual, and professional education of the indigent blind progressed, elsewhere there remained totally insufficient practices and support structures whose persistence and mode of functioning helped perpetuate the idea of the blind’s inability to fend for themselves. Resistance to the changes under way in the social treatment of blindness quickly translated, then, into a dialectic of assistance and education, one that particularly marked revolutionary committee debates concerning the Institute for Blind Youth that, in 1801, resulted in the unification of the educational establishment created by Haüy and the ancient hospice of the Quinze-Vingts. Their cohabitation lasted until the end of the Empire. The Restoration, by granting independence to the two establishments, turned the Quinze-Vingts into one of the memory sites of the monarchy, whereas the Institute for Blind Youth, despite a certain number of material difficulties, became the crucible in which the blind forged a new identity for themselves and gave themselves the means to fully accede to written culture, thanks to the invention of Louis Braille. The continuity of an institution and of age-old practices; the persistence of traditional representations of blindness and the blind; the difficult triumph of innovation. To understand the forces at work in this crucial historical period, a period ranging from the second half of the eighteenth century to the 1830s, we must step back in time, at least to the thirteenth century, age of the foundation of the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts and of the appearance of the blind in comic literature written in the French vernacular.

chapter 1

The Middle Ages

We must begin with an outline of the situation of blind people in Western Europe during the millennium “Renaissance humanists saw as [but] a hiatus,”1 which they unfairly designated by two words forming a parenthesis: the “Middle Ages.” Only then can we examine in greater detail the ways in which medieval comic literature dealt with the stock character of the blind man—a character whose epigones would still be found on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century stage—and only then can we recall the origins and operation of the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, whose existence was to heavily impact the representations and treatment of blindness and the blind in France. First of all, what was the frequency and what were the causes of blindness at this time? Due to the malnutrition, lack of hygiene, and infectious diseases that chronically beset the inhabitants of cities and of the countryside, blind people were probably quite numerous in the Middle Ages. To get an idea of the prevalence of blindness in Western Europe during this long period of our story, we can turn to the present situation in third-world countries, where infections, parasites, nutritional deficiencies, and cataracts cause millions of cases of blindness and severe partialsightedness in perhaps 1 percent of the population. In the Middle Ages, just as today, people could be blinded accidentally, most notably as a result of work-related accidents, to which the building trade doubtless paid a heavy tribute. But they could also be victims of war or violence of another order: in 1449, a case of the mutilation and blinding of children kidnapped

   from the middle ages to the classical age by criminals and forced into begging was the talk of Paris. Moreover, penal corrections could be just as cruel as the crimes they were intended to punish. In several legal compendiums from the time of Charlemagne to that of Saint Louis, blindness is mentioned among the sanctions inflicted on thieves. That such a punishment figures in books does not prove that it was frequently applied. However, this atrocious punishment is cited in the twelfth-century Roman de Rou as one of the mutilations suffered by Norman peasants who revolted against Richard II.2 Finally, rich or poor, a person could be the victim of hereditary diseases, as was perhaps the case with John the Blind, Count of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia (1296–1348), whose father and uncle had had poor vision and who was ministered to in vain by the doctors of Montpellier faculty before completely losing his sight at age forty. The blind since birth or infancy; those who became blind later on; victims of illness, violence, or accidents: just who were the blind in the Middle Ages? Men, women, children, the elderly, adults in the prime of life; poor people, many poor people, most of the time nameless and yet quite present in hospice archives and in hagiographic literature; but also the not-so-poor, the rich, and even some heads of state whose exploits were the talk of the moment. They crop up here and there, in words and images, in the Lives of the saints, in collections of miracles and exempla. As in the Gospels, they are there to attest to a Light that heals the heart by healing the eyes. The blind are also to be found in the archives of charitable institutions: they bear witness to the rich who helped them. Prestigious blind people appear in the stories of the chroniclers. There are, for example, Bela II, King of Hungary from 1131 to 1141; Dandolo, Doge of Venice from 1192 to 1205 (the year of his death in Constantinople); John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia from 1310 to 1356, whom we already mentioned, and Jan Žižka, leader of the Hussite revolt from 1419 to 1424. These men speak for themselves and their own courage, but they also attest to the values of the society of their times. The elderly Dandolo leading the Venetians in the 1203 conquest of Constantinople or John the Blind on horseback, commanding his men at the Battle of Crécy, where he met his death on August 26, 1346: these were things made to fire the medieval imagination in the way the exploits of the winners of the Paralympics astonish a public infatuated with sports and sensationalism.

The Middle Ages    Real or fictional, the blind appear, lastly, in religious or profane theater and in the fabliaux, usually to provoke laughter at their own expense, because disabilities were often perceived quite negatively, and no one hesitated to poke fun at them. All these blind people whose trace we find in the archives and in literature, where were they to be found? Throughout the Middle Ages, the blind poor could be found in the company of “children, widows, the elderly, the lame,”3 crowding in during the distributions of provisions and clothing organized in both city and countryside by the various institutions of ecclesiastical and lay charity that succeeded one another in France: hostels and monastic almonries, monastic hospices [Maisons-Dieu], communal charitable organizations, episcopal or princely almonries, and, finally, the Royal Almonry, whose founding seems to date to 1190,4 and which, from the thirteenth century on, played a particularly important role in the organization of aid to the blind in France. These indigent blind people could live with their families without leaving their town or village. They could also roam the highways to take better advantage of the distributions offered by various charitable institutions. Or they might try to benefit from the generosity of individuals by begging from door to door, on roads, in public squares, or at church portals. To do so, they might be itinerant singers, animal trainers, storytellers, or musicians,5 professions they still practiced in the middle of the nineteenth century. Finally, they might live in institutions founded especially for them as early as the eleventh century by gentlemen of renown or wealthy donors. If the poorest of the blind encountered each other on the roads of beggarly vagrance, both rich and poor could meet on pilgrimage trails. Indeed, the powerlessness of both “learned” and practical medicine to cure serious ocular ailments led those stricken to have recourse to prayer and miracles. The relics of healing saints, the fountains and the holy sites dedicated to them, and certain sanctuaries consecrated to Our Lady thus attracted numerous blind pilgrims from all walks of life. But there were also “specialized” pilgrimage sites under the patronage of saints reputed to cure diseases of the eye either because of the etymology or sound of their names (Saints Clair or Claire, Saint Lucy)6 or because of the specific details of their personal history: Saint Paul—temporarily blinded

   from the middle ages to the classical age at the moment of his conversion; Saint Odile—abbess of the monastery of Hohenburg in Alsace at the beginning of the eighth century; Saint Léger—bishop of Autun in the seventh century and a martyr whose eyes were gouged out under torture. Recourse to this category of saints and other practices linked to the doctrine of signatures persisted until the nineteenth century. If hagiographic literature of the thirteenth century shows us blind pilgrims of different stations seeking cures and sometimes alms without passing negative judgment, comic literature and theater in the French vernacular of the same period paint a very different picture.

Derision and Blindness The character of the blind beggar, miserable and pathetic, appears in one of the first examples of profane theater in French, a short comic play in two parts: The Boy and the Blind Man. This farce, doubtless initially a fairground spectacle mimicking a street scene taken from everyday life, originated in Tournai in the second half of the thirteenth century.7 It presents a blind beggar seeking a guide: “I must have sunk really low,” laments the blind man, “to not have even a youngster to bring me back home.”8 Unfortunately for him, he finds his man in the person of a wily, penniless boy who, after gaining the blind man’s confidence, takes advantage of his disability by stealing his savings. This play, which turns on deception, paints a deliberately unpleasant portrait of the blind man: he is a hypocrite who feigns piety in order to better collect alms. (In this way, he is a perfect fit with the social practices of his day, according to which the rich man gave to the poor to assure his own salvation—and this, in particular, thanks to the prayers of the recipient of his offering.) Sanctimonious, he is also a pseudo-pauper. Made rich by public charity, he is a miser who exploits his malady to accrue more and more money. Little by little, as his confidant wins his trust, he reveals his true nature: he’s a drunkard and a glutton, coarse, cynical, and debauched. The public, therefore, will not pity him when his valet strips him of his possessions, taking leave with these words, which express all the contempt that could be had for blind beggars at this time: “ ‘Shame on you! . . . To me, you are nothing but a piece of shit. You’re deceptive

The Middle Ages    and envious. . . . If you don’t like it, come and get me!’ ”9 The theme of the blind man duped by his guide—staged for the first time in this secular farce—had a long, bright future and provoked the laughter of theatergoers and readers of comic romances for centuries. Various examples can be found in medieval religious theater, in which the misadventures of the blind man and his (often lame) valet allow for burlesque interludes. The two disabled men sometimes dread a cure for fear of having to work, or they are cured in spite of themselves by a saint whose life and miracles are then celebrated or by Christ, in commemoration of the Passion. The blind of comedy, suspected of every vice—laziness, foolishness, vanity, hypocrisy, drunkenness, a passion for gambling, lust—are at times, deception of deceptions, suspected of feigning blindness itself. This is precisely the point of departure for a story written by Cortebarbe, The Three Blind Men of Compiègne. This fabliau, which made its first appearance in thirteenth-century Picardy, had a long posterity. The fabliau tells of the misadventure that befalls three blind beggars deceived by a cleric. The three blind comrades, without “a single valet to guide or to lead them,”10 take off on the road from Compiègne to Senlis. A cleric coming on horseback from Paris, accompanied by his squire, crosses paths with them and suspects them of faking their blindness. To put them to the test, he pretends to give them a beggar’s pouch. Each man thinks his companion has received it, and they all decide to return to Compiègne to “live it up a little” thanks to the unexpected offering. The cleric trails them to enjoy the rest of the adventure. The blind men, true to their reputation as drunkards and gluttons, enter an inn; they eat and drink more than they should and have a good bed prepared, in which they sleep “until an advanced hour of the morning.”11 The next day, the innkeeper comes to ask for his due. No pouch to be found. A dispute ensues between the three thieves, each of whom thinks the other has betrayed him. The innkeeper gets angry, threatens to throw them into the latrines, and has two clubs brought so as to beat them thoroughly. The cleric, “so delighted that he is convulsed with laughter,”12 plays innocent, demands an explanation, and then, feigning pity, pays the bill of the three blind men, who get off with only a fright. In this story, meant to be read in public—and of which we have found adaptations for the theater into the eighteenth century13 —the blind

   from the middle ages to the classical age are still presented in a pejorative fashion that prevents the spectators from feeling any pity and renders them indulgent toward the rascally trickster. Even if there are scenes in medieval religious theater that are not comic in the least, “in which the blind man is there only to let the grandeur of God and his saints shine forth through a miracle,”14 the literature of the period often depicts the blind as buffoons whose crude manners, clumsiness, and getups provoke laughter, or as pseudo-paupers to be tricked without remorse. This very caricatural representation of the blind poor doubtless reveals a certain type of attitude toward poverty and disability in a society torn “between a too-human reality and a too-lofty ideal.”15 Indeed, poverty, “the antithesis of all values,”16 before some people made it the very condition of their mystical quest, first appeared to medieval man “as a degrading aspect of the human condition, a form of humiliation and infamy with the weight of a malediction.”17 From this perspective, the poor beggar, suspected of laziness, lying, and vice, is regarded with condescension and a certain contempt. Moreover, despite the efforts of some theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century and Jean Gerson at the cusp of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, disability was often perceived as the visible mark of a transgression or an invisible moral defect: “The lame and the blind . . . are too lowly to be mentioned in front of good and honorable persons; if nature has reduced them to this point and stigmatized them, it is because they have a sin to expiate.”18 This sin could be their own or even that of their parents (especially in terms of the transgression of sexual taboos at the moment of a child’s conception). It is therefore not surprising that medieval literature was able to cast the blind beggar—whose disability symbolized blindness of the spirit and the dimming of intelligence—as a negative character who could be mercilessly laughed at by the public of farces and fabliaux, a public that came from all strata of society (and not just its lower orders). In the midst of the Hundred Years’ War, in a capital ceded to the English and a kingdom torn by civil war, derision was taken so far as to make a spectacle of real blind people during a cruel joust evoking circus games. The scene, known to all historians of disabilities, is recounted in the Journal of a Bourgeois of Paris and took place in 1425:19

The Middle Ages    The last Sunday of August, there was an entertainment at the Hôtel d’Armagnac on the rue Saint-Honoré for which four armored blind men were placed in a lists, each one a baton in hand, and in the lists there was a piglet that they could have if they were able to kill it. And so it was; and this made for a battle so strange, because they administered so many great blows to each other, that they were the worse for it, because however much they thought to strike the piglet, they struck each other, and if they had really been armed, they’d have killed each other. On Saturday, following the Sunday vigils, the said blind men were led through Paris in suits of armor and were preceded by a large banner on which there was the image of a pig, and in front of them, a man playing a tabret.20

In this scene where poor fellows are treated as fairground animals akin to the pig they aim to kill, we can see the most extreme relegation of the blind to a sphere of otherness on the part of a society that felt it had nothing in common with them save a charitable duty.21 We still wonder whether, in this “other” that the blind person represented, medieval society could recognize that obscure part of itself that it did not know what to do with for lack of available solutions: disease, incurable; poverty, endemic; violence, omnipresent—sin, in a word, the trace of which spectators could equally detect in themselves.22 Otherness, then, but a familiar otherness that could be exorcised by laughter23 at the expense of an affliction that was, moreover, quite feared at the time, as it is to this day. Whatever the most relevant interpretation of this—sometimes cruel—attitude of derisiveness toward the blind may be, medieval society, under the influence of the Church, demonstrated much more charitable behavior toward them at the same time.

A Different View of the Blind? Charity and Sightlessness Among the disabled poor, “suffering members of the Community of Saints to whom the monk has lent his title ‘Poor of Christ,’ ”24 who received aid from all sorts of charities, the blind alone benefited from foundations specifically established with them in mind.25 The founding of these confraternities of the blind [aveugleries]26 was part of a broad movement to create hospitals that culminated in the thirteenth century, when

   from the middle ages to the classical age numerous hospitals, hospices [hôtels-Dieu], and monastic hospitals [maisons-Dieu] opened just about everywhere in the cities and countryside. This movement was inspired by the Church, at the time influenced by great spiritual trends whose culmination was an ideal of poverty funded by lay people (the Cistercian reform and the canonial movement of the twelfth century; founding of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth). These last hoped to make amends for their sins through the gesture of almsgiving itself, but they also counted on the prayers of the assisted poor—considered privileged intercessors with Christ—to obtain the salvation of their souls. Lastly, almsgiving was one ostentatious gesture among others for the wealthy, one that permitted them to show off their riches and grandeur. None of these reasons precludes a veritable generosity and a real concern for the poor on the part of some rich people. Whatever the profound motivations may have been, there was a general emulation from top to bottom of the social hierarchy,27 and it was inevitable that royal power, subject to “a double duty of justice and charity,”28 played an important role in these charitable foundations. Royal Power and the Blind: The Founding of the Quinze-Vingts The desire to provide for the most widespread miseries, to assist the greatest number of the sick and needy, often meant turning people afflicted with incurable diseases away from the new hospitals. It thus seemed necessary to found special institutions for them, of which the blind were often the first beneficiaries.29 Louis XI, who stayed frequently with the Cistercians of Royaumont and surrounded himself with Dominican and Franciscan counselors, took royal charity to its highest level. He also personally took care of the poor, particularly the blind poor. William of Saint Pathus recounts that once a week, generally on Saturdays, the king, wrapped in a shroud and on his knees, received the blind and washed their feet before sitting down with them to eat, at which point he himself helped them: “He guided the hands of the poor man to the platter and taught him how to hold it. And when there was a blind or paralyzed person and there was fish before him, the blessed king took the piece of fish and diligently removed the bones with his own hands, dipped it in sauce, and then put it in the mouth of the sick person.”30

The Middle Ages    After the failure of the Seventh Crusade (1248–54), the circumstances and the king’s piety, redoubled by a keen concern for justice and penitence, favored the establishment of a hospice destined to welcome a congregation of three hundred “poor blind people from the city of Paris,”31 and called for that reason the “Quinze-Vingts.”32 Perhaps a confraternity of the blind existed before the foundation of the hospital. That, after all, would have been in keeping with the spirit of free association born at that time along with the communal movement.33 We do not know, just as we do not know the exact date of the founding of the Quinze-Vingts, whose original charter has been lost.34 According to a bull of July 23, 1260, we know only that construction had been finished at the end of the preceding June—the chosen location having been situated outside the PhilippeAuguste’s city walls near the Porte Saint-Honoré, where the home for the blind remained until 1780. In any case, for almost three centuries (until 1546), the Quinze-Vingts functioned as a congregation, and its “government,” relatively democratic, resembled that of the mendicant orders. The blind lived together according to a common rule, after having given the home both their persons and their property, of which they conserved the usufruct, contrary to true monks or friars. They pronounced no vows of chastity either and could be admitted to the community with their spouses. A master or headmaster, named by the king at the suggestion of his almoner, directed them with the help of a minister and six sworn members chosen by the community, whereas all members participated in running the home through weekly chapter assemblies. The minister—in contrast to the master—had to be married, since certain tasks fell to his wife, who assumed the role of nurse and foster mother. Upon entering the brotherhood, each member had to swear before the entire chapter to keep the secrets of the house and not to reveal them to anyone, even to his family, a feature common to all confraternal societies of the period. Though secular, the congregation obtained authorization to build a chapel35 dedicated to Saint Remy and ministered by a chaplain appointed by the king. On July 23, 1260, a bull of Alexander IV granted indulgences to all those who left alms in the collection box of the hospital. From its founding, the Quinze-Vingts thus benefited from numerous privileges granted by both ecclesiastic authorities and temporal powers. Straightaway, Louis IX accorded it an annuity of thirty livres parisis

   from the middle ages to the classical age from the Chatelet to be used for food for the blind. Royal benevolence toward the Quinze-Vingts remained unfailing, and donations in perpetuity, occasional alms, and, especially, exemption from taxes contributed to the fortune of the community. In addition, numerous bequests and private donations,36 stimulated by royal patronage, enhanced the hospital’s legacy. In theory, only the king decided upon the admission of boarders, who were proposed by the almoner or the master; in practice, the almoner mostly made his selection single-handedly. The Royal Almonry, which seems to have been established around 1190,37 actually managed all the hospices founded by royalty. According to the rule given to the QuinzeVingts after 1350 by Michel de Brache, almoner of King John the Good, a blind person applying to the Quinze-Vingts had to be at least sixteen years of age and self-sufficient. It may be that in the beginning, the congregation included only blind people. In any event, the regulations of Michel de Brache anticipated: “in the home and hospice of the Quinze-Vingt . . . 300 persons, no more no less, or 152 blind men, 60 sighted people, as much to go to distant places as to guide and advise the others within Paris and . . . 88 women . . . both blind and sighted, according to the discretion of the almoner or the request of pledged members.”38 In exchange for the privileges and donations accorded the hospital, community members prayed day and night and as often as possible for the king, queen, royal family, and, more generally, for all benefactors. It was also their task to aid those condemned to death in their final moments and, in the manner of mendicant brothers and certain confraternities, to keep vigil and pray at the side of the deceased if asked to do so in the event of a Parisian burgher’s death. Beyond these various religious obligations, and apart from a few individual tasks that fell to blind men within the community (the bell ringer and the crier were blind, as well as the managers of taverns situated within its walls), the main job of the blind poor of the Quinze-Vingts was the solicitation of charity: the quest for money that, in its totality, had to be brought back to the community and deposited in the Treasury, and the solicitation of bread, the so-called besace,39 which was divided equally between the master of the hospital and the collector. When they took up the collection, the blind were usually accompanied by sighted or partially

The Middle Ages    sighted brothers and sisters whom the Rule stipulated must “gently and truly lead the blind on their quests for alms and elsewhere.”40 When they went outside their community, the brothers and sisters had to don the “uniform” of the hospital—a robe and a coat slit on the side for the men and a robe and apron for the women. After 1312, the clothing had to be embroidered with the insignia Philip the Fair at that time gave the Quinze-Vingts in memory of the establishment’s royal founding: a full fleur-de-lis in saffron-colored brass (situated above the container they wore around their necks for the collection). This insignia made it possible to distinguish them from the jumble of other blind beggars.41 The importance accorded collections—undertaken daily—and the uniform and insignia they donned meant the blind of the Quinze-Vingts were first and foremost beggars, but privileged beggars, favored with royal protection in an age when mendicant orders were held in high esteem. Their cry: “For the Quinze-Vingts, the bread of God!” and their silhouette supported by the double-tipped cane, “indispensable element of the brothers’ personal property,”42 were well known in Paris and even beyond, since the group was authorized to beg outside city walls. If their uncertain step and their insistent supplications provoked the mockery of a Rutebeuf,43 the Quinze-Vingts aroused envy, and Saint Louis’s establishment soon gave rise to imitations, most notably in Chartres, where, in 1292, Renaud Barbou the Elder, former counselor of Louis IX and Philip the Bold, constructed a house destined to “lodge, take in, and console the blind poor and other wretches from the city”44 outside the city walls. The founding of this hospital was authorized by letters patent of Philip the Fair in 1291, and in 1294, the bishop of Chartres permitted the consecration of a chapel for the blind. The establishment was a smaller but faithful copy of the Parisian congregation, and it welcomed 120 poor people, blind and sighted, who lived communally from the fruit of their solicitations. Even their name, the “Six-Vingts,” was modeled on that of the hospice in Paris, and in 1356, De Brache gave them a rule comparable to the one he had drafted some time earlier for the Parisian hospice. Like the Quinze-Vingts, the Six-Vingts had the right to collect charity throughout the kingdom and, claiming also to be of royal foundation, they obtained authorization to wear the fleur-de-lis topped by a little crescent. However, in the streets of Paris where they came to beg,

   from the middle ages to the classical age disagreements arose between them and the mendicants of the QuinzeVingts. It was thus that in 1350, John the Good had to settle the matter: the Chartres contingent would keep the fleur-de-lis but had to wear it below their collection container. The form of the insignia worn by each hospice was also carefully established. Lastly, the Six-Vingts would be able to send but four collectors and a servant to Paris.45 Other hospices for the blind would be founded in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As Brigitte Gauthier noted in her dissertation on blindness and the blind in the Middle Ages, all these foundings took place in provinces north of the Loire, in a zone of great urban concentration.46 The city, then as now, was a place where a significant population of the poor and the marginal gathered together. Among them were numerous disabled people who the spiritual and temporal powers felt the need both to assist and to control. Before the fifteenth century, though, it seems that these institutions were not of a coercive nature. On the contrary, far from considering themselves victims of some kind of “police” power, the blind of the Quinze-Vingts—who were housed, partly fed and clothed, nursed when sick, exempt from all kinds of taxes, had a say in their own affairs, and whose children were educated within the community—were quite conscious of their privileges and ready to defend them bitterly, as they demonstrated in the conflict with the blind from Chartres. It was thus that the royal hospice, soon open to blind people throughout the kingdom, shortly found itself unable to meet too numerous demands, while the confraternities founded outside of Paris never managed to sufficiently develop themselves to relieve the Parisian establishment. By founding the Quinze-Vingts at the same moment that he was undertaking a major reform of the royal administration in the name of morality and justice,47 Saint Louis did not, then, bring a comprehensive solution to the misery suffered by the poor of his kingdom, nor even of the city of Paris. Besides, that had not been the goal of the foundation, which, for all its royal pedigree, was in certain respects a private act of charity by which the most prestigious suzerain of a still-feudal state manifested his piety as much as his interest in social control. Nor did the establishment of the Quinze-Vingts contribute to transforming the representation of blindness and the blind. On the contrary, the statutes of the hospice, by making alms collection the principal activity of its members, guaranteed

The Middle Ages    the association between blindness and begging, already so entrenched in practice and perception. Even privileged, the blind of the Quinze-Vingts remained beggars, and as such, they were still objects of mockery as much as pity. Though not without compassion, charitable disposition toward blindness therefore tended to maintain the blind in a sphere of alterity. But by supporting the congregation of the blind poor in Paris, Saint Louis demonstrated, for the first time in the history of the French kingdom, the responsibility the institution of monarchy had for disabled people, and he paved the way for the state to take on a social problem previously abandoned to the Church or to individual generosity. The close ties between the Quinze-Vingts and the monarchy were confirmed in 1387 by a bull of the Pope of Avignon, Clement VII, who took the hospice out from under the authority of the bishop of Paris and entrusted its spiritual jurisdiction to the king’s almoner. This measure turned the Quinze-Vingts into a veritable fiefdom of the almoner (who had lodgings and a personal office there) and the nucleus from which he progressively extended his authority—and that of royal power—over a greater number of charitable institutions. “Never really excluded because always spiritually integrated; never integrated because always socially on the fringes,”48 the indigent blind of the Middle Ages seem to be the archetype of the disabled poor, “suffering members of the community of saints.”49 The essentially religious and eschatological ambitions of the founders of specialized hospices—without excluding the idea of a certain social control—dispensed with any notions that the individuals assisted could be economically viable. The possibility of some kind of intellectual or professional formation of the residents doubtless never crossed the minds of those in charge. It would take the evolution of religious sentiment and attitudes toward poverty, followed by the emergence of the subject and the advent of a new anthropology, for pedagogues and reformers of public services to conceive of educating the blind by appealing to the resources of vicariance and of putting the poor in their midst to work.

chapter 2

The Beginning of Modern Times

The impoverishment of the laboring masses and the growth in the number of mendicants and vagabonds at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times have been commented on at length by historians of poverty in the West. Victims of wars, economic crisis, and unemployment, the “new poor,” errant and undernourished, were also the first victims of plagues, whose cycles cast a pall over Europe beginning in 1348. The attitude toward beggars—and especially toward vagabonds— went from ambivalent to increasingly hostile, and for sanitary as well as social reasons, the end of the Middle Ages began to conceive of policing the poor in several European cities.1 At first, however, these measures were directed only at able-bodied beggars: mendicancy (but not vagrancy) was still tolerated for poor people incapable of working because of age or infirmity. Ecclesiastical institutions, confraternities, and municipalities shared responsibility for charitable organizations, while in France, the almoner of the king did not yet oversee the royally founded hospices (or those reputed to be so).

The Evolution of Public Institutions and the Reform of the Quinze-Vingts Things began to change dramatically in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, a time of “decisive social and economic crisis, after which

The Beginning of Modern Times    it was no longer possible to live or govern in the same way as before.”2 A great reform movement seeking to laicize urban charitable institutions tried to respond to the widespread nature of destitution, while theoreticians became aware of correlations between poverty and employment. In France, state intervention in hospice affairs rivaled municipal intervention, and in 1519 the king’s almoner was given the title “Grand Almoner of France.” In 1520, Francis I entrusted him with the administration of the hospices and asylums of the realm: different establishments not founded by the king also fell under his control, while parliaments increasingly exercised their jurisdiction over hospice matters. Thus, on September 6, 1522, the Parliament of Paris registered the new rule given to the Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts by the Grand Almoner, François de Molins.3 This reform came at a time when numerous abuses on the part of the hospital administration had led to a serious misunderstanding between the Grand Almoner, the master, the minister, and the chapter, and when the community, having run out of resources, consisted of no more than “twenty-five or thirty-five brothers and sisters, both blind and sighted.”4 The rule took up the essentials of Michel de Brache’s statutes, while adding a certain number of items accentuating their coercive nature, most notably when it came to religious obligations (items 1 and 3); chapter attendance and “good behavior” during assemblies (items 9 and 10); religious education (item 4); and the apprenticing of the sighted children of congregation members (item 41). Finally, the comings and goings of the brothers and sisters were monitored through the creation of the position of porter (item 18). It was specified that the ordinances must “be read within the chapter four times a year . . . lest the officers, brothers, and sisters of the said household claim ignorance of them” (item 50).5 The obligation to wear the fleur-de-lis “when attending royal processions, Mass and all solemn festivals, when going to the chapter [and . . . ] when taking up the collection . . . in the churches of Paris and beyond” was not mentioned in the Rule of 1522. It was, on the other hand, the object of the last two items (14 and 15) of the oath of the Quinze-Vingts decreed on October 12, 1523, by the Parliament of Paris, an “oath that every brother and sister must take upon their admission.”6 In an age when authorized mendicants were obliged to wear a badge in a certain number of cities,7 the reminder of this obligation may indicate that there was reluctance on the part of blind people to wear the hospital emblem, which previously had not been a sign of stigmatization, but this is just a hypothesis.

   from the middle ages to the classical age Beyond these diverse measures, the Rule of 1522 fixed the number of blind and sighted brothers and sisters at “one hundred and forty [sixvingts] blind brothers,”8 “sixty sighted brothers . . . and eighty-eight blind and sighted women,” and prescribed that “all be native to this kingdom and provide letters of naturalization.”9 That said, the Quinze-Vingts was open to blind people from throughout the realm (and this, from the first third of the fifteenth century at least) and authorized its members to reside in the provinces if they so desired. But the most important measure Francis I took with regard to the Quinze-Vingts concerned the hospital’s form of government. The statutes of François de Molins had endowed the chapter with a council consisting of six governors, to whom the Grand Almoner intended to delegate a part of his responsibilities. Dissension between the governors and the chapter, the feeble rate of the participation of the blind in the assemblies, and their unruliness during meetings inspired the king to make another reform, the edict of 1546 “enacted at Fontainebleau, in the month of May,” which took “from the brothers and sisters of the Quinze-Vingts the right to determine together the interests of the establishment.”10 From then on, those who attended and had a say in the chapters, assemblies, and congregations were the six governors, the master, the minister, the two sworn sighted members, the porter (as a brother), and the clerk or his assistant. Also in attendance would be eight hospital brothers—four sighted and four blind—elected “by all the said governors, masters, ministers, sworn members, and brothers together or those who will be present the day of the general chapter of the said hospital, which is the day of Saint John the Baptist.”11 On February 26, 1547, by request of the governors, master, minister, sworn members, and brothers, the court modified the edict by adding four blind men to the chapter and revoking the porter’s deliberative voice.12 As the Abbé Prompsault remarked in his Notes on the QuinzeVingts, this reform was a “veritable revolution that took authority out of the hands of the blind and distorted the work of Saint Louis. In place of a republic protected by a king who named its president, there was a simple aggregate directed by the Grand Almoner of Paris, under special protection of the sovereign, and to which was accorded the right of surveillance and of appeal.”13

The Beginning of Modern Times    These arrangements, whose consequences would still be measurable at the end of the eighteenth century, are hardly surprising on the part of a sovereign who favored lay control of hospitals and the creation of the Bureau of the Poor of Paris in 1544. Nevertheless, while the repression of vagrancy and mendicancy was being organized in France, the Parliament of Paris and several provincial parliaments confirmed the rights of the Quinze-Vingts alms-seekers, whose freedom to circulate throughout the kingdom was facilitated and to whom the Parliament of Paris granted, with regard to begging, the same privileges as the alms-seekers of the Hôtel-Dieu. Brought to heel when it came to running their own house and better monitored by the imposition of a more restrictive rule than that of the past, the blind members of the Quinze-Vingts remained “good poor people,” and apparently it occurred to no one to insist they do “work” beyond alms-seeking. This did not prevent some of the Quinze-Vingts members from practicing a trade to supplement insufficient incomes. Le Grand mentions, for instance, that at the time, blind women assiduously spun thread at home and that the spinning wheel often figured in the inventory of goods they left behind at their death.14 Blind brothers, for their part, owned some of the taverns built on hospice grounds to provide the enclosure’s inhabitants with wine and other foodstuffs necessary to their subsistence. Attempts of the Grand Almoner to introduce the use of a shared table during the course of the 1520 reform having come to naught, the blind continued, in effect, to take their meals in their little lodgings and to get provisions at the stores set up inside the walls.15 A few decades later, in 1602, one blind fabric weaver requested permission to have a companion to “set up his work.”16 These same professions, and some others, would be inventoried at the Quinze-Vingts right in the middle of the nineteenth century. But if the various administrations that succeeded one another at the helm of the hospital always encouraged these industrious activities, before the Consulate and the Empire, none obliged the blind to work, because their disability was widely perceived as a major obstacle to practicing a trade. And yet—

   from the middle ages to the classical age

The Reformers of Assistance and Work for the Blind In 1526, in Bruges, Juan-Luis Vivès, a Spanish humanist living in the Netherlands, published a treatise, De subventione pauperum,17 considered the “cornerstone of the humanist program for reform and social welfare.”18 Following Thomas More and Erasmus, Vivès had praise for work: “Above all else, we must decree the law the Lord imposed on all mankind as penalty and reparation for original sin, namely: that each man eat the bread acquired by his own sweat and toil. . . . No poor man, whose age and health permit him to work, should be allowed to remain idle.”19 If he recommends “taking into consideration age and failing health,”20 a bit later he still decrees: Not even the blind shall be allowed to remain idle; there are many things they can do. Some have a literary disposition, provided that someone read to them. Let them study, for we observe that a number of them make progress in erudition that is not to be disdained. Others have a talent for music: let them sing and play string and wind instruments. Let others work at the press houses to help maneuver the wine presses, and may others do their utmost at the bellows in the workshops of blacksmiths. We know that the blind make boxes, baskets, trays, and cages, and that blind women spin and wind skeins. In sum, if they neither wish to be unemployed nor to flee work, they will easily find something to keep themselves occupied. Laziness or indolence, and not a bodily defect, is the only excuse they may put forward for doing nothing.21

This text is of interest for several reasons. First of all, it provides a detailed and argued list of intellectual, artistic, and manual work accessible to the blind at the time of Vivès, who presents these examples as empirical facts: “we observe,” “we know that,” and not as petty hypotheses. Furthermore, in Bruges at the beginning of the century, there was a home for the blind [aveuglerie] where Vivès had perhaps observed boarders engaging in some of these occupations—in the manner of the blind of the QuinzeVingts in Paris. Regarding the blind with “a literary disposition,” Pierre Villey evokes the existence of two blind men of the day hailing from the Netherlands, men Vivès doubtless knew by reputation. The first, Nicasius van Voerden, born around 1440 in the region of Malines and blind as a result of

The Beginning of Modern Times    smallpox, had studied philosophy at the University of Leuven. A master of arts and then bachelor of theology and doctor of law, he had taught humanities at Malines, then canon law and civil law at the University of Cologne. Furthermore, the pope had authorized him to receive the sacrament of the order in spite of his blindness.22 The second, Petrus Pontanus, born in Bruges between 1475 and 1479, taught humanities at the college of Boncours in Paris, where he himself had been a student. Perhaps Vivès had met this accomplished humanist, an admirer of Erasmus and correspondent of Lefèvre d’Etaples, who died in Paris in 1529.23 Whatever the case, and whatever the examples that inspired him, Vivès was certainly qualified to prove, as he affirmed, that the blind “if they neither wish[ed] to be unemployed nor to flee work [ . . . would] easily find something to keep themselves busy.”24 But the interest of this text does not only reside in its enumeration of activities engaged in by a certain number of blind people at the beginning of the sixteenth century—and doubtless earlier. Indeed, Vivès, proponent of a desacralization of poverty and of almsgiving that would have as its consequence the secularization of welfare, grounded his theories in a new religious morality, according to which work acquired the value of redemption. He therefore intended to impose the law of salvific work on everyone and to prove, in support of his theory, that even the blind, who were traditionally turned into mendicants, could be educated and put to work. Vivès was neither particularly interested in blindness nor in the blind: he only cited them as an example to better prove the cogency of a theory that aimed to integrate inactive groups into the economic life of the city so as to render them productive. However, by claiming to subject the blind to “the law the Lord imposed on all mankind,” Vivès was, to our knowledge, the first theoretician who refused to treat them differently from humanity as a whole. This, in our opinion, is the major interest of his text. Vivès’s treatise, which served the movement to reform municipal charity by providing it with ideological arguments and by suggesting certain practical steps to combat mendicancy, was quite popular in Europe. It had, however, no effect on putting the blind to work, which in the short term was rather to their advantage, given the way mercantilist theses were being applied to able-bodied beggars at the time. Already divided over the interdiction of begging, people were doubtless

   from the middle ages to the classical age even more hesitant to implement forced labor for the disabled—particularly for the blind. What we can retain from the humanist theories of welfare is that they prepared the ground for the process of desacralization of poverty and disability that would result, at the end of the eighteenth century, in the first attempts at mainstreaming the blind poor through education and work.

“How a Blind Man Can Be Taught to Write” Whereas Vivès recommended rendering the blind useful to society through studies, music, or manual labor, two other humanists, Pedro Mexia and Girolamo Cardano, inspired by a dialogue by Erasmus,25 evoked the possibility of teaching them to write using tablets engraved with the letters of the alphabet. Pedro Mexia, a Spaniard like Vivès, was the author of a compilation, Silva de varia leccion, published in Seville in 1543, translated into French by Claude Gruget in 155226 and reprinted until 1619 with ample augmentations. In the third part of this work, consecrated to the invention of letters, Mexia vaunts the merits of printing, according to him “the best invention in the world.”27 Then he comes to speak, not of the blind’s access to culture thanks to the distribution of printed books, but of the way some of them have learned to write: Tablets were made of porphyry or bone or metal, and on these were engraved all the letters, beginning with a, b, and c. The blind person then took a burin with a tip so sharp and fine that he could easily move it through all the letters engraved on the tablet, having someone guide his hand. And he did this so many times that he could feel, by exploring with his fingertips, the form of each of the letters. And he got so accustomed to this that little by little, and with great care, the image of each of the letters impressed itself upon his memory, and afterward, he taught himself to make them on something other than the tablet such that sometimes he failed and sometimes he succeeded. He finally learned, so he wrote with a pen what he represented to himself in his mind.28

Not long after Mexia, Girolamo Cardano, who at the time was the most reputed doctor in Europe after Vesalius, explained in turn, in a work entitled De Subtilitate, published in Nuremberg in 1550, “How a blind

The Beginning of Modern Times    man can be taught to write.”29 This work, translated into French by Richard Le Blanc in 1556, was to be reedited in France up until 1642. The method described by Cardano is identical to that depicted by Mexia a few years earlier, but the Milanese scholar insisted more than his predecessor on the difficulties of this training, which could only be accomplished, he said, “with great difficulty and labor”: “And he will have to be faithfully admonished and to continue for a long time.”30 He thus concluded that such an undertaking was futile: “It’s an admirable thing but of little use.”31 Upon reading these texts, which were widely circulated in several languages and for nearly a century, we may ask ourselves why the principle of blind people’s access to written culture did not hold the attention of a period otherwise favorable to the spread of writing, thanks to the invention of printing and the influence of the Reformation. Cardano’s conclusion provides a partial response to our question: in effect, since antiquity, there had been cultivated blind men who, in order to read and write, made do with readers who also served as secretaries. Vivès, in the text cited above, even alluded to this practice. That some of these scholars felt the desire to learn (or relearn) how to write in order to acquire a certain independence—and that they were able to do so—must certainly have been seen as an admirable but superfluous thing, given the customs of the time in the circles in which such people were to be found. In well-to-do circles, it was perfectly normal to employ all kinds of servants, including secretaries, and in clerical circles, it was equally easy to recruit readers and scribes. As for having blind commoners read or write, that was a long ways away, despite pedagogical efforts with regard to the populace inspired by the two Reformations. If people had been ready, it is probable that the century of the printing press would have not only found the means to teach the blind to write—which is effectively difficult and can be taught only with limited success to formerly sighted people who already know how—but especially to read, by printing books in relief. In this regard, as Le Grand noted in his book on the Quinze-Vingts, “it would be interesting” to know the nature and methods of instruction that the hospice school employed for the twenty or so blind children taken in and raised at the infirmary from that time on. Unfortunately, the texts we possess are absolutely silent on the subject.32 Doubtless they were

   from the middle ages to the classical age taught first of all “to practice Christian piety and to judge things with rectitude,” as Vivès recommended in the chapter of his treatise on welfare dedicated to the care of children.33 Doubtless, too, they were taught, as were the sighted children of congregation members, chant and psalmody. But we don’t know if they were, as these last, introduced to the rudiments of primary education. Whatever the germ of an evolution of mentalities suggested by Vivès’s proposals and the elaboration of palliative techniques reported by Mexia and Cardano may have been, it would seem that they were seriously threatened by ideas and attitudes hardly favorable to both putting the blind poor to work and educating them. On the one hand, as we have already stressed, the traditionally minded religious were troubled by the theses recommending that the disabled poor be put to work; on the other, the education of the blind came up against prejudices about disabilities that Cardano himself—despite being one of the most illustrious scholars of his time—had echoed. Indeed, we can read in the twelfth book of De Subtilitate:34 “We are accustomed to calling “cripples” those who are blind, deaf, one-eyed, six-fingered, and such monsters of nature that have loose morals”35 [emphasis ours]. Cardano’s judgment of the disabled is particularly severe when it comes to hunchbacks, the blind, and those blind in one eye: “If all cripples are bad . . . the worst of all are hunchbacks, seeing as how the imperfection is in the area of the heart, principle of the whole body. Next come the blind and those blind in one eye, because nature failed in the area of the brain.”36 To prejudices against disabilities linked to the state of medical knowledge at the time can lastly be added the arguments of Platonizing philosophers in favor of vision, which the invention of printing, the birth of modern optics, and the development of optical instruments definitively placed at the top of the hierarchy of senses. Many people of the day probably thought—as Leonardo Da Vinci wrote in Paragone—that “to lose one’s sight was . . . to be like a man shut alive inside a tomb where he could live and move.”37 Under these conditions, even if it was known that “there have nevertheless been several blind men who were persons of great renown, in whom nature compensated with understanding what was lacking in vision,”38 it could indeed seem futile to torment the poor wretches, “deprived of the beauty of the universe,”39 with training at once painful and “of little use,” to take up the expression used by Cardano.

The Beginning of Modern Times   

The Representations of Blindness in Fiction and in Iconography In fictional literature, the combination of old representations and new observations is illustrated by the first episode of a short narrative, The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes, His Fortunes and Misfortunes, the first of the picaresque novels. This facetious work, of which the oldest editions date to 1553 or 155440 and of which a French translation was first printed in Lyon in 1560, had great success in France and went through numerous new editions.41 It tells the burlesque adventures of a young “picaro” rogue who begins his “active” life in the service of an old blind man who introduces him to the jargon and all the ruses of the profession of roguery. “At his job, he was an ace,”42 recounts the narrator, identifying with young Lazarillo:43 What’s more, he had a thousand other ways of extracting money. He claimed to know prayers for multiple situations. . . . In the way of medicine, he claimed to know two times as much as Galen. . . . So much so that everyone was after him, especially women, who swallowed whole anything he told them: he thus took great advantage of them . . . and he earned more in a month than a hundred blind men do in a year.44

Lazarillo, who is in good hands, does not miss an opportunity to dupe the malicious blind man, who nonetheless gives him a thrashing for the slightest prank and barely provides him with enough to eat. We can recognize, in this disagreeable blind man and the cheeky youngster who serves as his guide, the traditional “couple” of medieval comic theater. The association of the two characters was so successful in this short episode that the first name “Lazarillo” became a common way of designating, in Castilian, a child who guides a blind person.45 Yet the anonymous author of this “intentionally comic book . . . that incorporates a whole preexisting literature of playful tales”46 innovated with respect to his predecessors. A “master-in-beggary,” Lazarillo’s blind man is no longer the easily deceived fool of medieval farce. He uses touch, hearing, and smell remarkably well to compensate for his disability and to thwart the tricks of the scamp Lazarillo, who tests, at his own expense, the powers of observation, “intuition,” “sagacity,” and “subtlety” of the “clever blind man.” If it is true that these qualities are what the blind man uses to dupe the naive, they are also what enable him to survive and to avoid

   from the middle ages to the classical age the ambushes of an uncertain existence. Thus, from the beginning of this episode, which opens the story of his adventures, Lazarillo pays homage to his blind master, “because [he says] after God, it was really he who gave birth to me and who, blind though he was, enlightened me and put me on the road of life.”47 This paradoxical homage is probably not without irony, because the “lights” of such a master could only put Lazarillo on the dark road of sanctimoniousness and illegitimate mendicancy, “bêtes noirs” of religious reformers and humanist theoreticians of welfare. In addition, when describing his master, Lazarillo occasionally uses terms like crafty, wily, accursed, and satanic, which might suggest some diabolical connivance. Without engaging in a social critique of this text,48 we have to admit that the blind man is presented in a manner that, if not totally negative, is at least extremely ambiguous. We recognize the talent of the sensible man who fully avails himself of the resources of vicariousness, but we are wary of him, because “all cripples are bad,” as Cardano wrote at exactly the same time. What the blind man has lost in foolishness, with respect to the caricature of folkloric tales and medieval theater, he makes up for in malice. And the “satanic blind man’s” very qualities of perspicacity and keenness could be perceived, by those inclined to the irrational, as one more proof of his pact with the underworld. Whatever the possibilities for a dual reading of a text at the very least ambiguous with respect to blindness and the blind, this is a story that should, above all, be read as intentionally comic. With the pictorial representation of the blind and blindness offered by Bruegel the Elder about a dozen years later, laughter, in our opinion, gives way to shock, something that does not, however, authorize us to prejudge the public for which it was destined. The Parable of the Blind 49 in the National Museum of Naples was painted in 1568 to illustrate the adage of Christ in Matthew 15:14: “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” This parable, which originally applied to the Pharisees, was used by preachers from the thirteenth century on as an example of the senseless behavior of the blind in spirit.50 Before Bruegel, whose version is today considered “definitive”51 by art historians, the subject had been illustrated by several painters and engravers, and in particular by Hieronymus Bosch,

The Beginning of Modern Times    Breugel’s “spiritual father.”52 Though they fail in their attempts to explain Bruegel’s religious convictions, several of those who specialize in his work agree that the painting is “not about the blind, but about faith53 and heresy.”54,55 Hence, beyond the dreadfully realistic image56 of these beings with empty stares and a staggering gait, the painter made his contemporaries see something entirely different from the social and human condition alone of the poor wretches, subject by disability and poverty to the dangers of a wandering life. For us, “respectable voyeurs . . . roused from our torpor”57 by the spectacle of the blind man at the right of the painting who looks at us with his gaping stare, how can we not think of what Jean-Pierre Vernant wrote about the Gorgon: “To look Gorgo in the eyes is to find oneself face to face with the beyond in its terrifying dimension, to exchange glances with an eye that, endlessly staring at us, is the negation of the gaze, to welcome a light whose blinding brilliance is that of night.”58 Whether they provoked laughter or horror, the blind at the beginning of the modern era were on the side of misdeed—sin or heresy—and despite the open-mindedness of certain humanist authors, blindness was still the object of feelings too ambiguous to produce a real revolution in the social treatment of those afflicted with it. The Quinze-Vingts remained the sole important institution reserved for the blind poor, and aside from the strengthening of royal authority over the establishment, nothing really new happened with respect to the previous centuries. The boarders of the hospice—whose principal occupation remained alms-seeking—were looked on as privileged beggars at a time when mendicancy was nonetheless the object of ever more severe repression. By maintaining the prerogatives of the blind of the royal hospice, the monarchy thus contributed to the perpetuation of the age-old image of the blind beggar.

chapter 3

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age

The Blind and the “Great Confinement” We might expect the classical age to have contributed something new to the domain of welfare for the blind, and in fact, The Royal Edict Establishing the Hôpital Général to Confine Poor Mendicants of the City and Suburbs of Paris, decreed in Paris in April 1656, did concern blind and other beggars. Indeed, this text prohibited the poor from begging, whether they were “able-bodied or disabled [emphasis added], sick or convalescent, curable or incurable,” and the Rule the King Would Like Followed at the Hôpital Général 1 anticipated cases of blind people: “Beggars with incurable blindness will likewise be admitted to the said Hôpital Général until there is space for them at the Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts and at the Incurables, upon the advice and consent of the directors of the said hospices.”2 Yet, while the interdiction of begging came down on the poor “of the city and suburbs of Paris,” “without any exception . . . under penalty of whipping . . . for the first offense and of being sent to the galleys for men and boys and banishment for women and girls for the second,”3 article IX of the 1656 edict stipulated, “It is not our intention to extend the above interdictions to other people who have the right to take up the collection or to seek alms.”4 Thus, at the very moment the monarchy was putting an unprecedented system in place for the repression of mendicancy, the blind of the Quinze-Vingts had their particular status confirmed.

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    There is more: the article just cited from the 1656 edict ordered “the blind, children, and others having a right to seek alms” to remain “at the doors of churches or near their collection boxes, with a prohibition against begging elsewhere inside churches under penalty of being stripped of their right.”5 Now, by request of the hospice and thanks to the intervention of the Queen Regent,6 a letter from the king dated May 4, 1657, revisited this interdiction and accorded the Quinze-Vingts “the freedom to seek alms throughout churches in their customary manner.” 7 The Hôpital Général’s objection to this decision was rejected by parliament,8 and in letters patent of March 7, 1659, Louis XIV definitively confirmed the alms-seeking privileges that Saint Louis had granted the Quinze-Vingts.9 Far from being put to work as the mercantilist ethic would have had it—and which did lead, in 1666, to the creation of workshops within the confines of the Hôpital Général—the blind of the Quinze-Vingts continued to be treated according to the medieval ethos of charity, founded on the exchange of alms for prayer. Was not one of the reasons invoked to grant them freedom to seek alms “throughout churches,” that in remaining “at the doors of churches or near their collection boxes,” as ordained by the edict of 1556, “they would be unable to say the prayers the faithful desired of them?”10 Respect for dynastic engagements vis-à-vis the Quinze-Vingts, considered first and foremost to be a religious community? Distress of the devout in the upper echelons of the state (Anne of Austria had personally intervened on behalf of the blind) in the face of the application of new legislative and police measures against mendicancy of every category without exception? It was always during those times particularly harsh for idlers recalcitrant to the ethos of salvation through work that the blind of the Quinze-Vingts seemed the quintessential aristocrats of mendicancy. But behind all that, we should see the implicit conviction that if blindness made people de facto “incapable of work,” mendicancy continued, of necessity, to be the only means of subsistence for the blind of the laboring class. Alms-seeking remained, in any event, the only contribution to the hospice required of Quinze-Vingts members. And we can easily imagine, from certain documents pertaining to the Quinze-Vingts, that no work was required of the blind who were promptly locked up there, along with other beggars of the city of Paris.11 For the blind were among the poor that

   from the middle ages to the classical age Pajot de la Chapelle,12 in a report of August 15, 1688, for the Intendant of Ile-de-France, proposed to take off the hands of the Hôpital Général.13 There, they were doubtless considered—as were those “ordinary sick people,” the venereally diseased, madmen and madwomen, and abandoned children—a completely useless burden, incapable of being rehabilitated through work. The evolution of welfare practices during the seventeenth century, if it allowed for the confinement of a number of blind mendicants and vagabonds, contributed nothing to their education through work. Condemned to idleness inside the walls of the Hôpital Général, restricted to their role of “authorized mendicants” when they were admitted to the Quinze-Vingts, the blind poor maintained an official status as inactive at the very heart of a society hostile toward inactivity. The century of the “Great Confinement” was also, for similar reasons and more, that of the creation of schools of charity, the collèges, and the birth of new educational strategies. Still, it does not appear that the basic education of the blind preoccupied the founders of the religious congregations and orders of pedagogical and missionary vocations that were created in France at the time. The time was not yet ripe, and yet—

In Which We Speak Again of Teaching the Blind to Write In a work printed in Brescia in 1670,14 an Italian disciple of Athanasius Kircher,15 Father Francesco Lana-Terzi, a professor of letters and a natural sciences and physics enthusiast obsessed with alchemy, demonstrated “how someone blind since birth can not only learn how to write, but also to conceal his secrets in code and hear the response by means of the same code.”16 After having recalled the method described a century earlier by “Cardano and a few others,” Father Lana added an extremely judicious comment to his essay: To which I add that the blind man must avoid an inevitable pitfall; for in tracing his letters, he will not only make lines that will not be straight, but also, when he wants to begin a new line, he will not know where to place it and will run the risk of writing over his writing. He can easily remedy this by using a small loom about

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    the size of a sheet of paper threaded with parallel lute strings or metal wires spaced as far apart as lines of writing. The blind man should place the small loom on the paper and, pressing his middle finger, which will guide him, on one of the strings or wires, should move his hand so that he cannot help but write straight between them. By counting the number of wires with his left hand, he can then begin a new line with his right, guided by the following wire. In this way, the lines will not only turn out straight, they will be equidistant from one another.17

This text is worth citing, in our opinion, not only for its relevance, but also because it very nearly describes the material that was to be used in the following century by many home-schooled blind people before it was adopted by Valentin Haüy for the students of the school he founded in Paris in 1785. Father Lana had probably been able to observe one or more blind people using this type of hand guide, unless he was himself its inventor. In any event, around fifteen years after the publication of Lana’s New Essays, an English traveler, Gilbert Burnet,18 recalled the use of a similar device by Elizabeth von Waldkirch, a young Swiss woman, almost completely blind since the age of one, whom he had met near Geneva, where she then lived with her family19 and whose great cultivation he was able to assess: “I saw her write, she doth it more nimbly then [sic] can be imagined; she hath a machine that holds the paper, and keeps her alwayes [sic] in line.”20 Whatever his role may have been in the invention—or diffusion— of the hand guide, Father Lana, who at the end of his life taught codes and ciphers to the Academy of the Filesotici, founded on his initiative in Brescia, next proposed various coded writing systems that would allow a blind person “to write in ciphers without anyone understanding him save the person with the key,”21 systems that this time he expressly claimed to have devised. Some of them were far-fetched. Two, though, merit our attention: according to their author, the first permitted a blind person “to write fluently by drawing only lines and points”;22 the second, “to engrave signs on thick paper using more substantial wood characters than characters used for printing but with the same mechanism.”23 We have here both the prefiguration of impression in relief and of the writing system invented in the beginning of the nineteenth century by Charles Barbier and perfected by Louis Braille. In his book The Life and Work of Louis Braille, Pierre Henri

   from the middle ages to the classical age hypothesizes24 that certain chapters of Lana’s book might have been known to Barbier through a translation cited several times here and published in 1803 by Coste d’Arnobat in his pamphlet Essays on So-Called New Discoveries, Most of Which Are Centuries Old [Essais de prétendues découvertes nouvelles dont la plupart sont âgées de plusieurs siècles]. If Barbier indeed drew inspiration from this work when he invented his “nocturnal writing”—and nothing, unfortunately, permits us to affirm this—then Father Lana, already known for being “the originator of a discovery . . . renewed at the end of the eighteenth century . . . , that of aerostats,”25 would also be the precursor of one of the most useful inventions to give the blind access to culture: that of punctiform writing. Meanwhile, for more than a century, his idea remained a dead letter, insofar as we know, for we are certainly far from having preserved traces of all the stopgap measures used by home-schooled cultivated blind people before the creation of the first specialized institutions. In any case, the few remarkable blind people of the seventeenth century whose life and works have come down to us had access to writing only through readers who also served as their secretaries.

Meetings with Some Remarkable Blind Men An “honnête homme”: Blaise-François de Pagan, Count de Merveilles Blaise-François de Pagan, Count de Merveilles, who became blind later in life and to whom Charles Perrault devoted a notice accompanied by a portrait in his Illustrious Men,26 lost an eye from a musket wound during the siege of Montauban in 1621. He became completely blind in 1642 and had to abandon a brilliant military career begun in 1616 when he was twelve years old.27 He then wrote a number of books, including a Treatise on Fortifications,28 considered the best work on the subject until that of Vauban (who, it was said, drew on it for the foundations of his technique). Distinguished by Louis XIII for his courage and military talents, Pagan remained famous after becoming blind. At his house, he hosted an academy of sorts, where morality, politics, and ancient and modern

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    history were discussed, and, more generally, the most remarkable things the sciences and fine arts had to offer. The apostolic nuncio, the ambassadors of Sweden, Venice, the president of Genoa, and the ministers of the Electors and Princes of the Holy Roman Empire took great pleasure in his conversation and came to see him often. Free access was especially accorded mathematicians, who consulted him about difficulties that any other person would have had trouble developing.29 The admiration his contemporaries continued to express for the Count de Pagan after he became blind reflects, it would seem, an evolution in the noble ideal of the time: a hero become blind, Blaise de Pagan incarnated from then on the ideal of the “honnête homme,” whom he himself exalted in the last of his works, The Heroic Man [L’Homme héroïque], published in 1663 and dedicated to the young Louis XIV. After Pagan’s death in Paris on November 18, 1665, homage was thus paid to his genius, “of loftiness and of prodigious vivacity,” to his “solid and profound” judgment, to his “admirable” memory, and to his knowledge of very diverse subjects as well as to the military prowess of his youth.30 But Pagan, judged by the social and scholarly elite of the age to be “one of the most honnêtes hommes of his time,”31 had become blind later in life. He had acquired most of the scientific and technical knowledge that was to contribute to his reputation as an author and scholar before becoming disabled. He had also long had the habit of dictating notes, letters, and reports to a secretary. His example, like that of Father Le Jeune32 during the same period, cannot therefore be considered as truly signaling the emergence of the educated and autonomous blind subject, attested to by some successful experiments concerning blind children who had acquired an education without being able to see. More convincing in this regard are the life and works of two men blind since childhood who became intellectual leaders of a number of their contemporaries. The first of these, Jean de Moulin (who following his vows took the name Jean de Saint-Samson), was the leader of the Carmelite reform known as the “Tourangelle,” a major current of the seventeenthcentury French mystical renaissance. He dictated to his secretaries—who were usually novices in his charge—a considerable written oeuvre, a partial edition of which, preceded by his life story, was published in 1651 and again in 1656.33 The critical edition of his complete works, currently under

   from the middle ages to the classical age way at the Institutum Carmelitanum, will consist of eleven volumes, a total of about four thousand pages—to give an idea of its extent. Several important studies of the life and work of this blind mystic have been published since the end of the nineteenth century. The second of these blind men, François Malaval, was also—a halfcentury later and in a very different context—the author of a number of mystical works, the first of which, A Simple Method of Raising the Soul to Contemplation, had considerable success. First composed in Latin, translated and published in French for the first time in 1664, reedited in 1667 and again in 1670 as an expanded version (the first edition, unlike the other two, has been rediscovered), this work that was edited several other times in France and then translated into Italian and published in Rome, Geneva, and Venice, was blacklisted in 1688 by the Congregation of the Holy Office. The condemnation was reiterated by Bossuet in 1694, the book having continued to circulate clandestinely.34 In 1695, Malaval, who had submitted without protest in 1688, wrote, in the form of a letter and at the request of Monsieur de Foresta-Colongue, an entire justification of his works and life, to which was added a refutation of Molinos’s sixty-eight propositions. A waste of time with respect to a withdrawal of the condemnation: “Bossuet, who had reasons other than the truth to fulminate against the so-called Quietists,” got fired up over Malaval in his “ordinance” on mystics.”35 But the letter, if it did not have its desired effect, later became a precious document for Malalval’s biographers, in particular, the Abbé Dassy, author of a very complete biographical and bibliographical study published in 1869 in Marseille.36 It is in the interest of our subject that we explore a bit further the life of these two people—whose relationship to the written word was established entirely by oral means—and examine how their blindness was perceived by contemporaries. Jean de Saint-Samson, or the Essential Practice of Love: “The soul must set out on this road with eyes shut.” 37 Jean du Moulin, son of Pierre du Moulin, a land tax collector, and of Marie d’Aiz, was born in Sens in 1571. Having become blind at age three

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    as a result of smallpox and the unfortunate medical “care” of an ambulant charlatan, he nevertheless received some elementary education from a certain Garnier, priest of Saint-Pierre-Le-Rond. Orphaned at ten, the child was taken in by his maternal uncle, Zacharie d’Aiz, a “bourgeois merchant” of Sens, who took his duties as guardian seriously and sent Du Moulin to school in the company of a young boy who served as his guide, reader, and tutor. Du Moulin acquired a decent knowledge of Latin, but he was soon urged to further pursue his musical studies, for which he had shown some exceptional gifts. It was Garnier, once again, who taught him to play the spinet and the organ along with other instruments. This predilection for the organ enabled Du Moulin, beginning at age twelve, to be in charge of the organs at the church of Saint-Pierre-Le-Rond and that of the Dominicans of Sens. He was also asked to use his musical talents to entertain the cheerful company fond of music, dance, and poetry that regularly gathered at his uncle’s home. At that stage of his life, according to his biographers, young du Moulin “asked to be read . . . all sorts of books that he used his money to buy, such as those of historians and French poets.”38 He also tried his hand at composing sonnets in the manner of Ronsard. The adolescent thus led an apparently happy life, and a musical career seemed to be shaping up in an auspicious way for the blind boy, who played about a dozen cord and wind instruments delightfully well. But God or circumstances—among which should perhaps be counted the emotional traumas of infancy—decided otherwise. The Counter Reformation was in full swing, and Jean du Moulin, a contemporary of François de Sales and Pierre de Bérulle, began to be interested in mystical literature. No sooner had he completed his readings “than he went begging at friends’ houses,” a result of his attentive listening to sermons “he retained most successfully,”39 as his biographer remarks, underscoring the role of memory in the intellectual formation of blind people educated by oral means. This was the beginning of a long progression. In 1596 or 1597, the young man, accompanied by a domestic, left the house of his uncle and the “frivolous” occupations that had begun to weigh on him. He may have wanted to escape the musical career toward which his circle was steering him. He came to live in Paris with his elder brother Jean-Baptiste, secretary

   from the middle ages to the classical age and paymaster for the French Gendarmerie. The youngest brother of his sister-in-law became his reader, in addition to a few friends he occasionally asked to help out. At the time (between 1596 and 1601), Du Moulin would have met Dom Beaucousin, spiritual leader of the pious of Paris.40 If this is the case, it is easier to understand his internal evolution in the wake of two new and unexpected bereavements: his brother died at the beginning of 1601 and was soon followed by his spouse, who died on June 28 of the same year. The unlucky blind man thus found himself alone in Paris, practically penniless and without any family support. He began to assiduously frequent the church and community of the Carmelites of Place Maubert, where, beginning in 1604, he became friends with a young monk newly arrived from his convent in Dol de Bretagne to study philosophy at the Place Maubert collège, Mathieu Pinault. It was precisely the year in which the devout circle assembled around Madame Acarie supported the establishment of the Spanish Carmelites in France. Pinault, for his part, spoke to Du Moulin about the movement to reform the Carmelites’ convents that had begun in Brittany a few years earlier. Neither the convent of Dol nor that of Paris were yet reformed, and the lay blind man, become the spiritual guide of a small group of religious of the Place Maubert, encouraged them in their desire to assist in the reform of the order. He himself felt an ever greater calling to religious life, and in 1606, through Pinault, who was preparing himself to return to Brittany, asked to be received as a novice at the convent of Dol. His request was accepted, and the same year he took holy orders there, where he completed his novitiate without a father priest. It was when he took the habit that the name of Saint Samson, first bishop of Dol and patron of the cathedral church, was added to his own. On June 26, 1607, Jean de SaintSamson made his religious profession as a simple lay brother: his blindness effectively prohibited him from having access to the priesthood.41 In 1612, Philippe Thibault, promoter of Carmelite reform appointed Prior of the Rennes novitiate the preceding year, called on Jean de SaintSamson, whom he had met at the Place Maubert. After a fairly long probation period, he entrusted Saint-Samson—without making it official— with the role of spiritual master of the novices and young monks. Through some of the latter, responsible in turn for the novitiates of the Touraine province, “the poor lay religious man, deprived of corporal sight,”42 was

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    thus at the origins of a renewal of Carmelite spirituality known as the “Tourangelle reform.” It was during this period, extending from 1612 to his death in Rennes on September 14, 1636, that Brother Jean, “blind with his bodily eyes and very luminous of spirit,”43 began to dictate a prolific body of work44 of pronounced oral character. Dictated for the most part at great speed and almost in a state of ecstasy to monks who were often young and only more or less capable of taking on this improvised secretarial office,45 the oeuvre makes for fairly difficult reading. It is true that certain texts, consisting of notes taken in passing to preserve the memory of the mystical experiences of the blind Brother, were not meant to be published as they are. Still, according to Saint-Samson’s present editors, even his most didactic treatises are “the written expression of oral and familiar speech that conveys the rather unusual style of their blind author.”46 Despite the particularity of his disability, we believe that the literary education of Saint-Samson and his immense religious and mystical culture, entirely founded on oral transmission,47 reveal the diversity of modes of appropriating written culture in ancien régime France. Conversely, the role oral mediation plays in writing practices today allows us to understand, through this example of an entirely dictated body of work, why there was then little interest in palliative techniques relying upon the sense of touch. Above and beyond the story of the blind monk and what it teaches us about the possibilities of accessing writing in societies with low levels of literacy between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the way SaintSamson’s contemporaries spoke of him deserves our attention. Their discourse seems to center on systems of representation. One, much in vogue in the seventeenth century, is tied to a much older legend that linked mysticism with ignorance.48 The other dates to antiquity and makes of the blind man a person whose “interior vision” developed in compensation for his physical blindness, since “the eye of the soul is not the eye of the body.”49 If we examine what Father Donatien de Saint-Nicolas wrote in his address to the Marquis de Cucé at the beginning of his edition of the works of Saint-Samson50 in light of the mystical tradition of the “enlightened illiterate,” we note that he immediately presented the latter as a “poor

   from the middle ages to the classical age lay monk, deprived of bodily sight and deprived of instruction [dépourvu de sciences humaines].”51 Similarly, the theologians of the Faculty of Paris charged with approving the publication of his work certified that they had found therein “many pious and exemplary things that could greatly contribute . . . to the admiration of marvels by the grace of God, who ordinarily chooses the humble to confound Sages and to make the Learned see . . . that in this sort of doctrine one can be wise and ignorant all at once.”52 A little further along in his story of Saint-Samson’s life, Father Donatien—after having evoked the initiation into literature and the very extensive musical education Du Moulin received in childhood— endeavors to present his spiritual formation as entirely autodidactic. It would seem that “the divine love that from that point began to stir in his heart”53 directly inspired the young man’s first spiritual readings. Later, at the convent of Dol, the lack of a novice master obliged him once again to seek inspiration for his religious life in God alone. Finally, and it is not the least important element of the demonstration, the humble lay brother, free from theological training, was nonetheless “held in great esteem . . . in the minds of several highly placed and eminent persons, such as Queen Marie de Medici, mother of Louis XIII, of Monsignors the bishops of Rennes, Nantes, Dol, Saint-Brieux, of the Monsieurs de Cucé, one and the other successively First President of the parliament of Brittany, and of many other famous people.”54 Moreover, Antoine Revol, Bishop and Count of Dol—who enjoyed the friendship of François de Sales—used Saint-Samson as his director of conscience up until his death, and it was he who, in 1629, encouraged Saint-Samson to write his first treatise.55 A poor lay brother, receiving all his instruction from God alone, sought out by the great for his spiritual clairvoyance, a humble blind man, latecomer to the Carmelites in a small provincial convent, was clearly one of those “ignorant illiterates” who knew much more about God than did wise men56 and whom an increasing number of theologians of the day went looking for in the suburbs or in hovels to learn the “divine lesson.”57 And yet Saint-Samson, as his biographers well knew, was not ignorant in the sense of the “illiterate man” of mystical fable. He was blind, and to their minds, there was no doubt that blindness had kept him from knowledge useless for the science of saints: “In my reading of the book Le vray

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    esprit du Carmel, written by the Venerable Brother Jean de Saint-Samson, I seem to have discovered why this great man was blind since the cradle,”58 wrote, for example, the Dominican Father Ranciat.59 “It was to be able to teach us that the lights and science of the saints only come from God, and that they do not depend on the senses; . . . that is quite useless and quite immaterial to have eyes when we only desire to be enlightened by the lights of paradise.”60 In the same spirit, Father Donatien wrote, “I am not alone in believing that it was a sign of the providence of God, who did not allow that he regain his bodily sight so that, being blind to the things of this world before knowing them, he was suited to contemplating those of eternity in spirit.”61 For Saint-Samson’s biographers, it was thus truly his infirmity that kept the venerable blind man in this state of “innocence” that mystical theologians of the seventeenth century made one of the conditions of spiritual illumination. But at this point in their demonstration, Saint-Samson’s contemporaries—doubtless as much followers as their subject of the negative theology inherited from Rhenish mystics—revive the ancient tradition of the blind “seer.” Father Donatien, in order to speak of the blind monk, uses expressions such as “our blind visionary,” “a really enlightened blind man . . . compensating for his physical blindness with the most subtle internal vision of his century.”62 Doubtless because it bore similarities to an antithetical association particularly dear to mystical thought, that of darkness and light, the myth of the blind “seer” resurfaced in the biographers’ minds when it came to the poor religious man “blind with his bodily eyes and very luminous of spirit,”63 chosen by God “to be the light of his century.”64 Ignorant of the things of this world but a champion of interiority, the blind man of seventeenth-century mysticism was thus kept more than ever in the realm of a rigorous alterity: that of the “chosen” whom God set aside to be his witness. This representation of blindness, as unrealistic as that of burlesque literature, was at least valorizing for the blind. Their familiarity with darkness was no longer perceived as the sign of being in league with sin, but, on the contrary, as that of privileged commerce with the invisible, “an inaccessible light source from which all senses radiate.”65

   from the middle ages to the classical age François Malaval, or “Beautiful Darkness” About forty years after Saint-Samson, it was the turn of François Malaval, one of whose disciples called him “the enlightened Provençal,”66 to play the role of “mystagogue of interior vision” for a great number of men and women of his time. He claimed this role for himself in the dedication to Cardinal Bona at the beginning of the edition of his treatise A Simple Method of Raising the Soul to Contemplation, published in 1670 in Paris by Florentin Lambert: Wishing to show God my gratitude for the external darkness with which he covered my eyes almost from the beginning of my life, I present to the world a darkness that will make it see God’s light, a saintly and precious darkness that is the path of divinity and that God put in the world so that those who cannot see might see and those who see might become blind.67

Malaval was his own witness of the invisible, at once similar to and different from his predecessor. Between the “visionary blind man” and the “enlightened Provençal” a few decades had gone by, and the mystical experience of the blind Marsiglian arose and expressed itself in a very different context from that of the Counter Reformation. Born December 17, 1627, to a family of rich bourgeois Marsiglians, Malaval lived at home until he was an adult without any major problem save his blindness, the result of an accident at nine months of age. His father, Jehan Malaval, a merchant-druggist from Toulouse, had settled in Marseille at the beginning of the century and had taken as his wife Anne Boulle, who came from a family of Marsiglian notables. His business having rapidly prospered, he partnered with other merchants. He had ships at sea and on land owned a group of buildings and gardens that in the eighteenth century were still called “The Island of Monsieur Malaval.” He was several times consul and then counselor of Marseille. The oldest of his eight children having died at an early age, it was his third son, Martin (the blind François being the second), who succeeded him as head of his enterprise. That son acquired a considerable fortune in turn and, like his father, held a very honorable position in Marsiglian society. We are far, in the case of François Malaval, from the family grief and the relatively precarious existence of young Jean du Moulin. Fortune, but also his parents’ enlightened attitude, allowed the child

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    to benefit quite early from a solid education. “At a still tender age”68 he was entrusted to the Oratory priests, who took responsibility for his religious and literary education, an education in Greek and Latin literature and then philosophy. We should note here that even for a child afflicted with blindness, his parents, rich worthies of the seventeenth century, preferred school to tutoring, a sign of the times in which, for the wealthy elite, school was becoming the dominant educational model. At the end of his secondary studies, the Oratorians advised the adolescent’s father to let him take open courses in theology and canon law taught by the Dominicans. Young François finished his studies with the degree of doctor in those two disciplines. Early on, Malaval’s parents had hired a reader-secretary. The young man thus acquired the habit of engaging in the work of the mind through oral communication alone. Having become an adult and then independent, thanks to the inheritance left by his father in 1662 and then by his mother in 1678, he had his own home where, until a ripe old age, he took in children and became responsible for their education in exchange for their services: I can do nothing nor say nothing without having a domestic at my side: he is my reader and my secretary, the keeper of my library, the depositary of the letters I write and those I receive. I have had several, and I take nearly all of them in when they are young so that they may be with me as long as possible. I form them; I raise them to be studious and pious in keeping with their capacities. Some of them went on to become priests in good cities or parish priests [prêtres habitués]; others became friars. The deceased lived and the others [continue to] live with complete probity and carry out their duties according to their superiors’ wishes. Good families have hastened to give them to me, and others have not hesitated to lure them away, knowing they could count on their service and on their Christian education.69

Malaval’s approach is reminiscent of that of Du Moulin, who, according to Father Donatien, became a “hunter of souls . . . instilling in them the various obligations of Christianity under pretext of spiritual readings.”70 In any event, in both cases, a happy disposition transformed dependence into an occasion for the exchange of services, while the need to turn constantly to others permitted the development of what was probably an innate taste for dialogue. As Marie-Louise Gondal writes in her

   from the middle ages to the classical age introduction to the re-edition of Malaval’s A Simple Method, “For him, to think did not just mean to remain alone, but also to listen and to respond with rigor and cordiality.”71 In fact, the young man, who was curious about everything—about science as much as letters, law, and theology—aspired quite early on to build relations in person or in writing with the cultivated people of his day. In 1650 (when he was only twenty-three years old), knowing that Pierre Gassendi was passing through Toulon, Malaval took the initiative to meet him to discuss certain points of philosophy. After this encounter, he enriched his library with all the works of the philosopher, who was then at the height of his reputation. As early as 1648, Malaval began what was to become an immense correspondence with French and European people of letters as well as with numerous high-ranking personalities in the Church and elsewhere. In July 1656, Queen Christina of Sweden, passing through Marseille, “want[ed] to see him and chat.”72 An epistolary exchange ensued (of which we have unfortunately lost all trace).73 Jean Bona, general of the Feuillants, valued the friendship of Malaval and commissioned his first writings. Once he became a cardinal in 1669, Bona was Malaval’s protector and obtained a religious office for him in 1674. Like Saint-Samson and for the same reasons, Malaval could not aspire to the priesthood, which did not prevent a certain number of brothers from seeking his advice. The sculptor Pierre Puget and many other personalities of the city of Marseille, at the time in full intellectual development, also kept up a dialogue of friendship and ideas with him. Thus, in 1715, when Antoine de la Roque and Pierre Rigord conceived the project of creating a Marseille academy, they naturally asked Malaval, who was then eighty-eight years old, to participate in its foundation. With Guillermi, he was made responsible for natural history and the physical sciences. When he died on May 15, 1719, in the arms of the bishop of Marseille, Monsignor de Belsunce, Malaval enjoyed considerable popularity and a reputation of sanctity in his native city that the blacklisting of his works did not blemish. A circular of May 17 by Father Sicard, Provincial of the Dominicans,74 recounted that “at the news of Malaval’s passing, the people were astir and were already asking to venerate the body of God’s great servant. . . . The good odor his body exhaled was taken to be a favorable indication of the good odor of his virtues.”75

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    Now this man, who died in the odor of sanctity at ninety-two years old, was above all else an enthusiast of interiority. From this spiritual vocation, which by his own admission had its roots in blindness,76 an important body of work was born, of which a part, still in manuscript form, unfortunately disappeared out of the negligence or excessive prudence of his heirs. Among his most printed works there are a few occasional pieces, the most important of which is a Life of Saint Phillip Bénizi, commissioned by the brothers of the Servites of Marseille in preparation for the saint’s canonization.77 But the central body of his work consists of three books that are truly the fruit of his contemplative experience: first and foremost, A Simple Method, which we have already mentioned several times and whose fate during the debates over Quietism we also established. This volume, of Salesian inspiration, presents itself as a “mystical school” in dialogue form and sets out to bring the experience of union with God within easy reach of a wide audience. A Simple Method was followed by a second work, published in Paris in 1671, the Spiritual Poems (designed to be sung to popular tunes of the day), in which the author gives free rein to his mystical inspiration. The collection was reedited in Amsterdam in 1714, with additions and some corrections. Finally, the last of these three books, the Letter to the Provost Monsieur de Foresta-Colongue, was published in Marseille in 1695. It was in fact an open letter to all the bishops of France that was supposed to put an end to the debate surrounding Malaval’s socalled Quietism. We saw above that it was censured in turn,78 despite the approbation of several doctors and the praise of the Marsiglian clergy. After this second condemnation, the Provencal mystic again fell silent: “He continued to live and to love in peace. He continued to work and to believe in God and to find therein the encouragement to exercise human reason.”79 After this evocation of the life and work of two blind mystics, it appears that their example, as limited as it is in terms of the number of individuals concerned, bears witness to the emergence in early-modern times of a singular and autonomous blind subject. In this respect, and if we consider mystical experience of the time to be one of the manifestations of the rise of the subject80 —which characterizes the humanistic project of modernity—it is not insignificant that the first congenitally

   from the middle ages to the classical age blind people to have left written and published testimony of their singular experiences were mystics. Moreover, if we consider the bourgeoisie to be the crucible in which aspirations to liberty and to the rights of individuals were forged, it is also significant that these two blind men came from bourgeois families. If in the Middle Ages, Christian charity gave the blind an identity as a social group through the foundation of specific hospice establishments, in modern times mystical experience allowed cultivated blind people to affirm themselves as individuals and to lay claim, in the name of their familiarity with darkness, to the role of privileged witnesses of “presence, the profound mystery that divinizes the invisible.”81 It is true that this experience concerns individuals favored to various degrees by fortune and education. But it would seem that in the seventeenth century, the passage from collective identity to individual identity also concerned the blind poor, at least if we are to believe the way they are represented by painters and engravers of the day, from Jacques de Bellange, to Jacques Callot, to Georges de la Tour, and to Rembrandt. Indeed, in these artists’ works, blind beggars are generally depicted alone or accompanied by a guide and no longer in groups, as in the paintings and etchings of the preceding century. While the blind night watchman engraved by de Bellange preserves something of the uncanny of Bosch’s and Brueghel’s blind people, the nighttime gambling mendicants painted by de la Tour or Rembrandt are stripped of all negative symbolism.82 There is no longer anything diabolical or repulsive in their work, nor is there any baseness in these characters who are derived from street entertainment and who preserve a great dignity “even in their misery and their decrepitude.”83 And although we are speaking of what was at the time a widespread “genre,” the paintings of de la Tour on the theme of blindness on watch avoid the picturesque and give us veritable portraits whose humanity touches us. From Breughel’s gaping blind man to the Hurdy-Gurdy Player with a Hat’s “silent cry,”84 there was a shift from a tone of derision and fright to one of lucid realism as exempt from condemnation as it was from complacency. From this cry came a sudden breath that brought Gorgo’s mask to life: behind the gaze of the “master of night scenes,” the blind man, be he poor, hirsute, and pitiful, assumed a human countenance.

Groundwork for a History of Blindness in the Classical Age    Whatever the durability, indeed, the reinforcement, of collective and coercive solutions to problems arising from poverty and disability may have been at the time, the century of the “Mystical Night,” the “Lessons of Darkness,” and the masters of chiaroscuro thus saw, here and there, the first manifestations of the rise of the blind subjects in their singularity. In the second half of the century, usually celebrated for having been that of the optical revolution and the triumph of vision, there were, moreover, experiments, certainly of a very limited nature, with palliative solutions to blindness that relied on touch. Let us recall, in this regard, the example of Elizabeth von Waldkirch, whose father “ordered letters to be carved in Wood, and she, by feeling the Characters formed such an Idea of them, that she writes with a crayon so distinctly that her writing can be very easily read, of which I have several essaies.”85 This example of education through touch is, however, the only one to have come down to us, thanks to the account of Gilbert Burnet. In contrast, through the examples of Jean de Saint-Samson and François Malaval, we have seen the importance still accorded oral mediation in enabling the blind to access written culture. Whatever these diverse experiences of access (individual, disconnected experiences) to the written word may have been for those born blind to well-to-do families, four years after the publication of the Bishop of Salisbury’s travel stories, the first three books written by the doctor and pedagogue John Locke, then fifty years of age and returning from a fiveyear exile in Holland, also came out in England.86 Of these works,87 only that published under the name of their author, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, was an immediate and great success, as indicated by a rapid succession of re-editions and a French translation by Coste in 1700.88 It brought Locke, friend of Sydenham, Boyle, and Clarke, and member of the Royal Society since 1668, into contact with the Irish mathematician William Molyneux, member of Dublin’s Trinity College. From this book and this correspondence, which were to make Locke the master thinker of the century of Enlightenment, a completely unexpected process ensued that was to indirectly lead, one century later, to the first attempts to methodically and collectively educate the indigent class of the congenitally blind by means of touch.

chapter 4

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke directly attacked the seventeenth-century doctrine according to which principles either innate or impressed upon the soul by God, recognizable as the object of universal consent, constitute the foundation of knowledge, or, what’s more, of morality and religion.1 Indeed, “No Innate Principles in the Mind of Man” is the title of chapter 2 of the first book of the Essay: For I imagine any one will easily grant that it would be impertinent to suppose the ideas of colours innate in a creature to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes from external objects: and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature, and innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves faculties fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them as if they were originally imprinted on the mind.2

In opposition to Cartesian innatism, and even more to the idealism of Father Malebranche,3 Locke sought to resolve the problem of the origin and nature of human knowledge from a sensualist and empirical perspective.

Sensationalism and Cataract Operations Before becoming the beneficiaries of anthropological, political, and religious upheavals born of Lockean thought and relayed by the philoso-

   the eighteenth century phers of the Enlightenment, the blind unwittingly found themselves at the heart of a debate concerning the status of the sensory in the elaboration of cognitive processes. In allowing that sensation was capable of constructing the form of the real world for our consciousness several questions were put on hold: —Do the senses furnish pure data about the external world or are these data themselves altered by judgment? —Do they grasp the world straightaway or must they be trained? —Is each sense self-sufficient or does it need the help of the other senses to apprehend external realities? —Is there or is there not an internal connection—and if so, of what nature—that allows us to pass directly from one sensorial realm to another (for example, from the tactile world to the visible world)?

The debate was initiated by William Molyneux,4 author of a Dioptrica Nova, published in 1692. In 1693, he wrote Locke a letter in which he submitted the following problem: Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on a table, and the blind man be made to see: quaere, whether by his sight, before he touched them, he could now distinguish and tell which is the globe, which the cube?

Locke transcribed the problem in the second edition of the Essay, published in 1694,5 specifying that “the acute and judicious proposer” answered in the negative: “For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not yet obtained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must affect his sight so or so; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube.”6 Indeed, Locke shared Molyneux’s opinion: I . . . am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them; though he could unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference of their figures felt. This I have set down, and leave with

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    my reader, as an occasion for him to consider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and acquired notions, where he thinks he had not the least use of, or help from them [emphasis ours].7

Molyneux and Locke’s conclusions called into question not only the notion of innate ideas, but also the mechanistic conception of the human body “and the power of sight to give us pure facts about the external world.”8 “If optics were geometry and the body could be thought of as a mechanism, what is perceptible would be immediate.”9 There would be a perfect coincidence between the gaze of the body and the gaze of the mind. Now, for Locke and for Molyneux, there was a delayed effect. Sight needed training and perhaps the help of the other senses. But an exchange of information between the different senses required time and an apprenticeship that usually took place without our being aware of it. In short, “perception is a practice,” and “perceiving entails education.”10 Pierre Coste’s French translation of the fourth edition of the Essay, published in Amsterdam in 1700, gave Locke a European audience, and the particulars of the problem, which from then on carried Molyneux’s name, were debated by the entire Enlightenment intellectual elite. Leibniz was the first to undertake an in-depth study of Locke’s work, with which he had previously been only partly familiar. He responded point by point in his New Essays on Human Understanding, the first draft of which was probably completed in early 1704. Locke’s death on October 28 of the same year dissuaded Leibniz from publishing his book. “The death of John Locke has taken away my desire to publish my remarks on his works,” wrote Leibniz to Gilbert Burnet in 1706. “I now prefer to publish my thoughts independently of those of another.”11 The New Essays appeared nonetheless, but in 1765, nearly forty years after their author’s death. Leibniz had responded to Molyneux’s problem in the affirmative, but on condition that the blind man know in advance that he was to be shown a cube and a globe and that he need only say which was the cube and which the globe. In 1709, George Berkeley, an Irishman who, as Molyneux before him,12 was involved in the intense intellectual life of Dublin’s Trinity College, published an Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, which made him known throughout Europe and was followed in 1710 by a second work, Principles of Human Knowledge. In his Essay, Berkeley examined for

   the eighteenth century his part the Molyneux problem and maintained that neither location, size, distance, nor figure would be discerned by the newly operated man. Until that point, the debate, lively though it was, had been purely theoretical. But there were experiments on the horizon that would make the cataract-operated blind person the paradigmatic figure of the age of Enlightenment. Again in 1709, there appeared a Treatise on Cataract and Glaucoma in which Michel Brisseau, of Tournay, confirmed the anatomical discoveries of François Quarre, Pierre Borel, Edmé Mariotte, and Antoine Maître-Jan, who had all located the cataract in the crystalline lens. The same year, The Tatler 13 recorded an observation of a young man of twenty, recently operated on for cataracts by a surgeon named Grant. The quest for the sensational or whatever might move sensitive souls unfortunately drained this first observation of any scientific value, but the idea of conducting experiments to verify the Molyneux problem was in the air and was taken up the following year by Berkeley in his Essay. It was nearly twenty years, though, before William Cheselden, surgeon of the Saint-Thomas Hospital of London and member of the Royal Society, successfully operated on a young boy between thirteen and fourteen years old afflicted with congenital cataracts and confirmed the theoretical hypotheses14 of Molyneux, Locke, and Berkeley15 in his observations, though he never referred to them explicitly. From 1738 on, the problem regained its former force and vitality in French philosophy thanks to Voltaire, who took up the question as a whole in his Elements of Newton’s Philosophy and reached conclusions along the lines of Locke, Molyneux, and Berkeley. In contrast, La Mettrie, in his 1745 Treatise of the Soul, and then Condillac, in his 1746 Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, critiqued the data of Molyneux’s problem and accused Cheselden’s experiment of prejudice. “By dint of tormenting the newly sighted man,” La Mettrie charged, “they got him to say what they wanted to hear.”16 In 1749, the Count de Buffon took up the question again in his Natural History of Man, in which he sided with Locke and Berkeley against Condillac.17 This last, moreover, revisited his opinion in his Treatise on Sensations, published in 1754. Meanwhile, Denis Diderot had spoken in the same year as Buffon of the problem of the man born blind who recovers his sight in his Letter on the Blind for the Benefit of Those Who See,

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    published clandestinely on June 9, 1749. We will examine Diderot’s Letter in detail later, because in many respects, it merits special commentary. Molyneux’s problem and Cheselden’s experiment were also studied by d’Alembert in the article “Blind Man,” published in the first volume of the Encyclopédie in 1751 and by Le Cat in his Treatise on Sensations, published in 1767. The problem held such a place in Enlightenment thought that the Swiss philosopher Jean-Bernard Mérian, member of the Berlin Academy,18 wrote its critical history in the form of eight Memoirs presented to that assembly between 1770 and 1780. For our part, we will not enter into detail concerning the debates raised by the Molyneux problem, which are beyond the scope of this book. We will nonetheless recall that the philosophers’ interest in the blind long reflected no concern with humaneness. The point was to justify the validity of a theory on which the future of sensationalism and, “to the extent that sensationalism was its substrata, the future of the Enlightenment” seemed to depend.19 Thus, even though it corresponded to a real event, the story of the man born blind on whom Cheselden operated for cataracts—a story found in all eighteenth-century philosophical literature from 1728 on— became the founding myth of Enlightenment philosophy. Indeed, this was Michel Foucault’s interpretation: “What allows man to resume contact with childhood and to rediscover the permanent birth of truth is this bright, distant, open naïvety of the gaze. Hence the two great mythical experiences on which the philosophy of the eighteenth century had wish to base its beginning: the foreign spectator in an unknown country and the man born blind restored to light.”20 The “naïveté” of these blind gazes suddenly restored to light,21 through which philosophers expected to be illuminated on a point central to the theory of knowledge, evokes the “innocence” of the previous century’s enlightened blind men, from whom mystical theologians hoped to learn the divine lesson. And we wonder to what extent this new myth functioned as an antithesis to the age-old myth of the blind seer, reinterpreted in the seventeenth century in the context of mystical theology, for people concerned with substituting Revelation with Reason and dogma with experience as principles of the world’s intelligibility. Truth was still expected to spring from the blind man’s darkness, but it now became a

   the eighteenth century truth of the perceptible, detected in the freshness of a first look at the world. Whatever the mythical function of these stories of operations, the publicity given surgical procedures undertaken throughout the century to reply to the questions of sensationalist philosophers drew contemporaries’ attention to the blind. Furthermore, the progress of ocular surgery,22 despite the failures due to lack of asepsis, antisepsis, and anesthesia, contributed to the desacralization of blindness, which began to be viewed as a curable ailment and not as a sign of insurmountable difference. Still, philosophers always spoke of blind people returned to the community of the sighted, and it was always the gaze they interrogated, even if it was to call into question the immediacy and sufficiency of sight. Leibniz was the first to intuit that it might be “quite intriguing and even instructive to carefully examine the ideas of man born blind [and] to attend to his descriptions of figures.”23 In his New Essays, he alluded to a famous blind man, Ulric Schonberg, born in Weide in the Upper Palatinate and a victim of smallpox at age two and a half, “who died in Königsberg in Prussia in 1649, where, to everyone’s admiration, he had taught philosophy and mathematics.”24 But the glory of going beyond the theoretical problem of the man born blind who recovers his sight in order to take interest in the “world of the blind” falls to Diderot.

Diderot and the Observation of Blind People In 1749, Diderot published his first work on the theory of knowledge, The Letter on the Blind for the Benefit of Those Who See. The Letter combines metaphysical speculations with a great number of scientific observations.25 Before examining the gnoseological problem of the man born blind and restored to light, Diderot decided to go question the blind man of Puiseaux, who “is known to great numbers of persons, understands a little chemistry, and has attended the botanical lectures at the Jardin du Roi with some profit to himself.”26 This cultivated blind man makes his living distilling liqueurs that he sells yearly in Paris. He is married and the father of a child, whom he teaches to read with the help of raised characters.

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    In short, Diderot makes the trip to Puiseaux the way Burnet had taken a detour from Geneva to Schaffouse to meet Elizabeth von Waldkirch sixty years earlier. But in the meantime, there had arisen sensationalist theses and the whole theoretical debate about the problem of the man born blind and operated on for cataracts, so that Diderot came away from his visit with observations and reflections that had completely different implications from those of the Anglican bishop. Contrary to the philosophers who had previously discussed the Molyneux problem, Diderot realized that “the blind man lives in an unusual world and [that] to join him, it takes great patience, skilful questions and—something his predecessors had not concerned themselves with—an elite subject.”27 Where those who came before him had seen but a theoretical problem, Diderot saw a human one, and the Letter contains all sorts of observations and apposite remarks on the behavior of the blind, which the author put to good use in his own resolution of the quandary that, for a half-century, had agitated the small world of the philosophes: People try to give those born blind the gift of sight, but rightly considered, science would be equally advanced by questioning a sensible blind man. We should learn to understand his psychology and should compare it with ours, and perhaps we should thereby come to a solution of the difficulties that make the theory of vision and of the senses so intricate and so confused . . .  To train and question one born blind would be an occupation worthy of the combined talents of Newton, Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz.28

With Diderot, we go from an experiment in the form of spectacle, where the blind person is treated as an object, to a dialogue in which he becomes the subject of an interview between equals. After the blind man of Puiseaux, whose affairs, habits, perception of the world, and philosophy are the subject of the first part of the Letter, Diderot took interest in another blind man in the second part: the English mathematician Nicholas Saunderson, born in 1682, blind at twelve months as a result of smallpox,29 and dead for ten years when Diderot wrote the Letter on the Blind. Saunderson, who had been named professor of mathematics at Cambridge University on November 20, 1711, on the recommendation of Queen Anne and with the support of scientific personalities as eminent as Isaac Newton himself, already enjoyed great fame at the time of the Letter. He had been a member of the Royal Society and combined his great genius

   the eighteenth century for mathematics with a perfect knowledge of Greek and Latin, a passable knowledge of French, and a great gift for teaching. His biographers also related his talents as a musician and the pleasure of his conversation. He was married in 1723 to the daughter of a rector of Cambridgeshire County, with whom he had a son and a daughter. At his death on April 19, 1739, Saunderson left a single finished work, The Elements of Algebra, published a little more than a year after his death and preceded by a biography of the author.30 He also left some scattered notes that were assembled and published much later by the Count of Radnor, depositary of his manuscripts. Diderot, who for many years had managed to subsist not as an author, but as a translator of English, had read the Elements of Algebra in the original. He had become fascinated with the tablets Saunderson used, relying on touch alone, to make long arithmetic and algebraic calculations and to describe rectilinear geometric figures. Diderot explained at length how the tablets were used in the Letter. Aside from the tablets, drilled with holes made to fit pegs of different sizes, Saunderson used an armillary sphere31 (which he holds in his hands in the portrait that serves as a frontispiece to the Elements of Algebra) and “regular solids cut in wood, and the form of several curves made in the same manner,” with which “he was able on these subjects to convey the clearest ideas to his pupils.”32 From the “Memoirs” written by Saunderson’s friends, Diderot also derived numerous details concerning the strategies of compensation the mathematician employed in order to integrate himself into sighted society. The account of Saunderson’s death that concludes the part of the Letter devoted to the famous blind man, though, is entirely fictitious. The Letter on the Blind and its Addition, published thirty-three to thirty-four years later, are works so rich in observations on the psychology of blind people and their ability to compensate that they are today considered foundational texts by specialists. But the Letter is not an essay on psychology. To cite Arthur Wilson, it is a “disarming book, written with the seeming artlessness of someone idly improvising on a musical instrument. One subject suggests another, so that the reader, led on and on through a sort of steeplechase over most of the various metaphysical jumps, finally gets himself soaked in the waterhole called ‘Does God Exist?’ ”33 A hymn to vicariance—the substitution of one sense for another—this

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    text, in which the peculiarities of blind people are taken into account in an extraordinarily positive manner, helped reverse the traditionally accepted view of the world and of relations between people, the law, and God. The primacy of vision, already shaken by the philosophical debates of the preceding fifty years, was called into question. The blind man of Puiseaux, asked by the philosopher if he would be happy to have [seeing] eyes, responds that he would “just as soon have long arms: it seems to me that my hands would tell me more of what goes on in the moon than your eyes and your telescopes; and besides, eyes cease to see sooner than hands to touch. I would be as well off if I perfected the organ I possess, than if I obtained the organ of which I am deprived.”34 Diderot struck again in the Addition, citing the case of a blacksmith operated by Jacques Daviel who “had grown so accustomed to the guidance of touch that he had to be forced to use the sense which had been restored to him.”35 It was the age-old dispute between sight and touch for first place in the hierarchy of senses: vision, the “spiritual” sense par excellence, allows that the world be apprehended globally and from a distance, but it is subject to optical illusions that touch, the sense of proximity—an empirical and selective sense—is usually charged with correcting. We are certain of what we touch; we can never be completely sure of what we see. For Diderot, in any event, the business was settled: touch, the “materialist” sense, the sense of practical utility and sensual pleasure, can allow us to access the truth as well and even more surely than sight. “Touch, when trained, can become more delicate than sight,”36 he wrote regarding Saunderson, who “distinguished genuine from counterfeit coins by passing his hands over a number of them, although the counterfeits were sufficiently good imitations to deceive a clearsighted connoisseur.”37 Or again, somewhat mischievously with reference to the blind man of Puiseaux: “The smooth surface of bodies has as many shades of difference for him as the sound of voices, and there is no risk of his mistaking his wife for another, unless he is to profit from the mistake.”38 In a word, concluded the philosopher, “I would always back our blind man against twenty people with all their eyes about them.”39 These kinds of statements could turn the world on its head. After all, of what use are our proprieties, laws, and metaphysics to someone unaffected by “the outward show of power, which affects us so strongly?”40

   the eighteenth century In response to a magistrate threatening to commit him to a dungeon for his involvement in a row, the blind man of Puiseaux replies with a certain insolence, “Ah, sir! I have been in one for twenty-five years.”41 And Diderot added, “We quit life as we would a charming scene; the blind leave it as a dungeon. And if we have more pleasure in living than him, he has less reluctance to meet his end.”42 In this way, the blind man, who comes alive through countless important psychological observations and concrete biographical details, suddenly becomes a double of the philosopher who mocks justice and scorns death. He becomes a man who has different values from those of us whose “virtues depend so much on the sensations we receive, and the degree by which we are affected by external things.”43 There is a new relationship to authority, a new morality, a new anthropology: If ever a philosopher, blind and deaf from his birth, were to construct a man after the fashion of Descartes, I can assure you, Madam, that he would put the seat of the soul at the fingertips, for it is from these that the greater part of the sensations and all his knowledge are derived. Who would inform him that the head is the seat of his thoughts?44

Along with the primacy of sight, the “head’s pretension” [pretention capitale]45 to be the seat of our thoughts falls apart. And from one collapse to another, all metaphysics is called into question: “I will content myself with one observation, which everyone must allow, and that is, that the great argument for the wonders of nature falls flat upon the blind . . . : as they see matter in a more abstract manner than we do, they are less indisposed to believe that it thinks.”46 Diderot took the step from skepticism to materialism and then to atheism with the renowned dialogue on the existence of God that Saunderson was said to have had on his deathbed with his friend, the pastor Gervase Holmes. “If you would have me believe in God, you must make me touch Him,”47 the scholar responds to the minister, who pleads the marvels of nature. Deprived of the entire beautiful spectacle, which was never created for him, condemned to pass his life in darkness, Saunderson does not believe that being blind gives one more certain access to the invisible, and he is as doubtful of the philosophers’ God as he is of the mystics’: “ ‘Order is not now even so perfect as to exclude the appearance of monstrosities. . . . Look at me, Mr. Holmes. I have no eyes. What

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    have we done, you and I, to God, that one of us has this organ while the other has not?’ ”48 The existence of monsters undermines even rational religion: either God, who created them, is not infinitely good, or he is not all-powerful.49 Yet the life of Saunderson ends with a great cry: “O thou God of Clarke and Newton, have mercy on me!”50 An oratory precaution on the part of an author chary of censorship, or the regret of a skeptic who only recently had defended apologetics founded on nature’s marvels?51 The question remains open.52 After the dramatic story of Saunderson’s death, the last part of the Letter concerns itself more specifically with the gnoseological problem of the man born blind restored to sight. Diderot offered a nuanced answer halfway between that of Locke and Condillac: “The first time the eyes of one born blind open to the light, he will see nothing at all; some time will be necessary for his eye to practice sight; it will practice alone and without the aid of touch.”53 We will not dwell any longer on the third part of the Letter, except to observe that Diderot felt the need to categorize “people on whom the experiment might be conducted,”54 something his predecessors had not thought of doing. Indeed, results differ according to whether they involve people who are “dullards without education and knowledge and also unprepared,”55 or, on the contrary, a blind “metaphysician” or “geometrician.”56 “The shortest (though superficially the longest) way would be to arm the subject with a philosophical training sufficient to enable him to compare the two conditions he has known, and to acquaint us with the difference between the state of a blind person and of one who has his sight.”57 Whatever we may make of this strange Letter on the Blind, whose meaning has yet to be exhausted, Diderot, for the first time in the fifty years’ discussion of Molyneux’s problem, let blind people speak without their having to recover their sight for all that. And as we well know, “nothing remains the same once difference has a voice,”58 which is precisely what neither monarchic states nor established religion will tolerate. We recall Malaval and his book, outlawed for having attempted to bring his liberating experience of “beautiful darkness” within everyman’s reach. The imprudent herald of vicariance and of the world upside down would also know the bitterness of confiscated speech, but for him the experience would be harsher still:

   the eighteenth century At seven-thirty in the morning of Thursday, 24 July 1749, two police officers climbed the stairs of the house in the Rue de l’Estrapade. . . . [They] were admitted by Diderot to his apartment and began to search for any manuscripts “contrary to Religion, the State, or morals.” . . . Two days before Diderot’s arrest, the Count d’Argenson, acting in his capacity of director of publications, wrote to the lieutenant general of police “to give orders for putting Mr. Diderot, author of the book on the Blind Man, in Vincennes.”59

From July 24 to November 3, Diderot had time to meditate on the disastrous consequences of what Pierre-Nicolas Berryer, in a note to Argenson in September, called his “intellectual excesses.”60 The experience was certainly trying for a man of Diderot’s sort: “The extreme sociability of his nature and his talkativeness made him less fitted than most people for the rigors of solitary confinement.”61 It did, though, make the name of the mastermind of the Encyclopédie better known. It also taught him prudence. The blind, for their part, were to benefit indirectly from all the fuss made of the Letter, and if, as Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles wrote, Diderot’s conversation was like a beautiful flame that drew any number of objects,62 they were certainly well and truly illuminated. The proof had been made, through the example of Saunderson’s palpable arithmetic, that touch alone could “produce a system of abstract signs identical to that produced by the clear-sighted.”63 The same year, in volume 3 of his Natural History, Buffon, too, insisted on the fundamental role of touch, affirming its absolute preeminence over sight. He lauded, moreover, “the fine and lively metaphysics” of Diderot’s Letter.64

Sensationalism, Tutorage, and Tactile Pedagogy In 1762, in Emile, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote for his part some very important pages on the training of touch, which “of our senses is the one we continually exercise, since it is spread over the whole surface of the body, like a sentinel ever on the watch to warn us of anything which may do us harm.”65 In this connection, he too mentions the experience of the blind, and, if he does not allude to Diderot’s Letter, it is because the two friends had had a falling out since the time of the incarceration in the Vincennes dungeon, where Jean-Jacques had regularly visited the prison-

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    er. What was new in Rousseau was his proposal to apply the experience of blind people to the education of sighted children: We know that the blind have a surer and more delicate sense of touch than we, for not being guided by the one sense, they are forced to get from the touch what we get from sight. Why, then, are not we trained to walk as they do in the dark, to recognize what we touch, to distinguish things about us; in a word, to do at night and in the dark what they do in the daytime without sight? We are better off than they while the sun shines; in the dark it is their turn to be our guide.66 We are blind half our time, with this difference: the really blind always know what to do, while we are afraid to stir in the dark. We have lights, you say. What! always artificial aids. Who can insure that they will always be at hand when required. I had rather Emile’s eyes were in his fingertips than in the candlemaker’s shop.67

Here the blind are elevated to the role of “teachers of the sighted” thanks to their keenness of touch. Still, the use of touch in the education of the blind—in preference to the recently preferred sense of hearing—owed nothing, it would seem, to sensationalist theories. It so happens that touch, the sense of proximity and intimacy, was precisely what would allow blind people to read to themselves without the help of a third party and to keep their correspondence secret. These advantages had not captured the attention of the blind and their educators of centuries previous, and the text of Father Lana, which proposed a coded writing for the blind that would allow them to avoid the indiscretion of their entourage, had apparently gone completely unnoticed. Now in the eighteenth century, the taste for privacy grew at the same time as the practice of silent reading, and writing by oneself had become more widespread. We can assume this privatization of reading and writing prompted the blind and their circle to take an interest in tactile means of writing— just when the works of philosophers and pedagogues were enhancing the status of touch. In any case, examples of blind people educated at home by means of the combined resources of hearing and memory (which was nothing new) but also by touch spread across Enlightenment Europe from France to the Palatinate, Scotland, and Austria. Tutorage,68 a system that lent itself to “unrestrained pedagogical invention,”69 was thus the crucible in which methods were forged for educating blind people through touch. Paradoxically, it was precisely the recourse to tactile pedagogy that paved

   the eighteenth century the way for the advent of collective teaching for victims of blindness from all social classes. In the meantime, three remarkable blind people were to serve as models for the perfecting of this “special” instruction: a Frenchwoman, Mélanie de Salignac (1744–66), daughter of financier Pierre Vallet de Salignac and of Sophie Volland’s elder sister, Marie-Jeanne-Elisabeth; an Austrian, Maria-Theresia von Paradis (1759–1824), daughter of a court councilor of the imperial government, Joseph-Anton von Paradis; and a German, Johann-Ludwig Weissenburg (1752–1800), son of Ludwig Weissenburg, who held an office at the court of the Palatine Prince, KarlTheodor. These three were far from being the only cultivated blind people of the age of Enlightenment. In particular, two others, blind since childhood, the Scottish poet Thomas Blacklock (1721–91) and the German musician Marianne Kirchgässner (1770–1809), enjoyed a great reputation at the time. Blacklock, blind at six months as a result of smallpox, was the author of an essay published in November 1774 under the pseudonym “Demodocus” in the Edinburgh Magazine and Review, “A Letter on the Education of the Blind.” This essay was packed with important observations and indications about the psychology and education of blind people that testify to the personal experience of its author. It was taken up again and developed in the article “Blind” of the Encyclopædia Britannica.70 As for Marianne Kirchgässner, the glass harmonica virtuosa born near Bruchsal in 1770, she learned the harmonica in Karlsruhe from Chapel Master Joseph Schmittbauer, who later made an instrument just for her. She made several European concert tours with this instrument, and Mozart, who had great appreciation for her talent, composed pieces for her that she performed on several occasions, notably in Vienna and in London.71 Despite their celebrity, though, these two people were not to have the same importance for the future of blind education as the three previous figures.72

Mélanie de Salignac Mélanie de Salignac, whom Diderot met on several occasions “during a friendship which began with her and her family in 1760,”73 died in 1766 at twenty-two years old. In 1782, Diderot, soon to be sixty-nine,

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    thought about editing his works. He remembered the critiques little Mélanie had made of his Letter on the Blind.74 He then wrote the Addition to the Letter on the Blind, in which he evoked with much truth and tenderness a child who brought happiness to her family and “the admiration of all her acquaintances.”75 “From her earliest youth, efforts had been made to train her other senses, and the results were astonishing.”76 Mélanie was able to take full advantage of her hearing, sense of smell, which was “exquisite,” and touch, which “enabled her to discern minute details in shapes of objects which often pass unnoticed by those who have the best eyesight.” 77 How was this education, based on the principle of sensory substitution, effectuated? “She had been taught to read with cut-out letters,”78 and “she had been taught music with notes in relief placed on raised lines on a large board. She read these notes with her hand, and played them on her instrument, and in a very short time she learned to play the longest and most elaborate piece.”79 Through Elizabeth von Waldkirch, raised in Protestant Geneva at the end of the seventeenth century, Burnet had vaunted the philosophical, theological, and biblical knowledge that complemented a good musical culture and fluency in several foreign languages. Through Mélanie de Salignac, Diderot evoked scientific culture: “She knew the elements of astronomy, algebra, and geometry”80 and had studied geography on relief maps where “parallels and meridians were made of wire; the boundaries of kingdoms and provinces of embroidery in linen, silk, or wool of various thicknesses; the rivers and streams and mountains of pins’ heads of various sizes; and cities and towns of drops of wax of various sizes.”81 Like her Genevan antecedent, Mélanie could write without a secretary. But she proceeded differently, though she also used a frame that enabled her to write in a straight line. She wrote with a pin with which she pricked a sheet of paper stretched on a frame divided by two parallel and movable slats, which only left sufficient space between them for one line of writing. The same method of writing allowed her to respond, as she read the communication by passing her fingertips over the slight roughness formed on the back of the paper by the needle or pin.82

As for reading, it is here that we have, to our knowledge, the first evocation of printing a book in relief: “She read books printed on one side of the paper by Prault83 especially for her use.”84

   the eighteenth century Perfectly educated in everything a young girl of her time and social milieu needed to know, Mélanie, passionately fond of reading and devoted to music, also sang with taste and danced “exquisitely”; she could make all sorts of small articles of needlework: “She threaded the finest needle rapidly by laying the thread or silk on the index finger of her left hand and drawing this perpendicularly.”85 Lastly, she played various card games, even the most complex ones, perfectly, from which we see that in the eighteenth century, the passion for gaming affected the blind as much as the sighted. “She played reversis, médiateur, and quadrille well. She sorted her cards herself and recognized each by touch from minute peculiarities others could neither see nor feel.”86 But touch was not Mélanie’s only means of compensating for her lack of vision. This enthusiast of music, “the most beautiful language I know,”87 was equally sensitive to voices: “She noticed a variety in voices which we have no conception of,”88 and “the sounds of voices had the same attraction or antipathy for her as facial expression for those who see.”89 She also knew how to use the sonorous points of reference of quotidian existence: “When people spoke to her, she judged of their height by the direction of the sound, which came to her from above if the person speaking were tall, and from below if that person were short.”90 “When her glass was being filled, she knew when it was full by the sound of the liquid as it fell.”91 Lastly, she “measured space by the sound of her footsteps or the echo of her voice.”92 In reference to the way in which Mélanie got her bearings, Diderot noted the combined use of hearing and touch, which has sometimes been called the “sense of obstacles”:93 “She knew by the feeling of the air . . . whether she was walking in a square or a road, in a road or a cul-desac, in an enclosed or open place, in a vast apartment or a small room.”94 Diderot reminds us that Mélanie relied on memory, so precious for the blind, in addition to vicariance. Memory of voices: “When she had heard a person speak once or twice she knew him for ever.”95 Memory of places: “When she had gone over a house, its plan remained in her head, so that she would warn others of little dangers in their way: ‘Take care,’ she would say, ‘the doorway here is low; you will find a step there.’96 Memory of even the most complex of texts: “Given a piece of poetry of twelve to fifteen lines, if she were told the first letter and the number of letters in each word, she could reconstruct the poem, however odd and far-fetched.”97

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    Thus was the delightful Mélanie, whose personality illuminates pages written by Diderot at the end of his life. Without him, Mélanie de Salignac would probably have been forgotten, and with her, the means her family and masters perfected to assure her complete integration into their world. The Addition to the Letter on the Blind appeared in May 1782 in Grimm’s Literary Correspondence,98 two years before Valentin Haüy implemented his plan for the education of the blind that he had been contemplating for several years. Practically all the techniques Haüy would use to educate his first student were the same as those Mélanie had used twenty-five years earlier. However, in the “Historical Précis of the Birth, Progress, and Current State of the Institute for Blind Children” published as an appendix to his Essay on the Education of the Blind, the philanthropist made no mention of Mélanie de Salignac but instead spoke of another blind person whose acquaintance, made in 1784, had been decisive to his own pedagogical practice: the musician Maria-Theresia von Paradis, then twenty-five years old. Maria-Theresia von Paradis Born in Vienna on May 15, 1759, Maria-Theresia von Paradis,99 a protégée of Empress Maria-Theresa, had been blind since the age of two years and eleven months for reasons unknown: some people spoke of “a great fright” and “convulsions”; others, of badly cared-for skin or of “gutta serena.”100 She had access, to no avail, to the care of the most reputable Viennese doctors of the day, the famous oculist Joseph Barth and Anton von Stoerck, first doctor to the empress and dean of the Viennese faculty of medicine. Maria-Theresia’s musical gifts having revealed themselves quite early, she was introduced at a young age to singing and to keyboard instruments: the organ, harpsichord, and pianoforte. Moved by her interpretation of Pergolese’s Stabat Mater—whose soprano solo Maria-Theresia sang at sixteen while accompanying herself on the piano—the empress endowed her with an annual pension of two hundred gold ducats. This annuity enabled her parents to hire the most fashionable music teachers of Vienna. In particular, she was the student of Leopold Koželuch, who would later

   the eighteenth century compose several harpsichord and piano pieces for her. She was also taught several foreign languages—French (which she spoke a bit), English, and Italian (which she understood but did not speak)—history, and geography. Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, known throughout Europe for his talents as an inventor and mechanician, taught Maria-Theresia to read with cardboard letters and gave her a printer’s case and a little manual press of his own making so that she could print the letters she sent to numerous correspondents.101 The same anecdotes were told about Maria-Theresia’s behavior in society as about Mélanie de Salignac’s a few years earlier: she danced the minuet to perfection; participated privately in small theatrical performances; and had good taste in clothing, in which she was pretty as a picture. Admired for her perfect adaptation to social life as well as for her artistic gifts, she attracted, in 1777, the attention of Franz-Anton Mesmer, whose house on the Landstrasse was then the meeting place of all Viennese musicians or musicians passing through Vienna.102 Mesmer offered to treat Maria-Theresia for free at his home, along with two other blind people, with his famous magnetic cure.103 At the beginning, as a text written by the girl’s father suggests, the treatment appeared successful. Then things took a turn for the worse: the patient became subject to attacks of nerves, and her virtuosity suffered as a result. Alarmed by her state, her parents wanted to take their daughter back from her therapist. Maria-Theresia resisted. The affair degenerated into a scandal that Mesmer’s enemies hastened to exploit. He had to interrupt the cure and return the girl to her family.104 He soon left Vienna for Paris, where animal magnetism created the same craze, followed by the same condemnations.105 It was after this painful episode, toward the end of 1777, that a regular correspondence began between Maria-Theresia and Johann-Ludwig Weissenburg of Mannheim, whom we will discuss below. In 1783, the young virtuosa, whose talent had asserted itself, undertook a European concert tour, accompanied by her mother, Frau Rosalia. At the end of autumn, she passed through Mannheim,106 where she met Weissenburg on several occasions. The latter offered his correspondent geographical maps, calculating tables, and—his portrait. Perhaps they played music together, for Weissenburg was an excellent flautist. History does not say. In the spring of 1784, following Bohemia, Germany, and Switzerland,

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    the young girl, who was welcomed enthusiastically everywhere, arrived in France. She played at Versailles, where Marie-Antoinette received her with particular consideration. The queen’s welcome opened the doors of Parisian salons. Maria-Theresia was also the star of the Concert Spirituel that had welcomed Mozart six years earlier.107 The Mémoires secrets of April 2 and the Journal de Paris of April 4 echoed the unanimous applause the Parisian public reserved for the young virtuosa at the end of her first concert, held at the Tuileries on Thursday, April 1.108 Other articles followed in the Journal de Paris, as well as a review in Elie-Catherine Fréron’s Année Littéraire, all in praise of the blind musician. A letter by Mammès Claude Pahin de la Blancherie,109 published in the Journal de Paris on April 24, “add[ed] a few sought-after details” to the praise already given to the young performer in the press. After having revealed the method used to educate Mademoiselle Paradis, the “General Officer of Correspondence for the Sciences and the Arts” informed his readers of the chance to go see, “at her home, the Hôtel de Paris, on the rue Richelieu,”110 where she lived with “Madame, her mother,” the items she received from Weissenburg: “geographical maps . . . , playing cards, arithmetic tables,” and the little portable printing press made by von Kempelen, whose use she would demonstrate to visitors.111 Parisian polite society—ever eager for novelty and perhaps tired of observing the reactions of those born blind and operated on for cataracts by renowned surgeons—doubtless rushed to Mademoiselle Paradis’s for the spectacle of a distinguished blind person offering proof of the benefits of tactile pedagogy. After having again specified the manner in which the young girl had learned music—by seeking to imitate “on her harpsichord the sound and then the different chords and finally the pieces her teacher had just played on another one,”112 that is to say, entirely, “by ear,”113 —La Blancherie ended his column with these words, which make us wonder if the interest the public and the press displayed in the young woman was not without a certain ambiguity: “It is worthy of a nation as generous as ours to offer its encouragement and approbation to [Mademoiselle Paradis and her parents] in compensation for the wrongs of Nature and the difficulties of a voyage as long as it was costly and whose aim was to make us familiar with yet another phenomenon” (emphasis ours).114

   the eighteenth century Be that as it may, the Parisian tour of Mademoiselle Paradis was a success, since the virtuosa and her mother stayed for six months in the French capital.115 The voyage continued in England, where MariaTheresia played before the court and accompanied the Prince of Wales116 on his violin. She then went to Brussels, where she sang a cantata of her own composition with a text by the blind Alsatian poet Gottlieb-Conrad Pfeffel, whose theme was blindness and the consolation music brings to the blind, before the Grand Duchess Marie-Christine.117 Need we say that “sensitive people” were moved to tears?118 The European tour of the girl nicknamed from then on “the blind magician” concluded in Berlin, where she had another triumph. When she returned to her native city, Joseph II, who had heard of her successes, expressed the desire to meet the musician personally. At the end of their discussion, the Emperor, impressed by her culture and her personality, promised her his protection. Thereafter, Maria-Theresia appeared less often in concert, devoting herself to teaching119 and to composition, which she achieved by dictating music note by note to a copyist. She left several operas,120 a cantata on the death of Louis XVI,121 various Lieder, and a melodrama, Ariadne and Bacchus, composed in 1791 for a text written by Johann Riedenger, who was to become her husband. Caroline Pichler, daughter of the Aulic Councillor Franz Sales von Grenier and a Viennese chronicler somewhat famous in her day, wrote in her memoirs that Paradis’s compositions were musically “barely mediocre.” The fact is that they were hardly ever played after the musician’s death—which occurred at her home in Vienna on February 1, 1824, when she was sixty-five years old. Nevertheless, Maria-Theresia continued to enjoy a great reputation until the end of her life, as the correspondence she had with numerous personalities of her time, men and women of letters, musicians, doctors, attests. The autograph manuscripts are collected in an album preserved in Vienna’s Municipal Library. In sum, Maria-Theresia had the time to accomplish what a premature death had taken from Mélanie de Salignac, to the great despair of those close to her: “With a wonderful memory, and strength of mind as wonderful, what progress she would have made in science, if she had had a longer life!” sighed Diderot, at the end of his Addition to the Letter on the

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    Blind.122 In the field of music, Maria-Theresia even had the possibility to exercise what Mélanie de Salignac could never have done in the sciences, a profession, which she practiced until the end of her days—first as performer, then teacher, then composer. Far from being the simple “phenomenon” La Blancherie spoke of in his Journal de Paris column, Maria-Theresia von Paradis was endowed with an extraordinary personality, a charisma that helped crystallize the still diffuse interest enlightened minds then took in the education of the blind. Her tour of the principal cities of Europe and the European capitals and courts linked to the Hapsburg-Lorraine, her epistolary exchanges with Weissenburg, her career as a concert performer—which momentarily made her a public figure—enabled the young blind woman to be the ambassador of the Viennese Aufklärung then at its height, to introduce Enlightenment Europe to the benefits of tactile pedagogy. Johann-Ludwig Weissenburg Having lost most of his sight at five years old as a result of smallpox and having become completely blind at age fifteen, Johann-Ludwig Weissenburg then became the student of a private teacher, Christian Niesen, who can be considered the first special education teacher for the blind. He was the first to publish a methodology accessible to all, in the form of two works concerning, respectively, the teaching of arithmetic and the teaching of algebra to the blind. The first of these two treatises, Arithmetic for the Sighted and Blind,123 was published in Mannheim in 1773; the second, Algebra for the Sighted and Blind was published in the same city in 1777.124 Niesen, whose pedagogical experiments were brilliantly seconded by the intelligence and zeal of his student, taught Weissenburg the Latin alphabet with brass letters. He also fastened iron or brass wire to cardboard in order to teach geometric figures and trigonometry. To enable his student to make calculations by himself, he made tablets for him modeled on the calculating boards of Saunderson but easier to use. Finally, he made sophisticated geographical maps, relying not only on relief, but also on differences of texture between the various materials: delicately cut glass to represent bodies of water; pasted patterns of a variety of grains to represent the different countries, and so on.

   the eighteenth century Later, Niesen became a councilor of the Court of Accounts of a prince-archbishop, and his pedagogical work for the blind fell into total oblivion. After the departure of his teacher, Weissenburg, who maintained a steady correspondence with him, continued to teach himself and perfected or invented ingenious devices for his own use. After Niesen’s death in 1784, he himself undertook the education of a nine-year-old blind boy. In a note to the Berlin Academy of Sciences on December 13, 1806, a partly sighted German writer, Christoph Friedrich Nicolaï—who had met Weissenburg in 1781—described “the very simple machine” the former used to write:125 A board like a big sheet of paper, on which was placed a frame of bronze that opened and shut with a spring; on this board, a groove of about a line deep to hold the frame, which had holes threaded with fine wires meant to guide the hand of the writer and prevent overlapping lines. Three squares of paper were stacked on the board. The bottom sheet received the impression of the writing, either black or red in color, transmitted to the middle sheet from the top sheet, written on with a blunt stylus. . . . The colors Weissenburg printed with his stylus are quite stable. I have a few things he wrote that remain unchanged after twenty-five years. He wrote as quickly as a sighted person, and he kept up several correspondences. His correspondence with Niesen was quite remarkable.126

In this “machine,” we recognize one of the many versions of hand guides forecast by Father Lana and used by Elizabeth von Waldkirch and then other blind people with slight adaptations according to the individual’s ingenuity. The lack of coordination between the different efforts here and there to improve access to reading and writing should be noted. These experiments long remained the affair of an elite that did not seek to have all blind persons benefit from their discoveries. Thus, when a high-ranking civil servant of Mannheim, Johann Peter Kling, asked Weissenburg to authorize the publication of his methods so other blind people could use them, Weissenburg refused. He agreed to publish only a part of his correspondence in the Rheinische Beiträge zur Gelehrsamkeit.127 On the other hand, he did not fail to inform Mademoiselle Paradis—whom he considered an equal—of all his “finds” and to encourage her own efforts to overcome her disability. “People feel sorry for us, because we cannot see. Friend, do we truly not see?”128 It was through the intermediary of Maria-Theresia that the

Sensationalism and Sensorial Impairments    “inventions” of her correspondent were to benefit the most people. Thus, in Paris, following the publication of the article in the Journal de Paris on April 24, 1784, Maria-Theresia von Paradis was visited by a translator, a reader of Diderot with a passion for the communication problems of the sensorially impaired, Valentin Haüy: “Blind myself with respect to an institution of this sort [the education of the blind], I saw the light in Mademoiselle de Paradis: I witnessed her different activities; I questioned her about the talents of Mr. Vessemburg [sic], her compatriot,”129 wrote the philanthropist in a letter to the Journal de Paris, published on September 30, 1784. The young girl gave him “a German letter printed by her in cicero, full of the most delicate and well-painted sentiments.”130 This production was accomplished with the help of a small press made for her by Mr. von Kempelen, creator of the Chess-Playing Automaton.”131 She also showed him the geographical maps Weissenburg had given her and a few examples of pinpricked writing. According to the creator of collective education for the congenitally blind, this interview was decisive to his implementation of the educational plan he had been considering for several years. MariaTheresia confirmed that his project was not a utopia: the means existed; they had been tried; all that remained was to perfect them so they would be available to all blind people. But in our opinion, this meeting was not only the occasion for a purely technical demonstration of existing methods for educating the blind through touch. Through the example of her adaptation to society and her professional success—which was to be confirmed later on—the young musician also gave Haüy proof that a gifted and suitably educated blind person could embark upon a real career that allowed her to play a role in the social and cultural life of her time. Underpinning the blind subject, whom we have seen emerge over the course of the previous century and whose advent was confirmed throughout the eighteenth century thanks to the reflections of the philosophes and the innovations of pedagogues, a citizen steps forward, a female citizen, to be specific. And the honor of giving blind men and women of all social classes the means to become citizens would in fact fall to Valentin Haüy.

chapter 5

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired

Without the powerful wave of contemporary opinion, the encounter of a man at once idealizing and passionate with a particularly gifted young blind girl would not have led to the realization of a plan that had been hatched years earlier in the head of someone who, at the time, was but a translator and writing teacher who specialized in deciphering ancient handwriting. Sensitized to the perceptual problems of those born blind, the men and women of the Enlightenment were equally fascinated with the education of deaf-mutes—a subject we will take up later. But in a more general manner, the issue of education and the passion for pedagogy had taken enlightened consciences by storm, as the 160 some works concerning education that were published in France between 1760 and 1789 attest.1

The Birth of a New Sensibility Still, as Roger Chartier, Marie-Madeleine Compère, and Dominique Julia remind us in their book on education in modern France, the eighteenth-century elite’s preoccupation with educational questions and its infatuation with pedagogy were generally accompanied by a great hostility toward schooling for the masses. In this connection, we recall the notorious words of public prosecutor Louis-René de Caradeuc de La Ch-

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    alotais in his Essay on National Education, presented to the parliament of Rennes in 1763: “The well-being of society requires that the populace’s knowledge not extend beyond its occupations. Every man who looks beyond his own sad trade will never discharge it with courage and with patience. Among ordinary people, it is generally only necessary for those who earn a living in the arts or whom these arts help to live to know how to read and write.”2 Voltaire was of the same opinion—“Those busy earning a living cannot busy themselves with enlightening their minds”3 —as were the majority of political and administrative elites of the day, in complete support of mercantilist theories. Even Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for moral rather than mercantilist reasons, was not ready to espouse the instruction of peasants: “Those destined to live in rustic simplicity do not need to develop their faculties in order to be happy. . . . Do not educate the villager’s child, for it does not suit him to be educated.”4 The Church, on the other hand, through the voice of its parish clergy, was opposed to the consensus of the “enlightened” elite hostile to the acculturation of the people through reading and writing. “It is not possible to form true worshippers of God, faithful subjects of the king, good citizens, without the help of instruction . . . , and the best preached-to parish, if there is no public school, will never be the most enlightened and the most orderly one,”5 wrote, for instance, the clerics of the archpriesthood of Vézelay to their archbishop in 1769. In the Enlightenment camp, Diderot struck a discordant note in the chorus of unfavorable opinions of instruction of the masses for fear of social mobility: “From the prime minister down to the last peasant, everyone should know how to read, write, and count.”6 This position would become that of Condorcet and of all those who would see education as the key to the liberation of man and the transformation of the world: “To cultivate in each generation the physical, intellectual, and moral faculties, and, thereby, to contribute to the general and gradual perfection of the human race, the supreme goal toward which all social institutions should be directed: such should be the object of education, and for the public authorities, this is a duty imposed by the common interest of society and by that of all humanity.”7 But we have not yet arrived at the Report and Project for a Law on

   the eighteenth century the General Organization of Public Instruction, which represents one of the most refined expressions of the humanist pedagogical project of the Enlightenment. It was thus indispensable that another fundamental component of Enlightenment thought contribute to the implementation and then the success of Haüy’s project for the collective education of the congenitally blind from the indigent class. It was a matter of “beneficence” or “philanthropy,” which Diderot, like Voltaire before him, saw as the philosopher’s essential virtue. “What is virtue? Beneficence toward one’s fellow man,”8 affirmed Voltaire in the Philosophical Dictionary;9 and Diderot wrote a few years later: “What is the object of philosophy? To bind people through the commerce of ideas and through the exercise of ‘perpetual beneficence.’ ”10 Inspired not by God but by “Nature,” philanthropy was distinguished from Christian charity by its origin. It was also distinguished by its goal, which was no longer the salvation of the soul after death but happiness on earth in the present. The philanthropist was to be guided by a constant concern for social utility. “Fruit of the Enlightenment,” as Catherine Duprat says in her book on Parisian philanthropy, “true philanthropy was supposed to be its bearer. It served progress . . . , knowledge (instruction, training for a trade, the spreading of techniques), production . . . , public hygiene . . . , social welfare.11 In addition, “this gentle and consoling philosophy . . . fruit of equality and virtue,”12 suggested that people cease looking at the poor and disabled people as figures of the Other but rather “as fellow creatures, as our brothers, and come to their aid.”13 Henceforth desacralized—and thereby freed from the suspicion that burdened them with the idea of sin—disabilities became a “wrong of nature”14 that “Love of Humanity,” the very definition of philanthropy, urged redressing through education in particular. In return, the disabled person, “restored to the society of other men,” was, if he were poor, to enter into the circulation of economic exchange by working, because philanthropy, concerned with social efficiency, did not sanction idleness. Given the principles on which the philanthropic movement was founded, we can understand how much its influence was decisive for the implementation of a pedagogical project conceived: First: to keep those [blind people] who lived comfortably agreeably busy. Second: to rescue “those to whom fortune has been parsimonious with her favours” from the “sad and humiliating recourse” to mendicancy by giving them a means of subsistence.15

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    In 1780, Freemasons led by Savalette de Langes, founder of the Lodge of the United Friends, high-ranking dignitary of the Grand Orient, and organizer of the Order of the Philalethes, or “Seekers of Truth,”16 founded the Philanthropic House (soon called the Philanthropic Society), the first private Parisian charitable establishment, free of spiritual goals and ecclesiastical supervision.17 At first mainly composed of Masons (twenty out of thirty-one members in 1782), the society began to evolve after the joining of first duke and peer, the Duke of Béthune-Charost, elected president in 1783. At the same time, contacts were established with the Journal de Paris (itself created by Masons in 1777), which gave much coverage to the secretary of the society. Thus, on Saturday, December 20, 1783, an opinion in the form of a letter addressed to the “Authors of the Newspaper” announcing the Philanthropic Society’s decision “to grant an annual stipend to impoverished workers’ children, blind since birth or from a very young age”18 appeared under the header “Beneficence.” The proposed children were not to be younger than two nor older than twelve; the aid granted was to provide for them until twenty-one, the earliest age of admission to the Quinze-Vingts hospice. It was not yet a question of elementary education or apprenticeship; on the contrary, the idea was to “lend a helping hand” to children considered definitively useless to society: Nature, mother of us all, has engraved in the heart of all men a feeling of commiseration for the misfortunate in general. . . . Naturally inclined to lend a helping hand to the frailness of childhood, what must we not feel when, from its first steps, a poor thing pairs indigence with an infirmity that robs it of the hope to one day live from its work? Such, Sirs, is the sad destiny of those who from the cradle are deprived of the most useful of senses, that of sight.19

And the letter’s author, “a present member and secretary of the society,” continued: We have managed to make ourselves understood by the deaf and dumb: we can also teach them a trade, a profession. But what can we do with someone born blind? Dependent on his parents, on society, he is condemned to drag out his useless and listless days. If gratitude prompts us to assist an old man who has been useful, should humanity abandon a child whose disability prevents him from ever being so?20

   the eighteenth century The terms of this letter may surprise us, coming at the end of a century of philosophical discourses on the congenitally blind and the successful attempts at private instruction, whose examples were well known to the enlightened public. But access of the blind to culture and a profession doubtless still appeared to be reserved for a few exceptional individuals whose example was contradicted daily by the alms-seekers of the QuinzeVingts, of which “The Blind Man,” engraved by Surugue the Younger after a small painting by Chardin, now lost, was one representative, an example also contradicted by the familiar presence in the cities and countryside of those blind musicians, eternal figures of wandering and mendicancy, to which other engravings of the time bear witness. Besides, one of the most famous and admired philanthropists in France, the Abbé Charles-Michel de L’Epée,21 whose work with deafmutes was known throughout Enlightenment Europe, had himself called into question the usefulness of educating the blind. In a text written in 1773 and published in 1776 as an appendix to his Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, he had in effect opposed the “public interest” of instruction for deaf children to the futility of efforts on behalf of those blind since birth: The education they are given and all life’s necessities with which they are provided will forever publicize the piety and glory of those who turned a compassionate gaze on these individuals. The latter thought they were serving the country by caring for citizens who could not provide for themselves; but in rescuing them from poverty, they could not make them capable of contributing to the general welfare of the Republic.22

It is as if we were hearing the peremptory verdict issued by Cardano two centuries earlier: “It’s an admirable thing, but of little use.” In any case, this was something that could discourage the best of philanthropic intentions concerning the blind, and the secretary of the society learned the lesson well: “We have managed to make ourselves understood by the deaf and dumb: we can also teach them a trade, a profession. But what can we do with someone born blind?” The answer to his question came months later via the Journal de Paris—which, let it be said in passing—well illustrates the role this daily had in the development of Parisian philanthropy between 1780 and 1792. In the meantime, in order to respect the concern for usefulness

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    to which every true philanthropic intervention claimed to adhere, the Philanthropic Society proposed selecting candidates not according to their capacity for some kind of “social adaptation,” reputed impossible, but rather according to criteria of indigence and morality.23 A certificate from the parish priest was to attest that they were born to poor and honest workers, and, all disabilities being equal, the society preferred “first, orphans, then those who had lost one parent, and, failing these, children whose fathers had the most family responsibilities.”24 The members of the society gave themselves until February 15, 1784, to accept the cases, accompanied by written proof, and until April 1 to begin distributing aid in order to “have the time to get the necessary information, verify it, and make the most informed choice.”25 On January 16, 1784, Edme Régnier, “Mechanician to HRH the Duke of Chartres,”26 sent a letter to the Journal de Paris, which it published on February 20—a letter in which he offered to enlighten the “respected philanthropists” as to the most effective manner of helping the blind: “It is doubtless quite something to contribute to their subsistence,” acknowledged Régnier, “but would it not be more helpful to base their subsistence on their own work?”27 He therefore undertook to inform the Philanthropic Society’s members of “the great number of different jobs these misfortunates can take on,” and this, by giving a “very abridged list, which could be much augmented by interrogating specialists in each field.”28 We will quote the list in full, because it is the first text we know of, since that of Vivès, to inventory activities blind people were capable of engaging in at a specific point in time: Grinding tobacco; grinding cement; pulverizing in mortars; turning a millstone; a wheel to run a pump; a small forge; playing a hurdy-gurdy; polishing marble, steel, wood; making iron chains with tongs; bottoming chairs; making matting; combing horsehair; carding wool, cotton; making wicks, braids, laces, nets to catch birds and fish; knitting garters . . . ; making goat-hair buttons; working hemp; stringing; making cords . . . ; not to mention music, be it vocal or instrumental; languages, grammar; reading, writing, geometry, and even optics, witness Saunderson, by using movable characters or figures in relief; finally, all the abstract sciences.29

   the eighteenth century This text is edifying on several accounts: on the one hand, it testifies to the knowledge an enlightened citizen was likely to have at the end of the eighteenth century30 with regard to blind people’s ability to engage in a number of different activities; on the other, it allows us to observe that the range of trades the blind were likely to practice had expanded quite a bit since Vivès. But we can also note, in the register of manual labor, how much the proposed tasks were repetitive, how little skill they required, and, as a result, how little they paid. Be that as it may, the philanthropists took note of Régnier’s comments: in a letter of April 17, published in the Journal de Paris on April 20, the society’s secretary, informing the newspaper’s authors of “the first distribution of the annual stipend accorded to those born blind beginning the first of this month,” specified that “as of today, the different sums . . . received for this purpose total 387 livres, including 12 livres to be divided between twelve children at the first distribution, 36 livres for their heating, 24 livres for the most deserving among them, and 72 livres to purchase instruments appropriate for teaching them a profession.”31 As we can see, it was no longer a question of viewing young blind people as permanently dependent on their families and society for lack of being able to survive one day on their own. Four days after the publication of this letter, La Blancherie’s account of Mademoiselle Paradis appeared in the journal. The following Tuesday, April 27, 1784, an event took place that was apparently unrelated to the preceding one: the first public performance of The Marriage of Figaro, whose banning three years earlier had provoked one of the greatest scandals in the history of theater. The play was a triumph proportionate to the scandal—a triumph taken up by the press, from the Correspondance littéraire to the Journal de Paris 32 and confirmed by the sixty-eight performances that followed the premiere. Between Diderot’s backing his blind man “against twenty people with all their eyes about them,” to Beaumarchais’s recognition that his valet, cast into obscurity, had more genius than a great lord,33 an anthropological revolution had taken place that thenceforth precluded that anyone—however blind or humble—be considered less than human. Valentin Haüy could now meet Mademoiselle Paradis. Enlightened minds were ready to support his project.

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    But who was this man, himself poor34 and humble, to whom the blind would bring fame (something already enjoyed by his older brother, the Abbé René-Just Haüy, elected to the Academy of Sciences on February 12, 1783, for his discoveries in the field of mineralogy)?

Valentin Haüy: A Writing Teacher for the Blind Vocation In April 1784, Valentin Haüy—born November 13, 1745, in SaintJust-en-Chaussée in Picardy to a family of artisan weavers—was a mature man who owed a preliminary social ascent precisely to teaching.35 Married for ten years and the father of two girls, he had been a professional translator since 1769 and, as of 1781, was listed in the Royal Almanac as a qualified teacher by the Academic Bureau of Writing,36 where he was a “teacher responsible for reading ancient Latin languages and Old French and deciphering abbreviations and foreign characters.”37 In June 1783, he obtained a certificate as “interpreter to the King of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese,” and then one of interpreter to the Admiralty for the translation of German, English, Dutch, and Swedish. In a memoir he addressed to Antoine-Jean Amelot on June 3, 1783, to request the first of these distinctions, he gave a few interesting details of his training and career: Valentin Haüy has the honor of expressing to your Greatness that having devoted himself by inclination to the study of foreign languages upon completion of humanities and philosophy courses with some success at the University of Paris, he was able to translate several of them and that, for the last ten years, he has been practicing this profession for the administration of Royal Council attorneys, notaries, bankers, and other public persons.38

In an 1805 memoir on the telegraph addressed to the Prefect of the Seine, he would also mention his knowledge of “Latin, Greek, and Hebraic languages.”39 An expert in foreign languages and handwriting, Haüy knew more than anyone else how much “the manipulation of signs” leads to “the handling of things.”40 Solicited daily to decipher or translate administrative, financial, or juridical documents, he could assess the dependency of those

   the eighteenth century who mastered neither reading nor writing. Perhaps it was this familiarity with the relation between things, the sounds that designate them, and the letters that call them up by doubling them,41 that gave birth to his solicitude for the “disabled of the sign.”42 In any case, he frequented—or had recently frequented—the public demonstrations where the Abbé de l’Epée displayed his “art of instructing the deaf and dumb,” an “incredible art for those who had not yet witnessed the success to which it led its creator, the virtuous clergyman.”43 Since 1776, the Abbé had revisited his reservations about the methods used by his predecessors, and when reading his second book, The True Manner of Instructing the Deaf and Dumb, Confirmed through Long Experience, published, as it happens, in 1784, we realize that he thenceforth used all possible means of communication, including dactylology—so combated in his preceding work—to put the deaf in a reciprocal relation with others, “their fellow men and brothers.” Haüy’s desire to help the blind was probably born of the spectacle of the education and socialization of the deaf, “that class of really unfortunate men, like us, yet reduced in some sense to the condition of animals as long as we do not work to pull them from the depths of darkness in which they are buried.”44 In any event, what he retained from the work undertaken by the “virtuous clergyman” was its collective, public, and purely philanthropic character. It is significant that Haüy never made the least allusion to the work of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira,45 whom he had doubtless heard of— at the very least, in his professional milieu. Pereira had been honored in 1765 with the title of “Interpreter to the King of the Italian and Spanish languages,” which Haüy had studied, but most of all, before the glory of the Abbé de l’Epée eclipsed his own, Pereira had been quite famous for his pedagogical successes with young deaf people he had taught to speak.46 In 1746, the Academy of Caen and in 1749 and 1751, the Royal Academy of Sciences, the royal family (to whom he had presented his students in 1750), and the Royal Society of London (which had elected him a member in 1759) had all recognized the merits of his method, as had several of the philosophes: Buffon, Diderot, Le Cat, and Rousseau, to cite only the most famous, had spoken of him in their works. But Pereira’s teaching, whose results had been remarkable—as borne out in particular by the success of his closest disciple, Saboureux de

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    Fontenay47—was aimed at a small number of paying students (which does not mean they all came from well-to-do families, because the poor could be sponsored by rich benefactors). His method, patiently perfected in the Spain and Bordeaux of his youth, did not lend itself to collective teaching. On the contrary, it required that the teacher spend a lot of time alone with each student. Finally, Pereira, who did not have a personal fortune and lived in part, as did his family, from the revenues of his school, had taken care not to disseminate his method to the public at large. He had reserved demonstrations for learned societies whose expertise, in the absence of legislation concerning scientific property, was, at the time, the only official acknowledgment of inventors’ merit in France, and their only guarantee against possible counterfeiters. The Abbé de L’Epée, in contrast, who acted both out of philanthropy and concern for discipleship,48 and who also had some personal revenue, straightaway wanted his teaching to affect, first and foremost, deaf-mutes from poor families: “The rich only come to me out of tolerance.49 It is not to them that I have devoted myself: it is to the poor. Without the latter, I would never have begun to instruct the deaf and dumb.”50 He also wanted to reach a great number of them. It was therefore necessary that his teaching be collective: the language of mimed and gesticulated signs, which the Abbé considered the natural language of deaf-mutes51 (and, moreover, of all mankind)52 seemed to him the means best adapted to his aims: to make it a veritable pedagogical tool admirably adapted to mass instruction, it would suffice to codify it methodically. Finally, the Abbé was determined to use any means to make his method known to the greater public in order to attract potential benefactors and the authorities, the only people capable of assuring its development and sustainability.53 Perhaps the translator-handwriting expert, Valentin Haüy, spectator among others at the public lessons organized from 1771 on at the school on the rue des Moulins, began to dream, as others had before him, especially since the Renaissance, of the possibility of promoting a universal language—gestural or no. At any rate, another project began to germinate in his head, that of doing for the blind what the Abbé de l’Epée was accomplishing for the deaf, namely, to replace previous attempts to liberate individuals through a type of tutoring reserved for the elite with a collective and methodical enterprise of social integration of the blind from all classes of society.

   the eighteenth century It was not, however, directly to his predecessor’s work in special education that Haüy would refer when he evoked the origins of his “vocation,” but rather, on the one hand, to his reading of the letter by “Monsieur Diderot, printed in 1749”54 and, on the other, to an emotional shock of which he gave three different accounts: the first written in 1786,55 the second in 1800,56 and the third in 1820.57 These three accounts diverge on certain points, notably on the date Haüy gives for the event that decided the new direction of his existence: unmentioned in the “Historical Précis” of 1786; September 1771, if we are to believe a note to the institute dated November 1800; May 1782, according to a letter to his son of 1820. It would seem that 1771 is the most likely of the two dates specified by Haüy, because the event in question—and upon which all three accounts agree— took place before 1782. It is a matter of a burlesque concert reported by the Almanach forain in 1773. At the fair,58 in 1771, at the coffeehouse of Sire Valindin, one could attend a concert given by the blind. The orchestra consisted of eight men dressed in long gowns and holding pointed bonnets. A ninth was suspended in the air on a peacock and beat time (but was out of beat). Like his comrades, he had a red gown, clogs on his feet, and a big dunce cap with ass’s ears. In turn, they sang amusing couplets, accompanying themselves ridiculously on the violin, and they repeated the refrain of the couplets in unison. In front of each blind person was a sheet of music and a lit candle. The throngs of people who came to see this farce were sometimes so large that it was necessary to place fusiliers at the coffeehouse door and to have the musicians step down from time to time. Some of Valindin’s colleagues, jealous of his success, wanted to create a distraction by imitating him. But as he had the advantage of novelty, he drew the most attention for the duration of the fair. It was hardly over when sellers of engravings produced a perfectly rendered caricature of the blind in their orchestra, to their great disadvantage.59

This engraving, subtitled “Grand Concert Extraordinaire Executed by a Detachment of the Quinze-Vingts at the Café of the Blind of Saint-Ovid’s Fair in September 1771,” was sold at Mondhare’s in Paris, on the rue SaintJacques. It was accompanied by a bit of verse that underscored its satirical intent: You who are so difficult to please, Learn that in this place there was something new,

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    That a more beauteous spectacle Has never been seen in the city. It was charming to hear the blind sing, And especially to see them proud of their appearance, Arguing as to who would best cut a figure For the songs all Paris came to hear.

An examination of this engraving reveals several details already present in the corpus analyzed by Jean-Claude Margolin in his article on eyeglasses and the satire of the partially sighted in the sixteenth century:60 spectacles and mirrors hanging on wall coverings in the background of the scene; the musicians’ dunce caps; donkey ears and peacock feathers on the orchestra’s conductor; candles lit in front of musical partitions placed upside down. We find here all the attributes of vanity and illusion that, for centuries, were used to illustrate the theme of inverted clairvoyance and to render the partially sighted the symbolic equivalent of the “fool,” a pathetic reflection of humanity. The spectacle itself, eagerly frequented by a crowd of onlookers from all walks of life, illustrates a practice then current in teratological exhibits, which the Affiches and the Almanachs forains (fairground almanacs) regularly broadcast. But even more specifically, it is part of the burlesque tradition that made of the blind man a buffoon whose clumsiness provoked laughter. Deceived and deceiving blind people61 could still be found in the comic theater of the day, as could the “supposedly” blind, impostors of blindness62 mocked by a good-natured and uninhibited public. Whatever the success achieved by the concert of the Saint-Ovid’s Fair in that fin-de-siècle when “sensibility” was considered “the source of all virtues,”63 some people—to judge by Haüy’s reaction—found the farce in bad taste. For his part, Haüy had not wished to share the joy of those in attendance: “A very different sentiment took hold of us,” he would write ten years later in the “Historical Summary of the Birth, Progress, and Actual State of the Institute for Blind Youth,” “and we conceived, at that very instant, of the possibility of realizing, to the advantage of those unfortunates, the means of which they had only an apparent and ridiculous enjoyment.”64 In his note to the institute dated 19 Brumaire Year IX, Haüy would condemn “the public dishonor to the human race” of thirty years earlier even more virulently and would recall in an equally bombastic manner

   the eighteenth century the birth of his vocation: “ ‘Yes,’ I said to myself, seized with a noble enthusiasm, ‘I will replace this ridiculous fable with truth. I will make the blind read; . . . they will trace letters and read their own writing. I will even have them give harmonious concerts.’ ”65 In these blind men offered up as a spectacle, just as human torsos, giants, or dwarves66 could be exhibited in analogous circumstances, Haüy absolutely refused to see “monsters,” and he promised himself to replace the deceptive disorder of this burlesque cacophony with harmony: the harmony of musical instruments properly tuned, the harmony of communication finally reestablished between those poor wretches and the rest of humanity. In the above, it was hardly a question of the Abbé de l’Epée and his deaf-mute students. But the coincidence of dates between the “shock” of the Saint Ovid’s Fair and the first public drills organized by the man soon to be called “the apostle of the deaf and dumb” is still worth noting. The simultaneity of these two “spectacles” doubtless contributed to the emotional reaction that the accounts Haüy left of the birth of his vocation aimed to convey. Despite their being fictions, these stories, composed long after the events they relate, faithfully translate the dramatic change in sensibilities that took place in the year 1771: then and only then did things begin to “change face”67 for ordinary people suffering in their ability to communicate. “The identity revolution”68 was set in motion: soon, no man, be he poor or disabled, could be kept outside humanity’s sphere. A General Plan of Instruction for Blind Youth Several years were to pass before Valentin Haüy would carry out his project. There was a time of reflection: “Twelve years of meditation followed the conception of this project until the moment I executed it.”69 A time of observation: We were occasionally reflecting on the usefulness of this execution when another observation struck us. A young child, full of understanding but deprived of sight, listened, with advantage, to correct the errors of his brother in reading. He even frequently besought him to read his elementary books to him. [The latter], more

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    employed in objects of amusement, shut his ears to the solicitations of his unhappy brother, whom a cruel disease soon carried off.70

A time necessary to convince himself of his project’s relevance: “If the execution seemed possible, it continually presented difficulties. We confess that we needed to be encouraged.”71 Those twelve years, probably marked by moments of hesitation and doubt, allowed Haüy to consolidate his social position while saving the money necessary to launch his enterprise. (Contrary to the Abbé de l’Epée, he had no personal fortune, not even a modest one, and could not count on revenues other than those from his work.) Also during that time, circumstances evolved in ways favorable to his plan, from the 1777 creation of the Journal de Paris, which was to be in the foreground of the affair, to the election of René-Just to the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1783, not to mention the creation of the Philanthropic Society, whose initiatives on behalf of the blind were instrumental to the project’s implementation. But we have seen already that it was the concerts given by one blind woman—antitheses of the burlesque production of 1771—that triggered something in Haüy’s mind: “Mademoiselle Paradis,” each of whose concerts were announced in the Journal de Paris, “arrived in the capital.”72 Haüy went to meet her as soon as possible toward the end of April 1784.73 “She shewed us her attempts, and those of M. Weissenburg.” He “collected those of the blind who lived before our time,” executed some of their procedures, and finally elaborated a “general plan of the institution.”74 Soon Haüy presented this plan to the Philanthropic Society, who greeted it favorably. From there, things moved quickly, and in the Journal de Paris of Thursday, September 16, 1784, one can read a letter, dated September 11, addressed to the newspaper by the society’s secretary: “We will use the sums destined for blind children in both the most advantageous manner and in that most in keeping with the donors’ intentions. At this very moment, we are working on a project to make these unfortunate people useful to society while assuring them a means of subsistence.”75 The project was that of Haüy, whose earliest endeavors were evoked at the end of the letter: I will not conclude this letter, Sirs, without publicly thanking Valentin Haüy, Interpreter to the King, who of his own accord and with the noblest unselfishness,

   the eighteenth century has offered to dedicate his talents to the instruction of our blind children. Using a method all his own, he has managed, in very little time, to instruct a young man blind since birth, with whom he was entrusted for a trial period by one of our most distinguished members. The generous citizen has taught him to read, write, calculate, distinguish geographical maps, sing notes, write music, and even to print books for those deprived of vision. Several of us have witnessed these successes, and he has offered to take them even further. This detail will permit you to judge, Sirs, how obliged humanity must be to him and what special thanks we owe him.76

Haüy’s first student was named François Le Sueur: he was seventeen and a half years old and had been “struck with blindness following convulsions at age six months.”77 He went begging at the door of churches so as not to burden “an honest family but one completely lacking in fortune and obliged to seek subsistence among the class of the least fortunate, though perhaps the most hardworking.”78 Young Le Sueur, informed we know not how—perhaps by his parish priest—of the Philanthropic Society’s decision to assist blind children from poor families, presented himself to one of the society’s members (which, let it be said in passing, proves his determination to find a way out of his miserable condition). Alas, he was too late: “The number of poor children blind since birth had been met,” and, besides, Le Sueur had passed the age to be eligible for the pension. Not a problem! The “generous friend of mankind” to whom he presented himself “ingenious when it came to diminishing the regret of a refusal that he only made in spite of himself, offered to oblige the young man if he would be willing to dedicate himself to the studies proposed by my educational plan,”79 wrote Haüy in a memoir read in the month of November80 to the Academic Bureau of Writing. By chance, the supernumerary entrusted to Haüy for these first trials was an exceptionally intelligent boy, and his thirst for learning overcame the inevitable obstacles that arose at the beginning of an adventure in which the master was experimenting with his method as much as the student. Le Sueur made rapid progress, since the philanthropists could observe results of instruction begun in June as early as the beginning of September. In a letter dated September 18 to the Journal de Paris, in which he explained the genesis, implementation, and objectives of his

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    educational plan, Haüy recognized “the intelligence and activity” of his student, whom he nonetheless deemed unready to respond to the curiosity of a public impatient “to see a blind person read, lay out his ideas on paper, etc.” “Once my student has acquired more knowledge, once he has paid the protectors of the sciences and the arts the tribute that is their due, I will make it my duty to respond to the kindness with which the public has deigned to receive this too feeble mark of my devotion to its service.”81 Contrary to the Abbé de L’Epée and following Pereira, Haüy preferred, in the first instance, to seek the expertise of learned societies rather than approval of the public at large. Le Sueur was presented to the Bureau of Academic Writing (of which Haüy had become a full and no longer simply a “qualified” member) during the course of a session on November 18, 1784, “in the presences of Monsieur Lenoir, Ordinary Councilor of State, Librarian to the King, Lieutenant General of Police [and] Monsieur de Flandres de Brunville, honorary Councilor to Parliament and Prosecutor to the King at the Grand Châtelet, President of the Bureau.”82 During this session, to which “the immortal Abbé de l’Epée”83 was invited, Haüy read “A Memoir on the Education of the Blind,” which demonstrated the social utility of his “institutional plan” and laid out the means for its realization. Le Sueur could then provide proof of the validity of the method, which “united the voice’s impression on the ear with a fineness of touch trained to discern the most delicate of contours.”84 A Pedagogy of Vicariance Haüy had read Diderot as the Abbé de l’Epée had read Condillac, and both men drew the principles of their pedagogy from sensationalism: “Do we have but one sense, or can the lack of one be compensated by the ministry of another?”85 wrote the Abbé in 1771. And again in 1784, at the beginning of the first part of his second book: “The instruction of the deaf and dumb is not as difficult as is ordinarily supposed. Each of these two doors, ever open, presents a road leading to the same place, as long as one neither veers to the right or left of the road taken.”86 The same year, in his letter dated September 18 to the Journal de Paris, Valentin Haüy wrote:

   the eighteenth century In my imagination, I sometimes saw the blind man of Puiseaux instructing his son with characters in relief and sometimes Saunderson teaching mathematics in the midst of a circle of sighted people. I next dared to develop a plan to contribute thenceforth to the efforts of those worthy people eager to replace sight with touch so as to procure two of the most precious advantages of which the loss of this organ deprives them: reading and writing.87

Confident in the possibilities of vicariance, Haüy also had faith in “the prodigious memory that, in blind people, retains ideas as easily as it receives them” and in “the comprehension that most of them demonstrate during difficult thought processes.”88 As many others before and after him, Haüy was quite ready to believe that, undistracted “by the crowd of images whose impressions constantly intersect in our heads whether we want them to or not,”89 the blind, more than the sighted, enjoyed “the gentle calm favorable to studies”: “a pleasure we only find in solitude or in the silence of the night.”90 He appeared not to suspect that, deprived of the distractions offered by sight, the blind are much more sensitive than the sighted to sound in their environment and that, as a result, their ability to concentrate, far from being increased, could, on the contrary, be diminished. To implement his pedagogy, principally founded on the possibilities of touch, Haüy secured himself—at his own expense91—the help of several “artists” (read “artisans”) “who were hired to make the machines necessary for this type of education.”92 It was necessary to fashion typographical characters—letters and numbers—cast in reverse of those used in ordinary printing. Face up, that is, so the student could arrange them from left to right on a grooved board when learning how to read, compose sentences, or calculate. The same characters were used to print books in relief by embossing paper, but for the type to go deep enough into the paper to create a sufficiently prominent relief, it was also necessary to replace the classic platen printing press with a system that allowed for a much more forceful stroke while maintaining a regularity of pressure. To do so, Haüy turned to a certain “Beaucher, chief locksmith,” who had perfected “a cylindrical press, which [wa]s moved by a lever from one extremity to the other, along two bars of iron, between which [we]re placed the forms, or pages that [we]re set, after the manner of printers.”93 It was also

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    necessary to cast musical characters appropriate for representing on paper all [music’s] possible varieties, by elevating their surface in the manner of those which we have devised to represent words.”94 On November 18, then, Le Sueur publicly gave proof that all these efforts had not been in vain and that Haüy had been right to believe in the education of the blind through touch. It is not difficult to imagine the public and the learned assembly of writing masters hanging on to every word and gesture of the young man reading a book in relief opened at random,95 then taking down dictated sentences, and making calculations on a grooved board. Or again, running his fingers over a geographical map for which “the boundaries of different countries had been made palpable by a multitude of pinpricks that followed their contours.”96 This “premiere,” which was reported by the Mémoires secrets and the Journal de Paris of November 23, certainly merited an engraving. It was placed at the beginning of the “Memoir” Haüy read at the opening of the session and printed little more than a month after the event. In it can be seen “François Le Sueur, Blind Man, 18 Years of Age, Reading with His Fingers” surrounded by all the material necessary to the demonstration. The somewhat frozen bearing of the young man—seated behind a large table with his fingers placed on the book he is in the process of deciphering—evokes an almost religious reverence. We are far from the disorderly concert of 1771, where beaming members of the Quinze-Vingts scraped their violins while playing the buffoon, “surrounded by emblems of foolish ignorance.”97 The comparison of the two engravings perfectly illustrates the arguments Haüy developed in his memoir regarding the social utility of his educational plan: If Heaven one day brings to completion a plan whose goal is the happiness of these unfortunates, I will rescue them from both debauchery and misery at the same time that—preserving the humiliating situation in which these poor creatures are forced to live from the eyes of mankind—I give them back to society, whose bonds they will help strengthen through the usefulness of their work! . . .  Themselves educated, they will become teachers, either of other blind people or even the sighted . . . and I believe I already see the nephews of this generation listening attentively to the lessons of a new Saunderson around one of our chairs in mathematics. . . . Here, heads of religious houses engage the educated blind to sing the praises of the Eternal in our temples, to the envy of Couperins, Sejans, Miroirs, Carpentiers, and Balbâtres, or to guide the yet inexperienced hand

   the eighteenth century of a young harpsichord player, emulator of the celebrated Paradis; there, heads of families . . . entrust the rest of these poor creatures with educating their children in the elements of reading, arithmetic, geography, history. So it is that the Sciences and the Arts become, by a fortunate choice, instruments of beneficence.98

We can see that it was not yet a question of exposing the blind poor to manual trades in order to make them good workers but of integrating them socially by allowing them to access culture. To achieve this goal, it was still necessary to “collectivize” the teaching method whose efficacy had just been publicly demonstrated.

The Institute for Blind Youth A Creation of the Philanthropic Society Le Noir, impressed by the experience he had just witnessed, spoke of it in his circles and aroused the interest of several ministers: “Monsieur the Count de Vergennes, Monsieur the Baron de Breteuil, Monsieur the Controller General, and Monsieur the Keeper of the Seals were kindly willing to allow that the young Sueur perform his demonstration in their presence, and all these respectable witnesses encouraged our first pupil through their beneficence.”99 In the wake of the Academic Bureau of Writing and the ministers, it was the Royal Academy of Science’s turn to welcome Haüy and his student during a session on December 22, 1784. Immediately afterward, the philanthropists took a decisive step. In a letter dated December 26 to the Journal de Paris, the secretary of the Philanthropic Society announced the decision of the society’s members to augment “by six new pensioners the class of those born blind” aided by the society—which would bring their number from twelve to eighteen as of January 1, 1785—and to entrust Le Sueur, whom they judged capable “of transmitting his knowledge to other blind people,” with blind children showing an aptitude for studies. In addition, they proposed providing the young man with “compensation proportionate to his new services and to his students’ progress.”100 This was accomplished by the beginning of 1785, as evidenced by several letters published in the Journal de Paris in February and a report read on the sixteenth of that month to the Royal Academy of Sciences by

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    the commissioners named “to examine the memoir and method on the instruction of the blind presented by Monsieur Haüy.”101 On February 6, the perpetual secretary of the Royal Academy of Music wrote, for his part, to the Journal de Paris: “The author of the method for educating those born blind through reading, after having submitted his general plan and procedures for their education to the luminaries of the Royal Academy of Sciences, presented the Royal Academy of Music with that part of his plan whose object is the study of acoustics—using their signs—for the blind.”102 This examination of the procedure Haüy used to educate the blind “naturally led to the repetition of all the demonstrations of his first student,”103 La Salle continued, which, a priori, does not allow us to affirm that a transition to group teaching had already taken place. However, the report of the commissioners appointed by the Royal Academy of Sciences leaves no doubt on this point. The commissioners were able to certify that “not only is this young man [Le Sueur, clearly] educated himself, but [he is] also the teacher of other blind people, to whom he transmits his knowledge using the same procedures he followed to acquire it.” We have seen this school, the reporters continue, which offers a spectacle both curious and touching. Several blind people of both sexes learn from a teacher who is blind himself and joyfully receive the instruction given them with great interest, and all appear to congratulate themselves on acquiring a new existence.104  . . . An association of charitable citizens funds this school, which already has more than twenty subjects, and which the fortune of Monsieur Haüy, not equal to his zeal, would not have permitted him to establish without help.105

“It can be said, to the honor of our century,” concludes the author of the report, La Rochefoucauld d’Enville, that there has never reigned a truer love for humanity’s welfare and that beneficence has never been more active nor more enlightened. May we be permitted to pay homage here to the talents and zeal of Monsieur L’Abbé de l’Epée, who opened the career of teaching to the deaf and dumb. Monsieur Haüy follows his example by becoming the benefactor of the blind,106 and this suffering part of humanity will owe him the key to a happiness of which we thought there was no hope.107

Inspired by “a noble passion to be useful to mankind,”108 the transition from individual teaching—of which Le Sueur’s education was just

   the eighteenth century one example among others—to the collective education of those born blind from the laboring class had thus taken place at the very beginning of 1785, and after having received the approval of the academies, Haüy was at last able to open his school officially and present it to the public. The inauguration was announced twice in the Journal de Paris: “Opening of a free school for those born blind, aided by a charitable society. This opening will take place at the Tuileries Palace in the new hall of the Spiritual Concert,109 on Saturday the nineteenth, at exactly six o’clock in the evening,”110 announced the journal on Wednesday, February 16; “today the nineteenth at exactly five-thirty,”111 corrected that of Saturday the nineteenth, which also gave the evening’s program: This opening . . . will be preceded by a concert to benefit the Blind Youth proposed and offered by the Royal Academy of Music. . . . Immediately following the concert, Sire Le Sueur, a man born blind who has received instruction since last June, will perform various demonstrations in accordance with the request of several persons of distinction: 1st reading, 2nd mathematics, 3rd music, 4th geography, 5th book printing, 6th, he will instruct blind children in the basic elements of reading.112

The announcement concluded with a notice worth citing that was particularly aimed at women: “N.B. We inform the ladies that, in order to avoid making a disagreeable impression, each blind person will have a blindfold around his eyes.”113 In the Journal de Paris the following Monday, February 21, one could read the following account which, for all its appearance under the heading “Beneficence,” is evocative of a society gossip column: The assembly was quite numerous and brilliant. The concert, composed of pieces selected and executed by artists whose talents we are accustomed to applauding, was most pleasurable; . . . After the concert, Monsieur Lesueur, a man born blind, performed different demonstrations . . . and he began to teach blind children elementary reading skills. This interesting spectacle caused an excitement mixed with tenderness. But all eyes were on Monsieur Haüy, Intepreter to the King, who has dedicated his talents to the instruction of blind children, and everyone sought to display the gratitude humanity owes him. The performance ended with the reading of a piece in verse addressed to those born blind by their benefactors, which we will publish in a coming edition.114

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    The evening before, the Mémoires secrets had also reported on the event in a more anecdotal style that allows us to imagine the ceremony’s unfolding in a more concrete fashion: “An enclosure had been erected at the bottom of the stage in which about fifteen blind children of both sexes had been placed. So as not to frighten the ladies, they all had bands around their eyes in black, green, etc.”115 Things had thus gone as announced in the Journal de Paris of February 19: whatever might have been offending in the spectacle of blindness had been masked so as not to indispose “sensitive souls.”116 As for the demonstration of the blind children, it had begun by a minor failure on the part of Le Sueur. Monsieur Haüy presented a book to the closest spectators and asked them to designate the phrase they wanted his student to read. This first exercise did not succeed: after three words, the teacher said his student was flustered.”117 Fortunately, everything then went well, and young Le Sueur himself gave a lesson to his young comrades, who came around the table each with a book in hand. He began with a little speech that had probably been written for him but that he recited as if it were his own, with much clarity and grace. This first lesson covered elements of reading. One student stood up and asked for permission to make an objection, which the little master resolved. Monsieur Le Sueur was continuously encouraged with increasing applause, and with each success, joy could be seen to paint itself on his face.118

Here we get a livelier picture of Haüy’s first student than that of the young prodigy described in a conventional manner by all other accounts of the public demonstrations. Le Sueur was a very young man who was flustered by the solemnity of the event and blushed with pleasure when the public applauded his successes. And so, from concert to concert, a plan for the collective education of those born blind germinated, developed, and then came to fruition, sustained by the different networks of sociability of the day: the Academic Bureau of Writing, the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Philanthropic Society. But also, in the course of 1785, the Salon of Correspondence of Pahin de la Blancherie, the Museum of Paris, the French Museum of Jean-François Pilastre de Rozier—all of which invited the blind youth to demonstrate their talents in public sessions an-

   the eighteenth century nounced in the Journal de Paris 119 that always concluded with a request for donations then deposited with the Philanthropic Society. As early as February 28, 1785, only days after the inauguration of the free school for those born blind, the secretary of the Philanthropic Society informed the authors of the Journal de Paris of the way the society intended to organize the new establishment: To take advantage of the useful opinions Monsieur Régnier, mechanician to Monsignor the Duke of Chartres, expressed in his letter of February 20, 1784, published in your journal, we are forming two establishments . . . In the first, which consists of a school for reading and other subjects, we will place a division of six blind children until we can increase their number. The success of this school will be easily gauged when it is understood that Monsieur Haüy, Interpreter to the King, as distinguished by his unselfishness as by his talents, is willing to direct it in his spare time.  . . . The other division, also composed of six blind children, again until their number can be increased, will be employed at the second establishment, which is a spinning school located at the home of Monsieur Hildebrand. This mechanician, who, through a preparation and a machine of his own design managed to purify hemp and to have it spun as fine as the most beautiful linen, will be the director.120

The separation of the school founded by Haüy into two establishments probably corresponds to a selection the philanthropists made among their pensioners according to intellectual aptitude: those who had a natural ability for study were to be introduced to “reading and other subjects”; the less gifted in this regard were to be immediately apprenticed so that they would quickly be able to earn a living. Unless the selection was based on age, since the society had begun to accept blind pensioners beyond the age limit foreseen in the initial regulations as long as they consented to be placed directly into apprenticeships. Whatever the criteria of selection of the blind placed at Hildebrand’s spinning school, it seems that in acting this way, the philanthropists were modifying Haüy’s initial project, which envisaged the promotion of the blind poor through “the Sciences and Arts become instruments of beneficence” and did not foresee putting them to work to satisfy the mercantilist objectives of the Enlightenment elite. Be that as it may, in their report of February 16, the commissioners named by the Royal Academy of Sciences to examine Haüy’s method

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    proposed that the academy give its approbation and proposed that the creator go public. This would soon be accomplished, and Haüy would rally to the opinions of the academy by publishing his method in the form of a work offered through subscription. On December 15, the Mémoires secrets announced plans to publish a paper in which Haüy would discuss “his progress in educating those born blind.” The work was “to be printed by the blind and for their benefit. The king, whom the Baron de Breteuil121 informed of the possibility of making these poor creatures useful to the society from which they were separated, has subscribed to the work, which will come from their own press, and has accepted its dedication.”122 The subscription was also announced, of course, with more precisions, in the Journal de Paris on January 7, 1786: An Essay on the Education of the Blind, produced by the blind themselves in print letters, in one volume in quarto, 28-point type, about 200 pages, dedicated to the King, offered to subscribers for the sole benefit of the misfortunate. The price is six livres per basan-bound volume. Subscriptions may be purchased at the Academic Bureau for the Translation of Languages, rue Coquillière.123 Editors’ note. The subscription’s funds will be in the hands of the Philanthropic Society.124

A two-page and apparently incomplete list of subscribers is preserved at the Valentin Haüy Museum in Paris.125 Aside from “the King,” there appear “Monsieur, Brother of the King,” for the sum of twenty-four livres, and “Madame Adélaïde of France,” for the same amount. Also among the twenty-four subscribers is “Monsieur Valentin Haüy, Academician,” and “Monsieur the Marquis de Paulmy.”126 The Essay on the Education of the Blind, or An Explication of the Different Means, Confirmed by Successful Experiments, to Render Them Capable of Reading by the Assistance of Touch, and of Printing Books, in which They May Obtain the Knowledge of Languages, of History, of Geography, of Music, &c. of Performing the Different Offices Necessary in Mechanical Employments, &c., Dedicated to the King thus came out in 1786. It was published “under the patronage of the Academy of Sciences,” which thus renewed the token of its interest in the work undertaken. The book’s frontispiece also mentioned that it had been “Printed in the Original by the BLIND YOUTH, under the Superintendance of Monsieur Clousier, Printer to the King.” It would seem that Jacques-Gabriel Clousier, a printer-bookseller on the rue de Sorbonne admitted to the Philanthropic

   the eighteenth century Society on August 13, 1784, and named Printer to the King on September 11, 1785, lent his support to Haüy’s work quite early. After spinning and its attendant products, “the press for the use of the sighted” was the second profession that Haüy and the philanthropists had in mind for the blind youths they helped educate. The activity report addressed to the authors of the Journal de Paris on January 27, 1787, by the secretary of the Philanthropic Society thus evokes the “students’ progress in all types of instruction and especially typography, under the direction of Clousier, Printer to the King.”127 A perusal of the work’s frontispiece makes clear that “different tasks pertaining to trades” had become part of the institute’s program in the same way as reading, languages, history, or music. This is confirmed by the statement of objectives placed at the beginning of the Essay: to teach the blind how to read using books whose characters are in relief and by means of this reading, to instruct them in the art of printing, of writing, of arithmetic, the languages, history, geography, mathematics, music, &c. To put into the hands of these unfortunate people such arts and occupations as are merely mechanical; spinning, for instance, knitting, book-binding, &c. From such an institution, two objects are in view, both of which benevolent men will own to be of importance. First: To employ those among them who are in easy circumstances, in an agreeable manner. Second: To rescue from the miseries of beggary, those to whom fortune has been parsimonious of her favours, by putting the means of subsistence in their power; and, in short, to render useful to society their hands, as well as those of their guides. Such is the end pursued by our institutions.128

We should note, however, that the distinction Haüy introduced between rich students (who were received by the establishment against payment for the sole benefit of indigent students) and “those to whom fortune has been parsimonious of her favors” did not lead to separate instruction. All were introduced to manual labor as they were to reading, writing, and arithmetic (traditionally taught in primary schools), but also to languages, history, geography, and music (which in principle was taught only to secondary school students). Indeed, the spinning and the writing schools, momentarily separated, were reunited under the supervision of Haüy,129 and the

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    establishment thus formed settled in 1786 at 18, rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, along with the “Academic Bureau for the Translation of Languages, Deciphering of Old Titles, the Dispatch of Writings, &c.”130 The system the students of the Institute for Blind Youth followed was that of a day school. By refusing the principle of teaching “at two levels,” one for the rich and one for the poor, Haüy followed in the steps of the Abbé de L’Epée, who wrote the following in 1776 in his first book: Among our children, there are noble and rich deaf-mutes just as there are those who are poor and from the dregs of society. People would doubtless like us to give the former all the knowledge of which they are capable. Well, tolerance will be necessary, whatever people may say, so that at least through co-existence the latter may learn something as well. . . . Be they rich or poor, they must learn language in its entirety, or not be taught at all.131

All Haüy’s students, then, received the same intellectual, musical, and manual education, whose goals, contents, and methods, founded on the principle of sensorial compensation, were explained in the thirteen chapters of the Essay printed by them in 1786132 and dedicated to the king.

The Presentation at Versailles and Public Demonstrations In what was a supreme consecration of their talents and the merits of their “virtuous instructor,” the Blind Youth were invited to Versailles to carry out their demonstrations “in the presence of Their Majesties and the Royal Family on December 26, 1786.” The program of these demonstrations was appended to the Essay. Aside from the usual demonstrations— reading; arithmetic; taking dictation of a sentence chosen from a book unknown to the student; arrangement of type on a printing plate for the use of the sighted and another for the use of the blind; and reading maps in relief—the session included the performance of several pieces of symphonic and choral music and a reading lesson given by a blind man to a sighted child, “one Auroy . . . age four years, three months . . . who applied these principles for the first time.”133 In addition to the “Order of Demonstrations,” there was also a “List

   the eighteenth century of Blind Youth” in the program presented to the king and the court. They numbered twenty-four, and not all of them were pensioners of the Philanthropic Society (or not yet). Among them, we find two girl “applicants,” two boys “admitted without bed and board,” and two others, “paying for their education to the sole benefit of the blind children.” In addition, a boy boarder from the “Philanthropic House of Versailles” (located in the Palais-Royal) joined the seventeen boarders (ten boys and seven girls) of the “Philanthropic House of Paris.” The enterprise had thus begun to expand beyond the protégés of the Paris Society. Moreover, from examining this list, we see that not all of Haüy’s students were children and that eight of the boarders of the Philanthropic House of Paris were older than twelve when they were admitted to the boarding school. Two of them were even over twenty-one, which was theoretically the upper age limit for taking up residence. We can thus, on the one hand—following Pierre Henri—hypothesize that the generic term “blind children” applied to Haüy’s first students in fact designated young people who had become blind in childhood even if they were most certainly adults when admitted to the institute. On the other, we can note that the Philanthropic Society had changed its regulations concerning boarders’ ages at admission, and this, as we hypothesized above, coincided in all likelihood with the creation of the spinning school. The presentation at Versailles was a success reported in the Mémoires secrets of December 29, 1786, the Journal de Paris of January 1, 1787, and the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres et des Arts of March 14, 1787. The Mémoires and the Journal de Paris mention the particular interest the Duke d’Angoulême took in the spectacle: pen in hand, [he] enjoyed verifying the fractions calculated in exercise four.”134 All three periodicals used the occasion to draw their readers’ attention to the Essay on the Education of the Blind that “the young students presented to the King and Royal Family.”135 Since the philanthropist who wrote to the Journal de Paris on December 27 did not mention the reading, spelling, printing, geography, and arithmetic exercises, Haüy took the trouble to write to the journal on January 4, specifying that “work relating to professions also seemed to interest the august witnesses of this moving spectacle; that they appeared to have watched with satisfaction as hemp successively became thread

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    and then string in the hands of the blind children, which they then used to make nets, knotted items, and webbing. Knitting, plaiting cord, and bookbinding also seemed to offer the unfortunate group future resources against indigence.”136 This clarification demonstrates that Haüy had become quite concerned with convincing the public of the social usefulness of his work with the indigent blind thanks to apprenticeships in various manual professions, a usefulness recognized by the sovereign himself during the two demonstrations that had taken place at Versailles, one in the presence of the king and royal family, the other in the presence of the king surrounded by his ministers and the court.137 But if the Versailles presentations were financially lucrative for the establishment of the Blind Youth,138 it was not declared a royal institute as its founder might have hoped, and it was a long time before he received a regular subsidy from the public treasury. In the meantime, the work of the blind youth continued to fascinate everyone who was anyone in Paris, all of whom faithfully frequented the public demonstrations organized at least twice a week at rue Notre-Damedes-Victoires “on Wednesdays and Saturdays at noon sharp, and on other days and hours for which we will gladly give an evening’s notice.”139 Jean-François Gleize, a doctor and oculist from Orléans, wrote his impressions of one of these sessions in a work published in 1787, Rules for Life, or How Those Afflicted by Weak Vision Should Conduct Themselves. His testimony allows us to gauge the enlightened public’s interest in this type of demonstration as well as its admiration for Haüy—whose popularity now equaled that of the Abbé de l’Epée. Thanks to his ingenious, and above all, assiduous and constant care, persons deprived of sight can enjoy the charms of reading, form their minds, learn geography, arithmetic, and all the sciences that heretofore had been forbidden them. The solitude in which they lived will thus be embellished, and their learnedly exercised fingers will teach them all that the clearsighted learn through their eyes. They will be deprived only of the magical spectacle of nature and the ever brilliant and varied play of colors. But most of them will have little regret of these marvels, which they have never known, just as we are unaware of many subtleties they perceive with their fingers through their sense of touch and through that of hearing.140

After this remark worthy of Diderot, Gleize decribes the progression of the public demonstrations, which always concluded with “a concert of

   the eighteenth century instruments and voices: a child keeps the beat, the most capable plays the harpsichord, and the concert is remarkable in that there is a need for neither paper, music, lectern, nor candles. They know their tunes by heart, though Monsieur Haüy prepares music books for them so they can learn this science through principles.”141 “What really touched us during this spectacle,” continues the doctor, thus providing information about one of the keys to the public’s infatuation with this sort of show, was the moment when these young people, plunged into darkness, raised their voices to sing a canticle of thanks to the Supreme Being and to their benefactors. Monsieur Gossec’s delightful music, the feeling that reigns in the words, the innocence of these children deprived of the spectacle of the world and condemned to remain ignorant of it, the sweetness of their voice, the purity of sentiment and inflection that seems to animate it, the thoughts to which this spectacle gave rise, everything succeeded in producing a charm that cannot be defined and that drew our tears.142 The sensitive and enlightened amateurs of the capital have already applauded Monsieur Haüy’s successes and his patience, which is beyond praise. The government has taken a protective view of this establishment; the progress it makes every day surely attracts encouragement that will allow it to spread to the greatest number of people.143

As Gleize hoped, the number of those born blind helped by the Philanthropic Society continued to grow, thanks to the generosity of anonymous donors and to the “receipts” from the public demonstrations, those of Versailles having naturally been the most profitable. From forty-six child boarders in 1786, the philanthropists intended to transition to sixty in 1787.144 But of these, not all could be admitted to Haüy’s school; some were too young. The teaching dispensed at the Institute for Blind Youth still affected a very limited number of individuals. In the “Historical Summary” appended to his Essay, Haüy spoke of thirty pupils—certain of whom, we know, were not the boarders of the Philanthropic Society. Joachim Campe, a German pedagogue and visitor to the establishment in 1789, spoke again of thirty to forty students brought together in the hall for a public demonstration he admiringly witnessed alongside other visitors.145 But it was too early to judge the success of the teaching dispensed at the institute in terms of the social and professional integration of those educated there.

Philanthropy and the Education of the Sensorially Impaired    One thing was certain: the presentations to learned societies and at court, the public demonstrations inaugurated on June 29, 1787, and the participation of the little orchestra and chorus of the Blind Youth at different services celebrated in the churches of the diocese of Paris146 all had the effect of convincing the elites and a part of public opinion of the intellectual and artistic capacities of the blind and of their ability to perform a number of manual tasks of which they had only recently been thought incapable. While waiting to “form citizens,” Haüy’s school offered Enlightenment society the spectacle of disability overcome, thanks to the happy combination of philanthropy and pedagogy. But while, thanks to Haüy’s students, the enlightened public enjoyed a spectacle of its own beneficence and sensibility, the establishment of the Blind Youth was slowly becoming institutionalized. After acquiring the premises in 1786, the Philanthropic Society took preliminary steps toward separating the sexes. In the Journal de Paris of February 5, 1787, the society’s secretary wrote: Decency has caused us to establish two positions at twelve livres each, reserved for girls whose examination results make them most suitable to teach the blind of their sex.147 In his Historical Notice on the Establishment of the Blind Youth, Jean-François Galliod, who was admitted in March 1787, recounts that in 1788, on the occasion of their participation in Corpus Christi at Saint-Eustache, “the Philanthropic Society dressed the blind. On their buttons could be read this inscription: Institute for Blind Youth, with the initials of the words ‘Philanthropic Society.’ ”148 Despite these first attempts at “normalization,” the school founded by Valentin Haüy remained a day school where benevolent discipline was quite liberal. Far from getting worked up over the problem of the separation of the sexes, as would be the case in the nineteenth century, Haüy went so far as to favor marriage between students finishing up their education but staying on at the establishment as either teachers or workers.149 While, little by little, the education of the blind from “the class of the least fortunate, though perhaps the most hardworking”150 spread and became institutionalized, another establishment, with which we are quite familiar, perpetuated the image of the blind charity case—though not without undergoing a significant evolution due to new preoccupations with problems of social welfare.

chapter 6

The Move of the Quinze-Vingts and the Annuity from the Public Treasury

During the first half of the eighteenth century, the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts and its administration hardly evolved. The most that can be noted was the increasing ascendancy of the Grand Almoner in governing the establishment, whose age-old ecclesiastic privileges were confirmed under the reign of Louis XV, as they had been previously. The number of brothers and sisters, limited to two hundred1 by deliberation of the chapter on January 11, 1685,2 was increased to three hundred according to an “inventory” of September 13, 1745.3 Alms-seeking was still the principal activity of the blind brothers and sisters, who were given lithographed or printed permissions with the Grand Almoner’s signature authorizing them to collect monies in the churches and streets of Paris.4 About ten blind children continued to be raised in the infirmary: like other members of the congregation, they held the rank of brothers and sisters and enjoyed the same advantages. They were employed as choirboys and girls in the hospice chapel until they were sixteen, at which point they were considered adults and subject to the same obligations as their elders (alms-seeking in particular). But this institution was suppressed in 1752 as “unnecessary and a burden on the house,”5 and, for lack of blind children, the chapter decided that same year to appoint six official choir children selected among the sighted children of community members.6

The Move of the Quinze-Vingts    These children were still to attend the hospice school, and on August 18, 1752, the chapter appointed a schoolmistress to teach the little girls and allotted her a salary of two hundred livres, which would be raised to three hundred in 1755.7 At that time, though, changes of an altogether different nature were under way at the venerable hospice for the blind.

The Reconstruction of the Site on the Rue Saint-Honoré Since the beginning of the century, some of the Quinze-Vingts buildings had shown signs of decay, and in 1714, an unnamed person had offered to obtain permission from the king for “the establishment, publication, and receipt of a lottery of 1 million livres whose profit [would serve] to rebuild all the old buildings therein, which [we]re in a state of extreme dilapidation.”8 The proposal went nowhere, but the project was taken up again in 1746, when the Quinze-Vingts obtained a judgment from the council9 allocating half of the lottery funds earmarked for the erection of Saint-Sulpice to the reconstruction of the Quinze-Vingts church and hospice buildings. The work, begun in 1748, was nearly complete in 1779, despite a few years’ interruption due in particular to the suppression of the Saint-Sulpice lottery. At that date, nothing remained of the former hospice save an old building at the front and the church with the stores up against it,10 while the rest of the enclosure “formed a monument in the middle of Paris remarkable for the multiplicity and beauty of its edifices.”11 Meanwhile, upon returning from his ambassadorship in Vienna (in November 1777), Prince Louis-René-Edouard de Rohan had been named Grand Almoner of France and as such had become Superior General of the Quinze-Vingts. The same year, a declaration on April 19 had ordered the sale of two residences recently occupied by the two companies of Musketeers of the Guard, disbanded by royal ordinance on December 15, 1775.12 One of them—which was situated in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and had served as a barracks for the Black Musketeers—found no buyer, and in the end it was rented to an inspector of the king’s farms, Alexis Moreau du Chillon.13

   the eighteenth century

The Sale of the Property and the Annuity from the Public Treasury On December 31, 1779, the Grand Almoner (who had become Cardinal and Bishop of Strasbourg) obtained letters patent from the king authorizing him to sell the grounds of the Quinze-Vingts—whose buildings had just been reconstructed at great cost14 —and to transfer their home to the rue de Charenton in the former residence of the Black Musketeers. This operation was decided upon without prior consultation of the hospice governors, who were more or less called upon to give their assent after the fact. They refused. The cardinal disregarded them; they stepped down in protest and appealed to parliament in vain, for the king fully supported his Grand Almoner. Without going into the details of this affair—which occasioned a fairly complex financial arrangement during which the Cardinal de Rohan behaved thoughtlessly if not indiscreetly15 —the reasons invoked for alienating the enclosure of the rue Saint-Honoré were as follows: at the old site, the brothers’ lodgings had been rendered unhealthy16 by the proximity of the cemetery, and the neighborhood was too bustling for them to circulate safely and comfortably; the buildings of the Quinze-Vingts required costly maintenance and froze up enormous capital that it would have been preferable to replace with a large annuity ensuring better living conditions for the blind. This annuity would make possible the elimination of almsseeking by providing a fixed allocation and would increase the number of assisted blind people through the creation of external pensions.17 Regarding the site’s disadvantages, we may ask ourselves how they had previously escaped the notice of administrators and Cardinal ArmandGaston-Maximilien de Rohan, who had decided in 1748 to rebuild the hospice in the same place. Besides, those who touted the advantages of converting the house’s real estate capital into a substantial annuity from the treasury underestimated the risks of devaluation inevitably attached to any sort of perpetual annuity. But whatever the explicit or implicit motivations, the campaign was in line with the great reform of public assistance elaborated at the end of the ancien régime and applied to some extent by Jacques Turgot and then by Jacques Necker between 1774 and 1781: increased state control over hospitals to the detriment of administrative

The Move of the Quinze-Vingts    independence; transformation of all the real estate and buildings of the hospital patrimony into annuities; criticism of foundations whose revenues the state felt it should be able to use freely, just as it felt it should be able to use all hospital property; reform and control of the activities of charitable confraternities; preference given to assisted living at home rather than hospitalization when it came to the sick or disabled poor; the struggle against mendicancy.

The Move to the Rue de Charenton and the Reorganization of the Quinze-Vingts Despite the opposition of administrators and the resistance of the housemaster and minister, Cardinal de Rohan concluded the sale of the Saint-Honoré site. According to the contract’s terms, of the 6 million livres selling price, 5 million were to be deposited into state coffers, in exchange for which the state committed itself to paying the Quinze-Vingts a perpetual annuity of 250,000 livres. Of the million given to the cardinal, 450,000 livres were to be reserved for the purchase of the Black Musketeers’ residence from the state.18 The sale took place on January 18, 1780, and the move, in the middle of the following summer. On September 4, the archbishop of Paris authorized the transfer of the bones lying in the old church to the new one, along with commemorative plaques.19 Beginning on July 14, 1780, alms-seeking was forbidden under penalty of imprisonment for the first infraction20 and expulsion for a subsequent offense.21 In compensation, the blind were granted a fixed pecuniary assistance, in principle more abundant than could be the result of begging in the best of years.22 The amount of this indemnity was set at twenty sols per day for the unmarried, twenty-six for brothers and sisters married to someone outside the house, and thirty-six for households where both members belonged to the hospice. To this sum were added two sols per day for each child under the age of sixteen.23 In his ordinance concerning the suppression of alms-seeking, the Grand Almoner declared that it had been one of the goals he had always had in mind when he had sought the means to augment this hospice’s revenues and procure it the aid needed to survive

   the eighteenth century without the obligation of taking up a collection; that this privilege, which had been granted out of necessity, had always been regarded as unworthy of the foundation’s nobility24 and even contrary to good order in the churches and to the respect due divine service.25

De Rohan claimed, moreover, that the blind brothers had previously demanded this measure at the chapter. It was not to everyone’s taste, though, if we are to believe a pamphlet written in 1816 by a former hospice pensioner, François-Bernard Gilles, who accused Cardinal de Rohan of having “abused the confidence of his king and his own powers to increase the troubles of men afflicted with blindness.”26 Among the injustices for which he blamed the cardinal was the insufficiency of the stipend granted the blind in compensation for the lost alms-seeking revenues. Content or no, the blind, like the administrators and other functionaries in charge of the hospice, had to yield to the decisions of the Grand Almoner, who obtained a judgment on March 14, 1783, from the king and his council sanctioning the improvements made to the institution. The following were confirmed in addition to the suppression of alms-seeking: the creation of twenty-five pensions of 300 livres for noblemen and eight other individuals, the same number for poor blind churchmen; the allocation of living allowances of 100, 150, and 200 livres to 300 poor blind provincials; a daily provision of bread for 150 poor people chosen among those aspiring to the confraternity; the establishment of “twenty-five beds for the indigent from the provinces who, afflicted with some malady of the eyes, would be received, fed, and treated for free (until they were healed or until they completely lost their sight) by the most expert oculists of the capital”;27 and finally, the annual attribution of a competition prize of 400 livres to the best paper written on a subject pertaining to the prevention or cure of ocular diseases.28 Of these different measures, only the arrangements concerning the creation of external pensions and the provision of bread to blind candidates were actually put into effect; the prize for research on diseases of the eye and the founding of an ophthalmology clinic remained unrealized projects.29 Confident of his sovereign’s support, Cardinal de Rohan also set new conditions for admission in an ordinance dated May 30, 1783. From sixteen years, the minimum age of admission was raised to twentyone, but above all, total blindness became a requirement even for those

The Move of the Quinze-Vingts    brothers and sisters said to be blind, something that had never before been the case.30 It had doubtless been felt that “practical blindness” was sufficient to justify admission as a blind member of the community. To enforce full execution of this new regulation, two medical visits were organized in 1787, on February 24 and July 31, following which some brothers were dismissed and deprived of all their benefits.31 To the extent that the brothers and sisters of the Quinze-Vingts could no longer contribute to community revenues through alms-seeking, it was probably important to exclude individuals capable of working so as to reserve assistance that no longer had any counterpart for the sick alone. It is important to note, however, that at this time there was still no technical way to affirm a total lack of vision with absolute certainty. The simple ability to distinguish night from day, for example, did not enable the needy admitted to Quinze-Vingts to be self-reliant in better times. With the exception of a few glaring abuses, then, the periodic exclusions based on the new regulations could rightly be considered excessive by the partisans of old traditions. In addition to the suppression of alms-seeking and the modification of the requirements for admission, there were other administrative measures that accompanied the move of the Quinze-Vingts to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, in particular, the creation of a new post—that of Onerary Governor, essentially invented to quash the administrators and master’s opposition to the Grand Almoner’s decisions. In this way, though they maintained at their site “all the rights, privileges, exemptions, [and] immunities32 they had previously enjoyed, and though they still were to honor a certain number of foundations with masses—a number reduced by the Cardinal de Rohan in 1779—the Quinze-Vingts began to lose, de facto if not de jure, their status as a free association of religious and charitable purpose reserved for a limited number of members.33 They assumed the character of a public welfare establishment dependent not only on royal authority, as before, but also on the prosperity of public finances34 and were meant to aid the greatest possible number of blind people according to the principle of assisted living. In the project for an ophthalmology clinic, we can see the beginnings of a medicalization of the establishment that Jacques Tenon again recommended in 1788 in his Reports on the Hospitals of Paris,35 but that would be realized only at the end of the following century.

   the eighteenth century As for the blind members of the hospice, the reform deprived them once and for all of their status as “aristocrats of mendicancy.” It nevertheless kept those who resided within the Quinze-Vingts’ walls in a privileged situation where they continued to enjoy a number of advantages of which residents of other establishments were completely deprived (and in particular, those poor souls admitted to Bicêtre or the Salpêtrière for lack of space at the Quinze-Vingts).36 Thus, in the former residence of the Black Musketeers, each unmarried blind person had the right to a little room with a fireplace, and each couple had a big room with a chimney or two rooms (a big bedroom with a chimney and a small room without one) if they had children.37 The sighted children of the blind received, as in the past, a free education at the hospice school, which was also given new regulations on September 1, 1784: children were admitted from age five through age twelve (at which point they were to be placed in apprenticeships, in principle at the hospice’s expense). They were taught reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and catechism, as well as modesty and cleanliness. Their progress was evaluated each month and rewarded with a prize. The morning began at eight o’clock with attendance of Mass and ended at eleventhirty with morning prayers. In the afternoon, the school opened at two o’clock sharp; it closed at five o’clock in the summer and four o’clock from October 1 to April 1. Teaching began with a pious reading and ended with evening prayers. Wednesdays and Saturday afternoons were dedicated to catechism.38 The place accorded education and religious observance in the schoolchildren’s timetable allows us to measure the ascendancy of the Catholic religion and the concern with “moralizing” that, at the end of the eighteenth century, as in the past, still held sway over community members.39 But whatever the surveillance and various constraints on the Quinze-Vingts blind, they were increasingly thought of as privileged at a time when workhouses [dépôts de mendicité] remained “the cornerstone of the organization of assistance in France,”40 despite the horror they inspired and attempts at their reform.41 In conclusion, we can observe that at the end of the Enlightenment, philanthropists extended the interest philosophes and pedagogues took in the blind and blindness since the beginning of the century to the education of the blind poor. The Institute for Blind Children, created in 1785 by

The Move of the Quinze-Vingts    Valentin Haüy with the support of the Philanthropic Society, sought to impose on everyone and by every means—demonstrations before learned societies and the court, public exercises, participation in religious ceremonies, and musical performances, all of which were signaled by the daily press and literary periodicals—an image of the blind citizen, capable of gaining access to culture, work, and dignity through education. At the same time, the brothers and sisters of the Quinze-Vingts hospice, now joined by blind provincials pensioned by the establishment, helped perpetuate the image of the blind man “of no use to himself or to society,” incapable of being integrated into the world of communication through education or into channels of socioeconomic exchange through work. On the eve of the Revolution, then, there existed two representations of blindness and the blind and two conceptions of what kind of help should be given the poorest among them. Assistance or education? This was the dilemma that was to confront those responsible for charitable aid during the revolutionary period and under the ensuing regimes that were to govern France.

chapter 7

The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind (1791–1794)

“The philanthropists, their sociability, their objectives concerning the progress of knowledge, mores, and society lay . . . at the heart of the Revolution.”1 If a domain exists for which the pertinence of the above assertion can be verified, it is certainly that of welfare and education for the sensorially impaired.

Revolution and Philanthropy As early as August 13, 1789, the Journal de Paris informed its readers that the next day, Tuesday, the octave of the Festival of Saint Louis, the Blind Children will celebrate, at eleven in the morning in the Church of the Ladies of Saint Thomas, a mass on the occasion of the said festival, during which they will perform several pieces of sacred music. Mr. de Charnois will deliver a Speech on Patriotism. The Blind Children will then perform a piece of music intended to represent the homage of their feelings for the Country and for the person of the King.2

The alliance between patriotism and philanthropy was thus publicly demonstrated through the example of the Blind Children in the early months

   the french revolution and the blind of the Revolution. The demonstration was repeated a week later at the Hôtel de Ville in the presence of two patriot members of the Philanthropic Society: Jean-Sylvain Bailly, mayor of Paris, and the Marquis de La Fayette, commander of the National Guard. What follows can be found in the Acts of the Commune of Paris of September 8: Mr. Haüy, teacher of the Blind Children, had asked the Assembly to grant permission for his students to present it with a speech on patriotism delivered by Mr. de Charnois, following a mass said in its honor.3 The Assembly having summoned him this morning, Mr. Haüy came to the Hôtel de Ville escorted by a battalion of the National Guard from the Filles-Saint-Thomas district, and the Assembly repaired to the great hall to receive him. The two heads of the Commune were not long in coming. They entered to the sound of military music performed by the Blind Children. The moving spectacle of these young victims of nature made a profound impression on every heart. Attention soon turned to Mr. de Charnois, who spoke on behalf of Mr. Haüy and who asked that the mayor grant his protection to these children, who have particular need of his benevolence. . . .  Mr. Bailly answered that he considers himself fortunate to hold a position that allows him to demonstrate his esteem for Mr. Haüy and to show the students how much interest they inspire.4

In keeping with a ceremonial that had become customary, the session ended with a musical performance, source of a “sweet emotion” in the spectator’s souls. The narrator concluded: “We were touched by these unfortunates; we conceived a veneration for their teacher that his merit and modesty win him, and the ceremony left profound marks of compassion, pleasure, and sensibility in the memory of all those in attendance.”5 This account is proof, once again, of the extraordinary popularity enjoyed at the time by Haüy and his students, who were welcomed with great pomp by the Commune. It also allows us to understand how much weight was carried by the philanthropic network—represented in the National Constituent Assembly as in the Commune of Paris—when it came to later decisions made in favor of institutions for deaf-mutes and the congenitally blind. When the Abbé de l’Epée died on December 23, 1789, the Keeper of the Seals, Jérôme-Marie Champion de Cicé,6 who had come at the head of a delegation from the National Assembly to witness the Abbé’s

The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind    last moments, thus uttered the now legendary words: “Die in peace; the Nation adopts your children.” A few days later and in the same spirit, the deputies of the Commune of Paris told the National Assembly of their desire for an establishment to be opened at the state’s expense “for the needy orphans that the death of the Abbé de l’Epée has left without support.”7 Two months later, on Tuesday, February 23, 1790, a funeral service in the Abbé’s memory was held at Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. The ceremony unfolded before a deputation from the National Assembly consisting of six elected officials:8 Bailly, leader of the representatives of the Commune of Paris; probably La Fayette; members of the Philanthropic Society, to which the Abbé de l’Epée had belonged; and a numerous crowd that filled the church. The Abbé Claude Fauchet delivered the funeral oration, “an exemplary text in that it presents a nearly perfect blueprint for the Enlightenment Christian as priest-philosopher and philanthropist.”9 “A priest and a citizen,” recalled the Abbé Fauchet with regard to the deceased, “this truly kind-hearted and virtuous man, who desired the good the way others burn with passion, could not live without serving church and country.”10 On February 26, the Journal de la Municipalité et des Districts ran a story about the ceremony and noted the presence of Valentin Haüy’s blind students, to whom the priest of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont had entrusted the musical part of the celebration, alongside the young deaf-mutes. The audience, underscored the journal, “was moved by an emotional double scene: to one side the deaf and mute . . . , to the other, the blind children who expressed the public’s grief with lugubrious, moving music.”11 The author of the account took the opportunity to draw attention to the blind young people, and he invited the nation’s representatives to also recognize “Mr. Haüy . . . , whom it is always our pleasure to hear do justice to his respected emulator, the late Abbé de l’Epée.”12 This association of the deaf and blind for the time of an official ceremony foreshadowed an imminent future that no one seemed ready to imagine. In the meantime, life continued for the two institutes and was not without its upheavals for the deaf-mutes. Even though the Abbé de l’Epée had designated the Abbé Masse as his successor during his lifetime, it was his closest collaborator, the Abbé Roch-Ambroise Sicard, director of the Institute of Bordeaux, who—following numerous intrigues and a

   the french revolution and the blind competition jointly decided by Champion de Cicé, Bailly, and Jean-Louis Brousse-Desfaucherets—became director of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Paris on April 6, 1790.13 At that time, the deaf young people, who had been driven out of the rue des Moulins upon the Abbé de l’Epée’s death, took lessons—but did not yet lodge—at the old convent of the Celestines, “a site formerly designated by the king,”14 where the Keeper of the Seal had them prepare a space to house their school definitively. Between January and March 1790, the Abbé de l’Epée’s students were exposed to the demands of candidates for their benefactor’s succession, while on March 22, “the Blind Children, led by their teacher, Mr. Haüy, and by several members of the Philanthropic Society, went to the Church of Saint-Jacques-l’Hôpital at noon to celebrate a Mass in thanksgiving for the intentions the district had expressed on behalf of their institution. They celebrated Mass with a full orchestra, and a collection was taken up for their benefit.”15 Apparently, the district of Saint-Jacques-l’Hôpital had arranged for the Blind Children to demonstrate their skills the following Thursday, March 25, “in the presence of Messieurs the Deputies of the National Assembly and the representatives of the Commune, the different bodies,16 and the districts”17 in the Commune’s assembly hall at the Hôtel de Ville. The goal of the March 25 ceremony was “to enlighten the Nation as to the usefulness and the resources of the Institution of the Blind Children,”18 whose numbers were stagnant and whose means were dwindling given the collapse of subscriptions to the Philanthropic Society in 1790. The Abbé Sicard took the same type of approach a few months later in the National Assembly, where he was received on August 24, accompanied by a delegation of his students. In both cases, a particularly brilliant student—Jean-Denis Avisse for the blind youth and Jean Massieu for the deaf-mutes—presented a petition on behalf of his comrades that called for the nationalization of their institutions.19 While Haüy and his students took dramatic steps with “Messieurs the Deputies of the different bodies,” Armand-Joseph de Béthune-Charost, president of the Philanthropic Society, alerted La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt and the Committee on Mendicancy to the society’s financial difficulties—and probably drew their attention to the future of the Institute for Blind Youth, whose upkeep put a great strain on the society’s budget.20

The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind    These multiple attempts met with success. On July 21 and September 28, 1791, Pierre-Louis Prieur, the deputy from Châlons-sur-Marne, and Jean-Baptiste Massieu, the deputy from Seine-et-Oise, two of the four commissioners of the Committee on Mendicancy, presented two reports and two projects for decrees concerning respectively the establishment of the congenitally deaf and dumb and that of the congenitally blind to the National Constituent Assembly.21 These texts merit attention: they determined the nation’s custodianship of the two institutions and defined the legal framework for their nationalization.

The “Report on the Establishment of the Institute for the Congenitally Deaf ” and the Decree of July 21, 1791 The fate of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb was examined before that of the congenitally blind, but in reality, the project for a decree that Prieur presented on July 21, adopted the same day by the National Assembly, already partly determined the destiny of the Institute for the Blind. Article 2 of the July 21 decree, which ratified a decision of the Directory of the Department of Paris of April 20, specified that “the site and buildings of the former convent of the Celestines, located near the Arsenal in Paris, will be used in its entirety for the establishment of schools for the instruction of deaf-mutes and the congenitally blind.”22 Without entering into the details of Prieur’s report, which are only of indirect interest here, we will note its essential characteristics, which speak to the spirit with which the nation took over the education of the sensorially disabled. It was not only a question of pursuing the humanizing and civilizing work of the Abbé de l’Epée23 on behalf of individuals whose “double misfortune” made them resemble “savage man”:24 “The education of deafmutes is not limited to those advantages; it also provides a means of subsistence to those who must live by their work.”25 Prieur added that “a host of ateliers [were] ready to set up shop in the institution,” where there were already “a printery devoted to printing the Journal des Savants and the Journal d’Agriculture” and “a workshop manufacturing rugs of cotton and other stuffs previously made in foreign countries.”26 The report’s author also proposed that the institution founded by

   the french revolution and the blind the Abbé de l’Epée—whose essential objective was to give the deaf-mutes access to the fullness of human communication through education—be transformed into a place “at once hospice and school,” where the poor would soon be in a position to “provide for themselves through their work.”27 It was with this in mind that the National Assembly, which decided (retroactive to January 1)28 to pay the honoraria of the teaching and administrative personnel29 on an annual basis, agreed to only one year of “twenty-four full pensions at 350 livres each . . . for twenty-four indigent students already enrolled in the schools.”30 The Assembly was counting on the profits from student labor to “pay for the scholarships” that would therefore “not tax the nation for long.”31 A hospice providing assistance through work as much as an educational institution, the establishment of the deaf and dumb as organized by the decree of July 21, 1791, was also “to be installed in a large facility where individuals of both sexes [could] be placed so that they would be neither in contact with nor at too great a distance from one another.”32 This preoccupation with the separation of the sexes, which hardly seems to have concerned the Abbé de l’Epée, had become so imperative that Prieur proposed raising the number of pupils to one hundred and transforming the establishment into a boarding school. His report’s preoccupation with discipline and other considerations inspired by a work ethic suggest that the young deaf-mutes were soon to lose in liberty what their institution was gaining in continuity and financial security, a security that the disastrous state of the national treasury was to rapidly render quite aleatory. But where in all this were the blind children, whose unification with young deaf-mutes had already been decided by the July 21 decree? Their fate was to be determined by a second decree, adopted by the deputies of the Constituent Assembly two days before it dissolved and prepared by Massieu, constitutional bishop from the department of Oise and deputy of Seine-et-Oise.

The “Report on the Establishment of the Blind and on Its Unification with That of the Deaf and Dumb” and the Decree of September 28, 1791 As his predecessor had done in the case of the establishment for the deaf and dumb, Massieu began his report with a history of the Institute

The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind    for the Blind and a recollection of student activities and instruction received there. A manifesto in favor of the pedagogy of vicariance,33 homage to the philanthropic virtues of the founders of special education, and celebration of the social utility of the two institutions,34 Massieu’s report was also a plea for the gathering of the deaf and the blind in a single location: For all their efforts, one success eluded these worthy masters [Haüy and Sicard]: the establishment of communication between their unlucky students that was as swift and easy as the communication those students had with those who see and hear. [The masters] have now perfected their art in this regard, or at least, according to their initial trials, they are certain to perfect it. It is clear that nature has raised a barrier between the faculties of the deaf-mute and those of the congenitally blind that at first seems insurmountable; . . . But if the blind person can express [his idea] before the deaf-mute’s eyes, and if the deaf-mute can, for his part, trace or express palpable signs that represent the idea that the former inspired, then it is true that the deaf-mute can understand the blind person and the blind person the deaf-mute.35

Confident in the victory of pedagogy over nature, Massieu, himself a former teacher, then described, with a certain lyricism, the society that the blind and deaf, “assembled in the same place [and] gathered in the same workshops,” would form. The society would be “as perfect as that of men who see and hear.”36 Would we not see “the blind man print pages laid out by the deaf-mute; the deaf-mute weave the thread spun by the blind man; the one polish glass and the other turn the wheel of machines; the one draw, paint, engrave, and breathe life into canvas, stone, and marble; the other celebrate the Supreme Being and virtue with his song?”37 And the orator concluded, somewhat bombastically, “What a picture this lively union of talent and the arts makes in a place where only a few years ago, there was but an image of silence, darkness, misery, and desolation.”38 Perhaps, on the preceding July 21–the same day Prieur presented his report and proposal for a decree on the establishment of the deaf and dumb—Massieu had attended a meeting of the National Society of the Nine Sisters,39 during which a blind person and a deaf person had offered members an image of isolation overcome: The session opened with an exercise by a deaf-mute, who, taking dictation from signs, wrote down the marvelous scene in Athalie where Joad warns young Joas against the ruses of flatterers. . . . A man blind since birth undertook a written exchange with the same deaf person. This encounter, so extraordinary and so touch-

   the french revolution and the blind ing, proved that nature can no longer pose obstacles to human communication and that there is no secret she can withhold.40

In both texts, that of Massieu and that of the reporter on the session organized by the Nine Sisters, we find the same vision of a fraternal society where nothing—not even a disability—stands in the way of communication between men.41 An expression of the revolutionaries’ faith in education as a means of forging a united citizenry above and beyond barriers reputedly insurmountable, Massieu’s speech also testified to their faith in the Abbé de l’Epée’s sign language, whose rigor and universality fascinated all those interested in language reform.42 But the idea of bringing together the blind and the deaf in a single facility satisfied a far more pragmatic concern for economy of location. That same spirit of economy prompted the legislature to take the funds destined for the Institute for the Blind not from the national treasury but from the Quinze-Vingts, whose income was “originally destined to assist this class of needy people” and whose annual receipts always produced a surplus more than sufficient for the new establishment.”43 The decree voted by the National Assembly following Massieu’s proposals specified the amount of the endowment allotted the new establishment: “13,900 livres for the honoraria of the principal and secondary teachers, adjunct, two chief inspectors for the workshops, two girls’ governesses, workmistresses, four music teachers, both vocal and instrumental, and finally, eight blind tutors, adding that “for this year alone, 10,500 livres for thirty full scholarships at 350 livres each w[ould] be granted to thirty indigent students already enrolled in the schools.”44 We note that the number of blind scholarship holders was higher than that of deaf-mutes. The reporter attributed this difference to a number of blind students supposedly “greater than that of the deaf-mutes,”45 whom Prieur had no less arbitrarily estimated to be “around 4,000.”46 In reality, it would seem that the number of full pensions had been fixed quite simply in accordance with the number of pensioned students already at each establishment at the date of the decrees. And so, with the support of the Assembly “in that atmosphere of a utopia of reason from the early days of the Revolution,”47 the nationalization and unification of the institutes founded by the Abbé de l’Epée and Valentin Haüy were to “solemnly exemplify mankind’s entry into a new phase of its history.”48 But how would utopia handle reality?

The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind   

The Deaf and Dumb and the Blind Youth at the Celestines: The Regulations of February 1792 If the nation’s recognition of the right of the sensorially impaired to education marked an important historical step—regardless of the limits imposed on Prieur and Massieu’s proposals49 —the consequences of the two institutes’ nationalization and of their unification in a single facility under a single administration, beginning in October 1791, were not as happy as the two reporters would have liked. From the start, the provisions of articles 5 and 6 of Massieu’s decree introduced sources of dissension between the two “principal teachers,” or headmasters, Sicard and Haüy. Article 5 provided that for the Institute for the Blind, “the secondary teacher, the adjunct, the inspectors, governesses, and tutors be selected by the department of Paris, upon their nomination by the blind students’ headmaster in conjunction with the headmaster of the deaf and dumb.”50 The converse was not the case: the headmaster of the blind was not consulted in the nomination of teaching personnel for the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. Here was Haüy in a position inferior to Sicard’s. There was a second difficulty: article 6 of the decree of September 28, 1791, stipulated that “the current bursar of the Deaf and Dumb will also be the bursar of the Blind” and that “all expenses for both houses will be shared so they form but a single establishment under the oversight and inspection of the department of Paris.”51 Now the Regulation for the Establishment of the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, approved by the administrators of directors of the department of Paris on February 16, 1792, gave the bursar quite extensive powers. “Responsible for accounts received and payable,”52 which goes without saying, he was to have both servants, the cook and the porter, under his command, but above all, he was to unfailingly supervise the students and foremen. “The bursar will never allow a student to remain idle. He will inform the headmaster of student carelessness if he has reason to be dissatisfied or of reasons he may have to praise them, so as to bring some around and give others a sign of his satisfaction.”53 And later: “The bursar will be the one to directly inspect all work. He will not only oversee the students employed in the workshops but even the inspectors or foremen. They will all answer to him, each day, with regard to work underway and finished pieces of work, and the bursar

   the french revolution and the blind will answer to the headmaster of each institute, who will answer to the administration.”54 Once again, Haüy found himself in an inferior position with respect to an official from the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, here responsible for managing the budget of the blind youth and with the permanent oversight of the proper functioning of their workshops. Presumably, the “minor disagreement” that, according to Haüy, already existed between the two headmasters before the implementation of the 179255 regulation did not diminish as a result. The fact is that beginning in March 1792, the cohabitation became truly poisoned by the dissension between Haüy and Sicard, which took a dramatic turn due to political circumstances56 and brought unexpected developments. We will not enter into details of the conflict, which may have nearly cost Sicard his life and which had grave consequences for Haüy and the future of his institute.57 Instead, our focus will be the regulations of February 16 and what they reveal of the radical transformations undergone by the Abbé de l’Epée and Haüy’s organizations. The role that fell to the bursar, especially his supervision of student work, is proof of the importance accorded the economic purpose of the establishment that the National Assembly and the department of Paris had organized in that spirit of social liberalism that motivated the protagonists of the first Revolution.58 “At once hospice and school,” the establishment of the deaf and the blind was to one day provide for itself, to no longer cost the treasury a thing. At least that was the hope of the regulations’ authors, who followed the reporters from the National Assembly’s ad hoc committees. Indeed, a list of “Trades Practiced at the Establishment of the Deaf, Mute, and Blind” was annexed to the regulations. In addition to printing, spinning, and knitting—activities common to both institutions— there was lathe-work, carpentry, locksmithing, glove-making, weaving, drawing, painting, and gardening, practiced mainly by the deaf-mutes; rope-making, basketry, ribbon-making, netting, inserting wire teeth into wool cards, and chair caning were the province of the blind. But to “keep students ever active,” as Prieur suggested, and to have them pass “from the hands of their teachers to those of their supervisors,”59 they had always to be within sight and within reach. The establishment the Constituent

The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind    Assembly created was thus a harsh boarding school, where students were kept to a very strict schedule and subject to constant surveillance: “The headmaster of each institute will be the only one to grant students permission to leave the premises. . . . He will never give permission to spend a night on the outside.”60 And further: “The porter will keep the doors to the facility closed at all times and will only open them to a student if ordered to do so in writing by the headmaster of each institute and by the bursar. After ten o’clock in the evening, no one will be permitted to enter or leave for any reason whatsoever.”61 As for the schedule: “The headmasters, masters, and bursar . . . will make sure that the day is divided so that whatever time is not spent on instruction will be devoted to work.”62 There were nonetheless two hourlong breaks per day, one after dinner, which was at two o’clock, the other after supper, which was served at eight. But “there will be no days off except holidays,” and even those days would be “dedicated to religious exercises such as Mass and education.”63 A walk followed afternoon prayers, but we can imagine what those walks were like, with everyone lined up and silent under the vigilant eye of the school’s masters and mistresses. The educational project attempted at the Celestines, then, was a coercive one: students would no longer have a minute to themselves nor any private space—contrary to what had recently been the case for students of the Abbé de l’Epée and Haüy. The regulation specified the following: “The tutor-supervisors of the boys, and the mistress-governesses of the girls (in the case of the deaf) will never leave the students alone, neither day nor night. . . . The inspectors or shop foremen and the mistress-governesses will do the same with the blind.”64 And to be sure the surveillance was complete: All dormitories will be lit at night. The tutor-supervisors’ beds will be placed at either end of the boys’ dormitory, and the mistress-governesses will also sleep in the girls’ dormitory. The shop foremen and mistress-governesses will abide by this same article in the dormitories of the blind.65

These arrangements concerning surveillance of boarders were common to all educational and charitable institutions (schools, hospitals) at the time, and they were reinforced here because of the presence of girls

   the french revolution and the blind and boys in a single facility. We can still imagine how unpleasant they must have been for the blind youth, constantly exposed to the gaze of people they could not see. It can be said that the authors of the 1792 regulations fully realized the ideal of panopticism without having had to spend money on a particular architectural layout. The pleasure of learning and the pedagogy through play recommended by the Abbé de l’Epée and the Abbé Sicard66 as well as the educational plan whose key was the happiness of the blind, as presented by Haüy to the Academic Bureau of Writing in 1784, brutally gave way to a program of normalization through education and work where the “handicapped of the sign,” with all their deficiencies jumbled together, were brigaded and carefully separated from the social life for which they were supposedly being prepared. And it is significant that the authors of the 1792 regulations were very circumspect when it came to artistic disciplines. With regard to the deaf: “only students the drawing teacher has deemed talented will be admitted to the drawing school. But this type of work will never exempt the girls from learning to sew.”67 The same kinds of recommendations were made for the blind: “Only students the music teacher has deemed talented will be admitted to music lessons. But it is to be remembered that as music will never be a job for the blind and will only be able to serve as consolation, it should be but accessory to their education. It is preferable to place them in all jobs they are able to perform despite their infirmity.”68 In addition, the perspective of social mobility introduced by Haüy— who dreamed of turning his students into “new Saundersons” serving as teachers “of other students, or even of the sighted,” or into talented artists, “equals of the celebrated Miss Paradis,”69 was exchanged for a process of social control where students from the laboring classes were invited to become honest workers, subject to the laws of their superiors and capable of one day fending for themselves: “Before leaving the establishment, each student, even the blind, must be able to earn a living through a useful trade without being a burden to his family or society. The instructors must never forget that this is the essential goal of both institutions.”70

The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind   

The Failure of a Utopia Whatever the certitudes and intentions of the first Revolution’s philanthropists, their decision to bring together in a single facility the Institutes of the Deaf and Dumb and of the Blind ended in failure. The cohabitation proved disastrous on many counts and came to an end on April 3, 1794, with the departure of the deaf, who went to live in a new location, the former seminary of Saint-Magloire on the rue Saint-Jacques. Rather than enter into the establishment’s detailed history during these two eventful years marked by grave financial and material difficulties,71 we will try to understand why the Institute for Blind Youth immediately found itself in an inferior position with respect to that of the deaf-mutes and was as good as placed under the tutelage of their principal teacher and surveillance of their bursar. It is likely that Sicard’s maneuvers were at the origin of these measures. A letter dated January 28, 1792, addressed by Haüy to someone he called the “mediator” of the Institute for Blind Youth with the department of Paris, confirms that certain articles of the regulations had been “arranged” without his knowledge, the proofs of the regulation having been submitted to Sicard and not to him.72 Furthermore, the conditions under which the inquiry into the establishment of the blind children took place in November 1791, at the behest of the Committee of Public Welfare, three months before the adoption of the Regulations for the Establishment of the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, evoke Sicard’s 1790 manipulations of the teachers of the deaf and certain students in an attempt to supplant the Abbé Masse and other candidates in line to succeed the Abbé de l’Epée. Haüy’s students had thus been heard by the committee “in private and outside their teacher’s presence,” which allowed them to “expose the drawbacks of Mr. Haüy’s establishment” while “going into significant detail.”73 Whether or not Sicard was the instigator, the measures taken by the Committee of Public Welfare reveal wariness on the part of the authorities with respect to Haüy. Benefactor or charlatan? From then on, the founder of the Institute for the Blind found himself on the razor’s edge, and his uncomfortable position benefited the director of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. We may still ask ourselves if Haüy and his students were not victims of a “prejudice against the blind,” whose existence throughout the ages has been denounced by Pierre Villey.

   the french revolution and the blind If it is true that the public demonstrations performed by Haüy’s students could lend themselves to trickery, as the attestations of some spectators suggest,74 the same thing could be said for the public demonstrations of the Abbé de l’Epée and later the Abbé Sicard—and their students. In two letters to Sicard from November 2 and December 18, 1785, did the Abbé de l’Epée not reveal, for example, that during public demonstrations, summaries had been communicated to the students in advance?75 But it seems the public authorities never envisaged carrying out an investigation of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. If, as we believe, Sicard schemed to win power over Haüy in the establishment created by the Constituent Assembly, his maneuvers would have led nowhere had they not been bolstered by tenacious representations associating blindness with incapacity. A petition sent to the Legislative Assembly in the week after August 10, 1792, by twenty-four citizens calling themselves “Friends of the Blind” suggests as much. The petition demanded the “elimination of the article granting the Abbé Sicard the right to propose teaching candidates given that, along with the department, he invariably opposed their reception by calling the blind “pure machines who had no need of education.” 76 This “accusation,” formulated against Sicard shortly after his arrest by members of the revolutionary committee of the Arsenal section—of which Haüy was then secretary—must be taken with a grain of salt. Just the same, it is plausible that the teacher of the deaf may have said this sort of thing about the congenitally blind, for eight years later, he professed a similar opinion about the very deaf-mutes he had then been teaching for nearly fifteen years: What is a congenital deaf-mute considered in and of himself before some kind of education has begun to connect him to the great family to which he belongs by his outward appearance? He is a perfectly worthless being, a living automaton. . . . Limited to physical movement alone, he does not even possess that sound instinct that leads animals destined to have no other guide until the shroud that envelops his reason has been torn apart. . . .  Until then, the deaf-mute is but an ambulant machine whose organization is inferior to that of animals. . . .  As for his moral nature, it results from and is combined with so many elements so out of his reach that he does not even suspect it exists. . . . 

The Establishment of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind    Such is the deaf-mute in his natural state that my long experience of observation, from living with him, has put me in a position to depict.77

The term machine, applied to the blind and then to deaf-mutes, can be found in both texts. If in the second, Sicard refers to mechanisms and animality to accentuate the difficulties of providing the deaf and dumb with an education—but also on its necessity and on the merits of those who succeed—in the first, he is accused of having used this comparison to call into doubt the relevance of education for the blind and to justify his refusal to approve their teachers. This questioning may have found a favorable echo among certain members of the department of Paris who themselves had doubts about the “educability” of the congenitally blind. The ambitious abbé, whom Pierre-Louis Guinguené would call a “stiff-necked priest”78 in 1811, was always able to profit from the prejudices of his contemporaries in whatever way best suited his ambitions and the furthering of his own celebrity. Be that as it may, with the departure of the deaf-mutes to the rue “Jacques” on April 3, 1794, Haüy finally had his revenge. But the material difficulties of his establishment were ever greater, and according to Galliod (and confirmed by a document of 21 Frimaire, Year II [December 11, 1793], preserved in the archives of the Quinze-Vingts79), it was “the savings of the printery [that] for several years eased the lot of the blind, which grew more difficult each day.”80

chapter 8

The National Institute for Blind Workers

After a few more months at the Celestines—mostly occupied from then on by the Agency for the Movement of Arms [L’Agence du mouvement des armes]—the blind youth were themselves finally transferred to another site, the hospice of the “Catherinettes,” located at 24 rue Denis, at the angle of the rue des Lombards.1 Haüy had long staked a claim to this facility, situated in a central neighborhood (as the institute had been in its early days), where he hoped to more easily find job prospects for his students. In the meantime, the question had arisen as to whether “the establishment of blind workers,” whose new name2 was a story in and of itself, should “remain under the aegis of the Committee of Public Instruction” or if it should “be funded by the Commission of Public Assistance.” In other words, should “the Institute for Blind Workers be considered more particularly a charitable establishment than an object of public instruction”?3

The Education of Blind Youth: A Problem of Assistance or Public Instruction? The question was a matter of which commission the establishment would depend upon from a budgetary perspective. This dilemma, essentially administrative and financial in nature, had nonetheless great significance in the mind of the institute’s founder. Indeed, if Haüy made

The National Institute for Blind Workers    the rounds in order to obtain subsidies for his institute, which at the time lacked for everything,4 he was anxious that it be considered a teaching establishment. “You request, Citizen, the oversight of our establishment in the name of your commission,” he wrote on 25 Nivôse Year III (January 15, 1795) to a member of the Commission of Public Assistance. I view this claim with as much pleasure as gratitude; it testifies to the loving interest you take in helping my unfortunate students. There is effectively an analogy between their basic needs and the nature of the institute of the Commission of Public Assistance. The Constitution establishes this principle,5 but the oversight of your committee does not strike me as exclusive. If society owes the needy assistance, education is also their due [emphasis in the original]. And my establishment, whose basis is industry, also requires the vigilance of the commission charged with the progress of education, cultivation of talent and the arts, of jobs related to trades, etc. I will, Citizen, enter into great detail with respect to your commission, and I will neglect nothing that will shed light on its charitable operations on behalf of our institute.6

But it was Jean-Marie-François Merlino, a Montagnard deputy from the department of Ain and a member of the Committee of Public Assistance who, on 25 Prairial Year III (June 14, 1795), presented the National Convention with a “Report and Proposal for a Decree on the Definitive Organization of the Establishment Founded in Paris for Blind Workers.” And he did so “in the name of the three Committees of Finance, Public Instruction [emphasis ours], and Public Assistance.” It seemed the request had been heeded, and yet—

The Law of 10 Thermidor Year III (July 29, 1795) Concerning the Organization of an Establishment for Blind Workers Directly inspired by Merlino’s proposal, the Law of 10 Thermidor Year III did not clearly state which committee(s) were responsible for the Institute for Blind Workers. Only article 5 specified that “the Commission of Public Assistance . . . will provide the Institute for Blind Workers with furnishings, linens that it might lack, and tools for the different trades the students are likely to practice.”7 None of the other articles affecting fi-

   the french revolution and the blind nances specified which budget would be charged for expenses concerned, whether scholarships granted students who were to be “fed and cared for at the Republic’s expense” or the salaries of the various institute personnel. One thing alone is certain: it had become a question of the state budget and no longer that of the Quinze-Vingts. This was no longer a matter of the state temporarily sponsoring and financing a privately founded charity limited to a small number of students. Called for the first time a “national institute,” the establishment founded ten years earlier by Haüy with the patronage of the Philanthropic Society was now open to blind children from poor families throughout the Republic. To respond to this vocation, it no longer offered thirty but “eighty-six free spots (one . . . per . . . department) for as many blind students.”8 Coming one year after the fall of the Montagnards, the law organizing the National Institute for Blind Workers may seem a resurgence of the legislation of Year II concerning national charity: a recognition of the Nation’s debt toward the poorest, with, as a corollary, a merciless struggle against mendicancy. But if their institute was now considered “national,” Haüy’s students were no less officially called “blind workers,” and article 3 of the Law of 10 Thermidor stipulated—as had the regulation of 1792— that “their instruction will last five years, during which time each student will learn a type of work that he will be able to practice in society [emphasis ours].”9 It should be noted that the law also anticipated cases where a student might prefer to do this work at the institute. The student would then no longer have a scholarship, but “the institute would promise to pay him for his work.”10 In the same spirit, article 8 specified that “the blind preferably be admitted to posts that their talents and disability allow them to hold.” Thus, the number of blind tutors being reduced from eight to four, “the four positions for teachers of voice and various instruments, which until now have been held by sighted people, will henceforth be filled by the former tutors. There will be a preference shown those who, in addition to musical talent, have the advantage of being able to practice and teach a manual trade to their brothers in misfortune.”11 Whether outside or inside the institute, students were one day to achieve social integration through work, though even in that regard, the state committed itself more than it had in the past to the blind youth.

The National Institute for Blind Workers    Article 10 of the Law of 10 Thermidor specified the following: “The National Convention, in order to reward those students of both sexes who have distinguished themselves during their five years of schooling, decrees that each one of them, upon leaving the institute, will be given a sum of three thousand livres to facilitate their establishing themselves.”12 We will see below that the state’s commitment to the process of the blind poor’s social integration through education and work was decisive: despite the economic crisis that marked the end of the revolutionary period and the incomprehension of the consular and, later, imperial governments, no political regime would ever go back on the principle of state responsibility for the institution Haüy founded in 1785. Only the details of this responsibility would vary with the times and political regimes. Indeed, the question of whether “the Institute for Blind Workers should be considered more specifically a charitable establishment than an object of public instruction”13 was not yet decided. And so Daunou’s proposal for a law on the organization of public instruction, which was presented to and adopted by the Convention on 8 Brumaire Year IV (October 25, 1795), took schools for deaf-mutes and the congenitally blind into account: Title III. Special schools . . .  Art. 2. There will be more schools for deaf-mute and for the congenitally blind.14

From Talleyrand’s report on public instruction (1791) to Condorcet’s report and proposal for a decree followed by the project of François Lanthenas (1792), to Louis-Michel Le Péletier’s proposal for a decree on public education (1793), none of the great texts on public instruction or national education previously presented to the various revolutionary assemblies had shown an interest in institutions for the deaf and blind.15 In this respect, it appears that the Thermidorian legislation went further than any preceding proposals. This was probably due to the fact that the Law of Brumaire Year IV on public instruction, the last of the Convention and also of the Revolution, was for the first time a general law, organizing the entirety of French education.16 However, the responsibility for the two establishments, only recently funded by the Minister of the Interior,17 ultimately fell not to the Division of Public Instruction and Schools, but to the Division of Public Assistance—as did the hospitals and ateliers de charité.

   the french revolution and the blind

Life at the Catherinettes: Material Difficulties and a Crisis in Leadership Contrary to the September 28, 1791, decree, the Law of 10 Thermidor Year III was not followed by any internal regulations. But the institution’s vital problems were far from solved by the law’s generous provisions, and the Institute for Blind Workers, like all charitable establishments, suffered the consequences of the Year III economic crisis and the return to a free market economy. These difficulties were emphasized in a report of 6 Fructidor Year III (August 24, 1795), addressed by the supervisors of the Paris hospices to the Commission of Public Assistance proposing that the treasury pay a sum of “403 livres 15 sols to supplement the pension of the nineteen students at the Institute for Blind Workers”: “The Convention having . . . charged the Commission of Public Assistance with seeing to the needs of the establishment of Blind Workers, it is proper that the Commission promptly rescue it from the financial straits in which the place finds itself.”18 Let it be said in passing that we are far from the thirty pupils anticipated in the founding decree and that the economic difficulties of the late revolutionary period would prevent the Directory from funding the “eighty-six free positions . . . for as many blind students from seven to less than sixteen years [of age]” created by the Law of 10 Thermidor. Far from subsiding, the penury of the institute—which the Directorial legislation on public assistance of Year V would nonetheless keep on the treasury’s payroll19 —only worsened through the end of the Directory. Several of Haüy’s letters aimed to bring to the government’s attention “the frightful situation in which the establishment finds itself.”20 Times were hard, and the institute was the theater of all kinds of episodes as a result of revolutionary events. At the time of the anti-Jacobin repression, after the popular uprisings of spring 1795 in Paris, Haüy, former commissioner of the Revolutionary Committee of the Arsenal section, was denounced as a terrorist and then incarcerated following a judgment of 5 Prairial Year III (May 24, 1795) that leveled seven charges against him. The most important charge emanated from Sicard, who accused his rival of having been behind the former’s own arrest on August 26, 1792, and then of his retention in prison during the September massacres. Released

The National Institute for Blind Workers    thanks to a petition by certain students, reincarcerated on 2 Messidor Year III (June 20, 1795), let go again on 11 Messidor (June 29), and under house arrest at the Institute for Blind Workers, Haüy was exonerated by a decision of the Committee of General Safety on 19 Fructidor Year III (September 5, 1795).21 From then on, he should have been able to peacefully manage his establishment, to which the new provisions of the law of the preceding 10 Thermidor were supposed to apply. Unfortunately, to use the very terms of a letter he addressed to the Commission on Public Assistance on 26 Thermidor, the “circumstances” had “destroyed the harmony between his students, teachers, and classes.”22 As had already happened in November 1791 and then in September 1792, on 9 Fructidor Year III (August 27, 1795)—when Haüy was not yet thoroughly cleared of the accusations against him—some of his students had addressed themselves to the authorities to “provide some very useful information to the Commission [of Public Assistance] and to demonstrate the defects that reigned in the establishment.”23 Two days later, on 11 Fructidor Year III (August 29, 1795), “Sire Avisse, grammar tutor at the Institute for Blind Workers,” wrote in turn to criticize the functioning of the establishment. This time—a few lines from Jean-Denis Avisse’s letter indirectly provide proof—we can be sure that Sicard, principal source of the reproaches leveled against Haüy on the political front, was also one of the instigators of the steps taken against him by some of his students and collaborators. Here are the words of Avisse, who had entered the Institute of Blind Children in 1788, where he had been appointed grammar and logic tutor shortly after the 1791 decree: Convinced by several years of careful examination that the Institute for Blind Workers in its current state, as presented to the enlightened eye of the attentive observer, can only offer palpable proof of the seductive charlatanism of its creator, convinced that the means of instruction offered there unsuccessfully until now to both sexes are and always will be of a uselessness demonstrated by experience, convinced, finally, that the so-called marvels carried out publicly by its students, now adults, have never been anything but dazzling tours de force, more suited to pique the curiosity of idlers than to inspire the admiration of educated people, I hasten, before the organization of this establishment is finalized, to avow frankly, Citizen, that were you to keep me in my post as grammar tutor it would be costly to the Nation, since my service has long been rendered useless by the inaptitude

   the french revolution and the blind of students of too advanced an age. My approach will not surprise you, Citizen, when you consider that an honnête homme always tells a truth he believes useful, even if it goes against his own interests. Do not accuse me of ingratitude, however, toward the teacher whose fame I considerably tarnish here. He who knows the human heart knows that is as impossible to be ungrateful toward someone who has done good as it is to be grateful toward someone who has not. I completed my studies in secondary school before being struck by blindness in foreign lands.24 For two years, although I was associated with the establishment of the blind, I frequented that of Citizen Sicard, who honored me with his esteem [emphasis ours], so as to learn grammar along with the difficult art of teaching it by steeping myself in his sublime method. It must be said, Citizen, that I would have not waited until now to reveal these observations, if Citizen Gersin had not ordered me to keep silent, persuaded as I was by several deputies who have knowledge of the establishment’s countless flaws that the decree that today assures its existence would only be issued after a strict examination of Citizen Haüy’s instructional methods. Now that this decree, which allows men-students to remain in the establishment, leads me to believe in the necessity of my dismissal, I await your declaration of it, unless a wise reorganization, an educational plan outlined by some able hand, teachers worthy of the title, and, finally, students of a still tender age render me useful to this establishment, which would in turn be worthy of the Nation that protects it.25

This quite virulent text, which reads like a denunciation, is clearly proof of the divisions wrought within the Institute for the Blind by Haüy and Sicard’s rivalry during the cohabitation at the Celestines. But Avisse’s letter—and the petition addressed two days earlier “To Citizen Derniot, member of the Commission of Public Assistance in Paris,” by eight students of the institute—reveal a crisis of another order as well. In truth—though it cannot be imputed solely to Haüy’s management or pedagogical methods—the Institute for the Blind had recruited practically no new students for several years for lack of having received sufficient material and financial aid from the Republic. As a result, it resembled less and less a school and more and more an atelier de charité where, for want of prospects, the students, become adults, stayed without any plans for the future other than the assurance of the establishment’s survival through their work—unless they tried to get a spot at the Quinze-Vingts, as Avisse had done unsuccessfully beginning in October 1791. Now these “men-stu-

The National Institute for Blind Workers    dents,” to use Avisse’s expression, were still obliged to show up for the public exercises that were at first bi-weekly and later every ten days, a practice maintained despite its ambivalence—without mentioning their active participation in various Republican demonstrations and then in the great Revolutionary festivals through the entire Montagnard Convention. That these adults, some of whom had embarked on an adventure inaugurated to general enthusiasm ten years earlier, had become discouraged by the paltry results of an enterprise launched amid a blaze of publicity and that they were tired of serving as foils to a person who had disappointed them is perhaps what is conveyed by the participation of some in the defamatory campaign against Haüy from Prairial to Fructidor of Year III. Haüy did not let these accusations leveled at his work go unanswered, of course, and he highlighted that, far from being useless, the trades his students had been taught “br[ought] funds [to the establishment] and unburden[ed] the Nation to the same extent.”26 In his opinion, the reason for the Institute for the Blind’s foundation and nationalization—to make the blind “useful to themselves and to society”—had not been betrayed. Unfortunately, in lending their support to the campaign fomented against their teacher, the signers of the petitions criticizing his establishment and methods gave arguments to skeptics and all those persuaded that charity was the sole means of aiding the blind. If educated blind people could write that “man’s faculties are so limited by the loss of sight that it is impossible that a blind man count on the product of his labor to procure him life’s necessities,”27 how would it be possible to maintain the political and administrative authorities’ faith in the validity of intellectual education and professional training for the blind?

And Yet, the Education of the Blind Continued At first, the Institute for Blind Workers survived this crisis and life continued at the Catherinettes under the direction of Haüy, while the signatories of the various letters against his teaching methods stayed on at the establishment. During this time and over the course of the ensuing years, François Lesueur (who had become the institute’s bursar), the four tutors, three out of four of the shop foremen, and seven adult “students” formed families while remaining at the institution. These were Haüy’s

   the french revolution and the blind pride and joy, but they scandalized a certain number of right-thinking people, who would soon reproach him for having encouraged unions between the blind. The government, enforcing the Law of 10 Thermidor, began to select new students: seven in Year IV, ten more in Year V, thirteen in Year VI, eleven in Year VII, three in Year VIII, two in Year IX. Of these fortysix new recruits, seventeen were younger than ten years old when they entered the institute; only six were fifteen years or older, and the others were between ten and fifteen—which, overall, was true to the spirit of the Law of 10 Thermidor Year III and gave the establishment back its character as a scholarly institution coupled with a workshop that employed students who had become adults. In his Historical Notice, Galliod says that “the former students transmitted the instruction they had received, and as soon as the new students were sufficiently educated, Mr. Haüy had them appear at the public exercises.”28 In spite of the accusations of charlatanism leveled against Haüy and his public demonstrations, these last remained one of the essential poles around which the teaching dispensed at the Institute for Blind Workers gravitated. It must be said that it was more necessary than ever to convince the public and the authorities of the validity of an institution attacked from all sides and whose financial situation was not improving. On 16 Pluviôse Year IV (February 4, 1796), the Blind Workers were invited to demonstrate their work before the Minister of the Interior, Pierre Bénézech, during a festival in honor of General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan. Avisse took the opportunity somewhat later to address a request To Citizen Bénézech, Minister of the Interior. With the Intention of Obtaining Wages as Cash Payments.29 This petition, written with humor, denounced the misery that plagued the establishment as a consequence of the economic crisis and the devaluation of paper money. After an amusing evocation of a supper offered in honor of Jourdan, Avisse came to the object of his request: that the minister see to it that pensions and salaries due the institute’s students and tutors be paid every month in cash—or that he decide to invite them every day to supper.30 In a more administrative style, Haüy wrote in turn to the Minister of the Interior on 7 Thermidor Year IV (July 24, 1796): despite all their efforts, the students’ work “far from providing for their upkeep, hardly

The National Institute for Blind Workers    suffices to meet the deficit of food [emphasis in text].”31 Consequently, he asked the minister to carry out Article 4 of the Law of 10 Thermidor stipulating that students be supported at the Republic’s expense. Ten months later, in Prairial Year V, the national treasury having still not paid an installment of the total bed and board for the quarter of Nivôse, the situation was just as disastrous. Haüy then asked the minister to assign a baker and a butcher to the establishment who would be capable of supplying necessary bread and meat on a daily basis “under government responsibility,”32 which was to say, from the Minister of the Interior’s budget. If the measures proved impracticable, Haüy suggested suspending the nomination of students. The following winter—for which police reports register daily crowds at the doors of bakeries—Avisse wrote “To Citizen François de Neuf-Château, one of the directors of the French Republic,” to ask him for firewood.33 In their repetitiveness, the letters and petitions, even when wittily crafted, are tinged with a monotony that was only equaled by the permanence of a lamentable situation for which there was apparently no solution. We have not found, for this period, as there were later on, lists of medical observations of each student. The institute was doubtless not sufficiently well organized from a material perspective for its students and tutors to benefit from regular medical visits. Moreover, it appears no doctor was specifically assigned to the establishment at the time. We can still imagine, from the texts concerning the facility’s hardships—but also from the unlucky fate of Avisse, who died prematurely of an illness shortly after these events—the catastrophic consequences of all these privations for the health of the students and tutors. Yet if the Institute for Blind Workers lacked for everything, its teaching and work continued. In his note, Galliod recounts that in 1797, “Mr. Haüy changed the characters that had been used until then and replaced them with ones that had the advantage of serving for both classroom use and for the printing of books.”34 Galliod also confirms that the recruitment of new students resolutely continued and that they had formed a little orchestra—for which Haüy would soon be reproached, as he was for so many of his initiatives.35 Finally, in the purest tradition of the congreganist schools of the ancien régime,36 but also in accordance with revolutionary faith in the pedagogical virtue of spectacle, Haüy came up with the idea of introducing the practice of school theater.37

   the french revolution and the blind

The Little Educational Theater, or “The Theater of Beneficence” This initiative, if we are to believe Haüy, originated with the parents of the young sighted children accepted in the primary classes installed in the institute’s buildings and run by blind students who had become teachers. The parents, most of whom were shopkeepers from the neighboring streets, supposedly suggested that on recreational days, the students busy themselves by performing “little dramas favorable to the progress of education and patriotism”38 inside the school. In order to encourage the practice, Haüy wrote to the directors to ask that his institute be given “an assortment of theatrical decorations from the small apartments of Versailles and its outbuildings.”39 At first, the sighted students were the actors, while their parents paid blind musicians “to fill the orchestra and the choruses.”40 But soon the blind themselves would become players. On 27 Thermidor Year IV (August 13, 1796), possibly in the presence of the directors, who had been invited to the performance,41 a play written by Antoine Fabre d’Olivet42 with them in mind was created at the Institute for Blind Workers: The Sage of Indostan, a philosophical drama in one act and verse interspersed with choruses and music. The author’s dedication to Haüy claims this last had the idea of putting the blind onstage: “I only second your desires in trying to create a drama that they can stage without difficulty. Episodic scenes struck me as the easiest to render, and that is what I have chosen.”43 As in the old collèges, the play written by Fabre d’Olivet at Haüy’s request had a dual pedagogical purpose: it was aimed at the students who acted in it and the public who watched. The short dramatic piece, in which the words virtue and virtuous were uttered eleven times, brought together three characters: a “sage” living in seclusion in the mythical country of Indostan, to whom “an old man” brings “a blind child,” his son, in hopes of having him cured. The sage must immediately disabuse the unhappy old man: it is not within his power to “break with the laws of nature” by restoring the child’s sight.44 He can, though, raise him out of ignorance and idleness and “introduce [him to] a career” of wisdom and virtue. To prove the validity of his proposal, the sage invokes the testimony of four

The National Institute for Blind Workers    tutelary figures from the recent and distant history of blindness: “the valiant Belisarius,” “the audacious Milton,” “the scholar Sanderson” [sic], and “the divine Homer.”45 The spectators then saw, in four successive scenes, the shades of the four famous blind men come to give the public lessons from their experience. Blinded by his emperor, Belisarius learned to prefer true wealth— peace and virtue—to the “splendor of courts” and the “clash of arms.” 46 Educated by misfortune, Milton drew upon it for inspiration.47 Saunderson, blind since childhood, overcame “this invincible obstacle” thanks to his studies and assiduousness. A final evocation, that of the “learned and divine Homer,” allowed for the opposition of Greece—which would have abandoned the blind poet “to the horrors of indigence”48 —and a people enlightened, wise, valiant, humane . . .  A people of the fine arts a generous protector, Who through fair laws honors misfortune.49

After homage paid to the sage, who “was able to lift the mute and the deaf out of oblivion”50 came the story’s high point: the evocation of he who, dedicating his labors to the blind, Lit up their reason, and through their learned hands, Was able to replace the eyes’ beneficent clarity.51

The play ended with the presentation of a “magical tablet” to the old man and his son, a tablet on which the blind workers, grouped behind a gauze at stage rear, performed their usual exercises to the sound of instruments and voices harmoniously attuned: But first, to your eyes, the zeal that moves me, Wishes to offer an image interesting and sublime, In which the most touching harmony of virtues reigns, Such as is the case in Paris, perhaps at this very moment. See these happy couples use new means To teach their young, cherished children, Form them for talent as well as for wisdom. While these mortals who, deprived of light But learnèd in that art which in Europe was invented Trace of the printer the movable type, Others, mixing the agreeable and the useful,

   the french revolution and the blind Enlivening their work with dazzling concerts, Sing in unison or harmonize tunes.

To this monologue of the sage of Indostan a blind choir replies: Oh you whose hearts can be moved, Come contemplate our works. See in the midst of our troubles, What study has made possible.52

Carried away by the “sublime” spectacle, the blind child begs his father to take him to these “enchanted lands,” where he hopes to add his voice to the harmonious chorus of the Parisian institution’s students. We do not know the exact fortunes of this “philosophical drama” for which Fabre d’Olivet wrote the music as well as the text. Léon Cellier, in his work on Fabre, speaks—without going into detail—of a “considerable success” and of “several performances.”53 In any event, the appearance of the blind workers on the stage of the “little educational theater,” inaugurated by the first performance of the Sage of Indostan, derived from the same desire to educate the public as had their recent participation in the great egalitarian and fraternal festivals of the Republic of Year II. Once again, Haüy endeavored to promote an image of his students as blind citizens “educated in laws and in the arts” and contributing through their works and “the harmony of their intonations” to the construction of the New City.54 It thus may be said of the “National Teacher-in-Chief of the Blind”—a title Haüy appended to his signature on official documents at the time—that he corresponded to the ideal figure of the revolutionary teacher, incarnating in his person the fundamental unity of national education and public instruction.55 But the opening of a theater on the ground floor of the Institute for the Blind also met another objective. Let us not forget the misery that then reigned in the establishment nor the terms of Haüy’s letter to the Minister of the Interior on 7 Thermidor (July 24), a few days before the “premiere” of the Sage of Indostan: “The critical circumstances of the times render[s] the means insufficient and the students’ work, far from providing for their upkeep but rather being hardly sufficient to make up for the deficit of food ” (emphasis in text).56 In consequence, Haüy rented his theater, under the name “Theater

The National Institute for Blind Workers    of Beneficence,” to an impresario, Sire Barré, who mounted several productions, mostly comedies, whose goals were surely more lucrative than didactic. One of these comic plays, written by Jean-Denis Avisse, nonetheless incorporated a certain number of realistic details into its fanciful plot as to the way the blind perceive people and things. The play in question was the Ruse of the Blind Man, “Comedy in One Act and in Verse, with Ariettas . . . performed for the first time on 2 Nivôse, Year V of the Republic [December 22, 1796] at the Theater of Beneficence, 34 rue Denis, at the corner of the rue des Lombards.” The play, whose action took place at the Institute for Blind Workers, had as its main character a young blind professor, Périn, the thwarted lover of Lise, whose young sister, Colette, herself blind, was a student at the institute. The author could thus introduce, more or less at the heart of the plot, the traditional spectacle of the writing lesson, in this case a lesson given by Périn to the establishment’s little blind girls, who appeared for a time onstage. Above all, the play gave its author the opportunity to put a certain number of words in the mouths of his characters concerning blind people’s aspirations to have a normal emotional, familial, and social life— were they to resort to trickery, like Périn.57 “I am blind,” says Colette, for instance, but if ever a youth Wants to marry me, truly? I will not say no: More than one has already told me I’m quite nice; And it’s dull to remain ever the maiden! She who marries has children at least; She plays with them; has something to do: She’s called mommy, she’s caressed, loved. If I were a mommy, that’s how it would be.58

And that’s just how things were at the institution run by Haüy: we saw the criticism his positions earned him on this account. Needless to say, The Blind Man’s Ruse was ill-judged by “right-thinking” educators of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all the more so because certain scenes—especially those featuring Nelson, another blind teacher at the institute and a friend of Périn—were rather risqué: By needs one must grope when one cannot see.

   the french revolution and the blind Touching the little face of an exciting young thing, I can see if the wench is ugly or sweet. When she’s to my liking, I feel again. Who tires of seeing a face young and beautiful?59

To Nelson’s monologue, evocative of the tradition of the lusty blind man of medieval farce—even while parodying the learned remarks of the sensationalist philosophers on sensorial substitution—Justine, servant of Lise and Colette, replies with a question: But what is the beautiful to you?

Nelson immediately answers with another monologue that seems inspired by Diderot and during the course of which the actor playing the role of the young blind man probably accompanied his words with gestures: It is, my Justine, This charming smoothness of skin fresh and fine, These gracious contours, so lovely to outline, This flesh that under our fingers refuses to yield, A forehead young and polished by delicate charms, Two grand arched eyebrows and lashes long, A lovely mouth, cheeks where laughter For pleasures seems to form two pretty nests.60

Let us remember the philosopher’s jovial observation regarding the blind man of Puiseaux: “The smooth surface of bodies has as many shades of difference for him as the sound of voices, and there is no risk of his mistaking his wife for another, unless he is to profit from the mistake,”61 which the sagacious remark of Elizabeth de Fontenay echoes: “The students in classes of yesterday were not as ignorant as their professors thought when they confused sensualism and sensuality.”62 The censors, who were soon to get the better of Haüy and his intolerable tolerance of the sensual and affective aspirations of the blind, were not any more deceived. In the meantime, The Blind Man’s Ruse was apparently an outright success, since, according to Vimont, the author of a History of the rue Saint-Denis, Avisse’s comedy accounted for six out of eight performances on the stage of the theater of the blind between 13 Pluviôse (February 1, 1797) and 7 Germinal (March 27, 1797) of Year V (what’s more, with the annotation “by popular demand”). The other

The National Institute for Blind Workers    plays performed during the same period had nothing to do with the blind and blindness. According to the same source, these were The School for Husbands; Crispin Rival of His Master; Nanine; Philoctècte; The IntendantComic Actor; The Writer-Author and Valet; The Churlish Lover; The Scatterbrained; The Country Festival; Jerome Pointa; and Pygmalion.63 Yet since the 1780s, there was no shortage of plays whose plot was built around the blindness, whether feigned or real, of one of the protagonists.64 We do not know if the institute’s students or teachers performed in these other plays, but they did participate in most of the spectacles staged at the Theater of Beneficence since the Blind Man’s Ruse was almost always on the program of these matinees. Moreover, the theater space was also used for “the public exhibition of the works of the blind”—read, “the public exercises”—that from this time on were preceded by a short “scene” by Avisse set to music by Blaze: The Atelier of the Blind-Workers, performed by the teachers and students of the institute. The “singing characters” of this mini-play were, respectively, the Reading Teacher, Garin; the Music Mistress, Galliod;65 the Reading Student, Colins; the Music Student, Legendre; the Math Mistress, Berbera; the Math Student, Colins; a Printer, Garin; the Geography Mistress, Berbera; the Geography Student, Trianon.”66 They were accompanied by the institute’s orchestra. In this regard, the program specified that “the flute solo is played by C. Prévost, blind student of C. Galliod, one of his companions in misfortune.”67 In 1867, in an article on the blind musicians of the institute, Joseph Guadet would write of Prévost that “he later became . . . the best flautist the Institute for the Blind ever produced” and that he could be considered among the ranks of “the premier artists of his time.”68 While their comrades sang and played various instruments, the other blind people “executed various tasks related to different arts and trades.”69 In the middle of the play, the music teacher has performed a “simple, easy chorus [by] young blind children sent to be educated from all over France and instructed by blind teachers trained in this establishment.”70 The words to the chorus are as follows: Young friends, let’s dry our tears; Our days are no longer spent in stupid idleness. We have consoling arts; For our lack of eyes [sic], they will be our guide.71

   the french revolution and the blind The scene ends with the blind’s oath to the Nation “to give birth every year to new miracles.”72 And a miracle, at the time, was what the institute continued to experience in spite of misery and hunger. One of the printer’s lines in Avisse’s playlet prosaically evokes the economic imperatives the workshop of the blind had to face: The more our arms make the press creak, The more money is in our coffers.73

Along the same lines, we may suppose that the public was favorable to the sale of brochures and small items made by the students that were offered at the end of each exhibition session; but that must have meant very little with regard to the financial collapse of the institute. We may also ask ourselves if this sort of permanent spectacle to which the students and teachers lent themselves had the effect on the public that Haüy desired. In any event, with this mix of decidedly characteristic generosity, enthusiasm, and imprudence, he did not hesitate, at the same time, to drag collaborators and students into a politico-religious adventure of epic proportions for which the Institute for the Blind was also to serve as theater.

The Institute for Blind Workers and Theophilanthropy Despite the legal proceedings of which he was the object in the spring of Year III, Haüy continued to militate actively for the democratic movement. During the winter of Year IV, he became a member of the Society of the Pantheon,74 and he was taken on as a patriot by the Babouvists, whose initiatives intersected with those of people nostalgic for 1793 who gathered in the clubs.75 On 9 Ventôse Year IV (February 27, 1796), the Directory ordered Bonaparte to close the Society of the Pantheon. At the time, the Equals had formed a secret directory and were preparing the conspiracy that would be discovered in Floreal (May 1796). At that very moment, Félix Le Peletier, one of the leaders of the Conspiracy of the Equals, wrote a brochure entitled Reflections on the Present Moment, in which can be found a sort of statement of their religious views, which were closely linked to their social program.76 Founded on religion and natural

The National Institute for Blind Workers    morality, the cult preached by the Equals envisaged consolidating the Republic that was threatened by the adversaries of the Revolution. Around the same time, that is, in the spring of Year IV, there were elaborated other projects for “civic” cults, born almost directly of the revolutionary cults of Year II, with, however, the tendency to delegate to “fathers of families” the moral priesthood only recently attributed to magistrates.77 Some of these projects were beginning to be carried out, but there was but one that truly succeeded in establishing itself: theophilanthropy. In the middle of Year IV, following his predecessors, a simple bookseller, moderate anticlerical republican, and perhaps freemason,78 JeanBaptiste Chemin—who also called himself Chemin-Dupontès—outlined a plan for a civic cult in his Manual of Theoanthropophiles, which was drafted during the course of Year IV and published in Year V (September 1706). Among “persons respectable for their morals and their wisdom”79 whom the manual filled with enthusiasm upon its publication were Moreau and Jeanne, two men in their sixties who had until then been perfectly unknown, and Haüy, the illustrious teacher of the blind. The latter requested an interview with Chemin and convinced him to make his cult public. With Chemin, Moreau, Jeanne, and a fifth head of a family, Haüy soon formed the first Committee of the Cult of Natural Religion. As Albert Mathiez has emphasized: “Valentin Haüy brought not only the material means of execution to the undertaking conceived by Chemin (a site, the Institute for the Blind, choristers, and a public), but especially the ardent faith that drove him and that the Manual ’s author was somewhat lacking. He was truly the second founder of the church, some would say its veritable founder.”80 And so Haüy’s students and collaborators found themselves members of a new church whose objective was to “heal the wounds of the Revolution” and to “bring together hearts by preaching mutual indulgence and the forgiveness of all wrongs.”81 The first public meeting of the Adorers of God and the Friends of Man took place on 26 Nivôse Year V (January 15, 1797) at 34 rue Saint-Denis at the corner of rue des Lombards,”82 probably in the chapel of the Catherinettes. Eugène-Emmanuel Amaury-Duval, author of the “Letter of Polyscope on a New Religion,” published in La Décade philosophique of 30 Floréal Year V (May 19, 1797), described the theophilanthropic temple of the Catherinettes: “A very small and simply

   the french revolution and the blind decorated room, on the door of which I read: Silence and Respect. Here We Worship God. At its center was a little altar covered with a basket of flowers. There was a pulpit covered with a golden drapery to one side, and all around were short, simple inscriptions.”83 During the meeting on 26 Nivôse, described by Louis-Marie Prudhomme in his Impartial History of French Revolutions, Haüy’s students formed choruses and sang hymns and canticles. A head of family recited an invocation to the Father of the Universe and made a speech.84 Subsequently, the same assemblies were repeated at the same location, every Sunday at eleven in the morning. But the success of the new cult was such that it was soon necessary to organize a second gathering, every Decadi at the same time, then two meetings, every Sunday and every Decadi at nine and at eleven. Between the two, children of both sexes received “moral instruction.” Every Wednesday, at six in the evening, there was a meeting of the Committee of Moral Direction. Despite increasing numbers at the ceremonies organized at the “temple” of the Catherinettes, the new church remained almost entirely unknown to the public at large until the political press, breaking a prudent silence, announced, in the beginning of Floréal of Year V (late April 1797), the founding of the society of Theophilanthropists. In particular, during a session of the institute on 12 Floréal (May 1, 1797), Director Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, an anticlerical ardent deist, read his colleagues in the Class of Moral and Political Sciences a report entitled Reflections on Cults, Civil Ceremonies, and National Festivals in which he made, without citing it by name, an apology for the new cult. This speech drew the public’s attention to Theophilanthropy. Printed in brochures, La Révellière’s report soon went through multiple editions. It was even translated into German. The press picked up the story, and a virulent polemic rapidly ensued around the speech itself and the Theophilanthropy it indirectly lauded.85 Catholic newspapers scoffed and violently attacked the new religion: they accused the temple of the Catherinettes of being a den of terrorists, and they did not fail to comment on the blindness of the locale’s residents: “The place has not changed purposes; the people who meet there are true Quinze-Vingts.”86 The government press, however, took the side of La Réveillière and the Theophilanthropists. The sect, so recently unknown to the public, took

The National Institute for Blind Workers    great advantage of the polemic and won new adherents: “Slowly but surely, all the partisans of the coup d’état came together in Theophilanthropy.”87 The temple of the Catherinettes soon did not suffice for the increasing numbers of the faithful. The managing committee busied itself with seeking a new site, and on the eve of the coup d’état of 18 Fructidor, the Adorers of God and the Friends of Man had three temples in Paris, all run by the same committee and headquartered in the Institute for Blind Workers. On 13 Messidor Year V (July 1, 1797), they even opened their first school under the direction of Chapuis, a former priest and ardent patriot. “Launched” by La Réveillère’s speech of 12 Floréal, Theophilanthropy was to enjoy a rapid and dazzling career after the coup d’état of 18 Fructidor Year V (September 4, 1797). The coup made the reorganized Directory a veritable dictatorship that was to last for more than a year. Circumstances seemed favorable to the patriots and to La Réveillière in particular to take up once again the work of “civic and moral regeneration” on which, in their eyes, the future of the Republic depended. The Theophilanthropists were now openly protected by the government and even received subsidies; their books were part of the curriculum at official schools, and Haüy was named a member of the jury of public instruction of the department of the Seine, replacing . . . Sicard, an active collaborator of the Religious, Political, and Literary Annals, which were stricken by the repression following the coup d’état.88 The composition of the managing committee of the Theophilanthropists was also modified: its more moderate members ceded their seats to new members, preferably recruited from among the Jacobins. The new members did away with the tolerance and moderation observed by their predecessors and made a plan to conquer the churches of Paris. They managed to take over Saint-Merri, and the inauguration of this new temple took place on 10 Vendémiaire Year VI (October 1, 1797), in the presence of a commissioner of the Directory and of the municipality of the arrondissement, who signed the statement of installation. After short official speeches, all in praise of freedom of religion, there were the speeches of the reader and orator of the Theophilanthropists. A young girl and young boy, both students at the Institute for Blind Workers, sang hymns; they were accompanied on the organ by Gervais-François Couperin, an organist of some renown.89 And so the blind youth once again found themselves associated

   the french revolution and the blind with the rites of revolutionary religions, of which Theophilanthropy was one final manifestation. After Saint-Merri, in less than four months, the Theophilanthropists were authorized to install themselves in twelve other Parisian churches. Including the three temples inaugurated before 18 Fructidor, they thus had sixteen active temples by the end of 1797. The following year saw the addition of Notre-Dame, Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, and Saint-Médard. The choir of blind youth and their musicians evidently took part in the inaugural ceremonies of these different temples, as they did in the celebration of national festivals that the Theophilanthropists were soon to include in their new Ritual, drafted and published by Chemin in Year VII. A letter Haüy wrote on 27 Floréal Year VI (May 16, 1798) to the police commissioner of the Lombards division reveals that the “blind children,” but also the little sighted children attending the primary school at the institute, had music and “universal morality” lessons every Quintidi and Decadi morning from nine to eleven, which prepared them to participate actively in the celebrations of the theophilanthropic cult.90 Completely devoted to the new religion—and, what’s more, a member of the Constitutional Circle of the sixteenth arrondissement that also met at the institute—Haüy was charged with a mission by the Committee of Theophilanthropic Moral Direction and went to preach the republican religion to certain recalcitrant populations in the suburbs. In a letter to the minister of the General Police of 8 Pluviôse Year VI (January 27, 1798), for example, he denounced assault and battery on theophilanthropic administrators” committed by the inhabitants of Montreuil near Vincennes.91 Unfortunately for Haüy, the Theophilanthropists’ progress—they had even spread to other countries—was brusquely brought to a halt in France by the establishment of the decadary cult, promulgated by the laws of 17 Thermidor (August 4), 13 Fructidor (August 20), and 23 Fructidor (September 9) of Year VI and organized by François de Neufchâtel’s decree of 20 Fructidor of the same year (September 6, 1798). It was this new religion’s turn to occupy the principal churches of Paris, where it rivaled Theophilanthropy as much as it did Catholicism. The Adorers of God and Friends of Man made the best of the situation, and Haüy had the “little musical group of blind workers” participate in the festivals organized by the second and then first arrondissements in exchange for a

The National Institute for Blind Workers    fee.92 Despite attempts at conciliation—they went so far as to partly renounce their credo and to accept notorious atheists among their ranks— the Theophilanthropists never were able to overcome the wariness of the Directory, which had become more concerned with the “Jacobin peril” than with the royalist peril. Little by little abandoned by the forces of power, the Theophilanthropists were closely monitored by the police with the coming elections of Germinal Year VII (April 1799).93 After the coup d’état of 30 Prairial (June 18, 1799) and the forced resignation of La Réveillière, they were ridiculed by the Prairialists, who heaped invectives and scorn on the former director and his “band of crooks.” They did not give in, and Chemin tried to save Theophilanthropy by purifying it of the political additions introduced after 18 Fructidor Year V by accentuating the philanthropic and educative nature of its various Parisian and provincial societies. Despite its new tendencies due to the opportunism of sect leaders and despite a renewed vitality—which lasted beyond the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire—the negotiation and then signing of the Concordat would toll the death knell for the revolutionary cult. On 12 Vendémiaire Year X (October 4, 1801), a judgment forbade “societies known as theophilanthropist” from “meeting in national buildings,” and on 20 Vendémiaire (October 12), in Paris, the Theophilanthropists, come to celebrate their cult as usual, were forbidden access to the six churches that had remained in their hands after the coup of 18 Brumaire.94 Notwithstanding petitions and appeals to the First Consul, to the institute, and to public opinion, the “friends of natural religion”—the new name they adopted after 30 Prairial Year VII—the Theophilanthropists lost their battle once and for all. But even before the banning of Theophilanthropy, troubles had begun for their biggest champion.

chapter 9

The Merging of the National Institute for Blind Workers and the Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts

On 15 Vendémiaire Year IX (October 7, 1800), a decision signed by Lucien Bonaparte—then Minister of the Interior—had ordered that “the blind workers and the Quinze-Vingts be merged without delay”1 and had relieved Haüy of the administrative responsibility for his establishment. Haüy remained, though, “the sole person in charge of the moral education and instruction of the blind.”2 The reasons invoked by the new government in justification of these measures—which François de Neufchâteau had already envisaged when he was Minister of the Interior under the Directory3 —were of an administrative and budgetary nature: the attachment of the Institute for Blind Workers to the Quinze-Vingts would allow for a savings on buildings and personnel at a time when the financial situation of the establishment was truly catastrophic.4 These measures were, moreover, part of a vast project to reform public assistance, which the consular government was implementing during this same period.5

The Defeat of Valentin Haüy If we are to trust the opinion expressed by the Abbé Grégoire in his History of Religious Sects,6 though, it is certain that Haüy’s revolutionary

Merging of the National Institute and the Hospice    past and his commitment to Theophilanthropy had much to do with the decision that deprived him of the directorship of his own institution and placed him under the authority of the administration—of the Institute for Deaf-Mutes, to which the same decision entrusted responsibility for the Quinze-Vingts.7 Haüy did not fail to alert the public in the hopes of making the government reconsider a decision that destroyed his work: a moving protest in the form of three Notes, addressed to the president and members of the National Institute as well as to each and every member of the government and published as a handbill. This was a step at once bold and desperate, whose tone is well conveyed by the accompanying letter to the president of the National Institute, dated 21 Frimaire Year IX (December 12, 1800). Haüy there recalled his role as the founder of the establishment on which he had spent all his money before being obliged to contract debts that he had yet to pay off. He then flattered himself with having succeeded, in spite of everything, in bringing his institute to “a satisfying degree of perfection” as borne out by the fellow citizens and foreigners who came to visit it.8 Finally, he accused those who wanted to unite the Blind Workers and the Quinze-Vingts of not even having consulted him and of having plans to “overturn [his] establishment under the specious pretext of economizing for the public treasury and the happiness of the blind.”9 The first of the three Notes disseminated by Haüy was a justification of his political conduct “under the Regime of Terror”: he denied having sought to harm anyone—and Citizen Sicard in particular, for whom he claimed, on the contrary, to have twice protected the interests: in September 1792 and following the coup d’état of 18 Fructidor Year V. The second Note was meant to refute the insinuations of those who accused him of having always been “motivated by base jealousy” with respect to the Abbé de l’Epée and his successor. Haüy claimed to have always admired the Abbé and then to have helped Sicard succeed the Abbé by obtaining the support of Madame de Lafayette on his behalf.10 In reading these two notes, we understand the importance Haüy accorded Sicard’s influence in the “conspiracy,” which, according to him, brought about his own disgrace. The third and longest Note 11 sought to defend the establishment he directed. After having evoked the birth of his vocation and the beginnings of his institute, Haüy justified the validity of his pedagogical methods by

   the french revolution and the blind the results obtained with his first students, who had become honest workers and good heads of families. He attacked those who wanted to reform his establishment with not having the competence to do so: Undertake a career as I did. Educate a number of blind people equal to those who were entrusted to me. Don’t forget that you can tell a worker by his handiwork. Remember, too, that it is not just a matter of having taught: that the instruction must also give the student the most extensive resources possible for his work and, what’s more, consolation. We’ll see if you are capable of this.12

Finally, he promised—“if the establishment [were to be] destroyed”— to rebuild it “for the honor of France” with the help of “sensitive souls” who would wish to second his efforts.13 The three Notes of Citizen Haüy, Author of “An Essay on the Education of the Blind” were thus followed by a project for “the creation of a new private hospice for blind workers” in the form of a prospectus addressed to the Notes’ readers that included a call for a subscription. The hospice was presented as intending to complement, rather than to rival, the national establishment: it would take in students whose age was either below or above the limits set by the law for admission to the National Institute for Blind Workers. It would therefore be divided into two sections: one reserved for children younger than seven years old and the other for adolescents older than sixteen. Lastly, the project was to be accompanied by the foundation of a boarding school for young sighted children, located near that destined for the older blind students. From the Minutes of the Fifth General Session of 5 Nivôse Year IX (December 26, 1800) of the National Institute of Sciences and the Arts, we learn that during that session, a “letter from Citizen Haüy in which he beseeches the president to convey notes pertaining to the establishment of the National Institute for Blind Workers” to the institute had indeed been read. The reporter specified that “the notes [were indeed] be distributed to the different classes.”14 The steps Haüy took with the institute to save his work had no better results than those taken by his friends the Theophilanthropists to save natural religion. All they did was accentuate the consular government’s reservations about him, and Chaptal, who succeeded Lucien Bonaparte to the Ministry of the Interior, did not fail to react vigorously to initiatives of the Blind Workers’ teacher. The tone of the letter he addressed to Citizen Haüy on 3 Nivôse Year IX (December 24, 1800) shows how much the times had changed. There was still a Republic, but freedom of expression was no longer acceptable and a government of order would not tolerate

Merging of the National Institute and the Hospice    a state employee’s appealing to public opinion against a decision of its minister in charge: “Not only is such a provocation unjustifiable on any account, but it also becomes all the more reprehensible when formulated by a teacher salaried by the government and charged, by profession and by duty, with conforming to the measures of order and administration that it thought important to adopt for the establishment you run.”15 With the Consulate, then, the revolutionary assemblies’ nationalization of the establishment truly went into effect. It was up to the government and it alone to decide the future and the manner of administrating the Institute for Blind Youth: the institute was entrusted to Haüy who, founder or no, could not claim to be its master. And for the state, economic imperatives trumped pedagogical objectives. Yet in his note to Haüy, Chaptal denied wanting to destroy the latter’s work by deciding to merge the Blind Youth with the Quinze-Vingts: The plan adopted by my predecessor16 may well go against some of the customs introduced into the hospice of the Blind Workers, but in none of his arrangements do I see a design to destroy a useful establishment or an intention to ignore the services rendered by its founder. Everywhere, I see but the clear desire to render instruction, which is fully under your purview, independent of administration, which the decree entrusts to men as pure as they are disinterested and, from all points of view, worthy of being your collaborators. Anyone but you would have found in these arrangements but a means of being useful by devoting himself entirely to instruction, which alone can occupy a righteous man’s every moment.17

Things having been decided thus, Haüy’s revolt and his project to create, should the need arise, a private hospice, could be nothing but blameworthy: “I will add that it is quite extraordinary that a man who professes to know what he owes the government announces, without governmental authorization, the creation of a private hospice. Assuredly, the government will facilitate good institutions of this type with all its power; but this is to be strangely blind to establishments of this nature.”18 In fact, the minister’s letter to Haüy, which can only be understood as a severe call to order of an undisciplined civil servant, conveys once again the misunderstanding that had existed for several years between the man who devoted his life to the social rehabilitation of the congenitally blind and all those who viewed his attempts with a skepticism at times tinged with hostility. In a report presented to the consuls on 13 Nivôse Year IX (January

   the french revolution and the blind 3, 1801), Chaptal specified that before ratifying the decision of his predecessor, he had taken the trouble to “assure himself as to whether or not the complaints of Citizen Haüy were well founded.”19 From this inquiry, according to Chaptal, it emerged that “the unification project had in mind only order, improvement, and thrift and could not harm the institute for the blind in any manner.”20 To justify this opinion and the cogency of the governmental decision, Chaptal lifted his arguments directly from a report on the same subject presented two years earlier to the Executive Directory by the then-Minister of the Interior, François de Neufchâteau. For the latter, there were “two essential flaws” in the organization of the Institute for the Blind put into effect by the Law of 10 Thermidor Year III: The first concerns the arrangements of Article 5 of said law, which sets the duration of student instruction at five years. The usefulness they derive from the professions they are assigned is born of the particular form of the tools provided, which ingenious manipulations have adapted to their infirmity. But as these instruments are never used in society, the possibility of a trade necessarily becomes nil once they [the blind] are outside the establishment. Their work’s usefulness is also a product of their being together, which is their strength. This possibility also vanishes once they are scattered throughout society, where they find themselves isolated and reduced to relying on themselves alone. The second flaw is this establishment’s very existence, at least in the form accorded it by the Law of 10 Thermidor Year III and in the locale specially allotted it, given that there is another establishment similarly destined to serve as a shelter for indigents stricken with blindness. We should be astonished that when the need was felt to train blind youth for work, it was forgotten that men must be occupied at every moment in life, so long as age or infirmities have not taken away that possibility. The suppression of idleness, economic speculations, everything ordained that we at least try out the trades most appropriate for blind people at the Quinze-Vingts. What was not done can be done today by transferring the Institute for Blind Workers to this last establishment: there will be the possibility of occupying the Quinze-Vingts as well with work whose products will increase their well-being in their disabled state, along with that of their wives. The current teachers, considered professors in the art of supplementing the sense of sight, will be required to give lessons to those of the Quinze-Vingts who

Merging of the National Institute and the Hospice    wish to take advantage of them. Their usefulness will be more general; their zeal will have a fuller scope and will better fulfill the spirit of the law.21

To shore up a segregation plan inspired by the work ethic, “the essential revolutionary value,”22 and out of a concern for profitability, Neufchâteau thus used arguments dictated by the prejudice against blindness— “reduced to relying on themselves alone” the blind are incapable of being socially integrated through work—and by the taste for the taxonomy of theoreticians of social action and scientists of the day: in order to allow for a more rational (and hence more profitable) organization of state assistance, it would be best to regroup the poor stricken with the same disability in a single place. This idea could not but seduce a scientist such as Chaptal; he therefore made Neufchâteau’s entire project his own, at times copying him word for word, in his Nivôse Year IX report to the consuls. In the meantime, another report—whose objective was also to unite those military men who had returned blind from the expedition in Egypt and had been “deposed” at the Invalides23 with the Quinze-Vingts—had come along to reinforce the exclusionary character of Neufchâteau’s project. This document, drafted in Vendémiaire Year IX by Barbier-Neuville,24 drew its arguments from “experience” accumulated in an establishment dedicated for centuries to the relief of men “deprived of the most precious of their senses.”25 The incorporation of military victims of Egyptian ophthalmia with the Quinze-Vingts was well and truly ordained, as was that of the Blind Workers, by the decree of 15 Vendémiaire Year IX (October 7, 1800): “The administration will take the necessary measures to unite the blind returned from Egypt and currently at the National Home of Invalids with the establishment of the Quinze-Vingts; they will be entitled to the aid allocated by the laws and regulations for the blind of the establishment.”26 This same decree charged the Quinze-Vingts administration with presenting “a detailed plan on the internal and economic regulations of the establishment” and with sharing its views “on the changes it was likely to undergo in general and on the modifications to be made there for the blind youth.”27 The administration complied by presenting, on 22 Nivôse Year IX (January 12, 1801), a project for reforms inspired by a concern for “the strictest economy” and by proposing, most notably, that the blind thenceforth live in common, which implied the departure of persons

   the french revolution and the blind “foreign to the establishment”: spouses, children, widowers, and widows of blind people.28 In compensation, the blind would be fed, clothed, kept warm, and looked after by the hospice, which would also give them five centimes a day as a loan. It seems this project—which would have entailed a modification of all the buildings and, most of all, a complete upheaval of life at the Quinze-Vingts—was never undertaken. Indeed, the soldiers who had returned blind from the campaign in the Orient were finally placed at the branch of the Invalides established in Avignon by the decrees of 11 and 27 Prairial Year IX (May 31 and June 16, 1801). They never came to reside at the Quinze-Vingts, which escaped the system of communal living. The blind youth, though, did finally have to abide by the decisions reiterated by the consular government. After four months of resistance, their transfer from the home of Saint-Catherine to the Quinze-Vingts took place from one day to the next on the order of the Consul on 28 Pluviôse Year IX (February 17, 1801), as this letter addressed by the hospice administrators to the Minister of the Interior on 27 Pluviôse attests: Citizen Minister, Yesterday at three o’clock, we received the letter you did us the honor of writing to tell us that the Consul wishes the Blind Workers to be united with the QuinzeVingts within twenty-four hours. The Consul’s orders and yours will be executed. The Blind Youth will not spend another night in their home; tomorrow, the twenty-eighth, they will be at the Quinze-Vingts.29

Thus ended the independence of the Institute for Blind Workers. The destiny of the blind youth, soon to be called “the blind of the second class,” was thenceforth linked to that of the resident members of the old home of the Quinze-Vingts, themselves called “the blind of the first class.” Valentin Haüy, with rage in his heart, saw the work to which he had devoted his life collapse. For him and for his first students, become his collaborators, the new century began under sad auspices. But before taking up this new episode in the history of the blind, we should turn our attention for a moment to the situation of the Quinze-Vingts at the end of the revolutionary period.

Merging of the National Institute and the Hospice   

The Quinze-Vingts in the Remit of the Minister of the Interior Until 1791, the Quinze-Vingts had remained under the authority of Louis-Joseph de Montmorency-Laval, a bishop of Metz elevated to cardinalship in 1789, who had succeeded the Cardinal de Rohan as Grand Almoner of France. In January 1791, the Committee on Mendicancy’s report on the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts had severely criticized “the anti-social regulations of this barbarically religious association”30 (among other things, it protested the disinheritance of children in favor of the hospice) and had suggested suppressing the hospice in its then-current form, selling its land, and using its revenues as “pensions . . . distributed to the brothers and sisters in domiciles of their choosing.”31 Meanwhile, the reporter proposed “to promptly give this residence an administrator and regulations that, even if temporary, would be more in keeping with the present state of things than the gothic regime under which it operated. Its supervision [he concluded] should doubtless be entrusted to the Department of Paris.”32 On April 7, 1791, the National Assembly decreed that “the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts [would be] run in conformity with the Law of November 5, 1790.”33 Still, after the demission of Cardinal de Montmorency and the dismissal of the last governors (in May 1791), until 1793, the Quinze-Vingts were to traverse a particularly agitated and unfocused period with respect to their administrative functioning. This confusion allowed the blind— both members and candidates—to avail themselves of the extraordinary freedom of expression that emerged in all domains throughout the revolutionary decade. Petitions and counterpetitions to the National Assembly followed each other at a sustained pace: for or against the administration of the Cardinal de Rohan, for or against the administrators who succeeded him, for or against the particular way in which the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts functioned (certain blind people protested against the impediments to liberty imposed on them by the regulations and against the alienation of their possessions and heritage), and so forth. Among the projects for reforming the establishment that succeeded each other at this time was the report presented on November 26, 1792, to the Committee of Public Assistance of the National Convention by Citizen Saint-Martin “aiming to abolish the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts.”34

   the french revolution and the blind This proposal—reiterated in February 1793—was rejected at the time by the Assembly, which turned to “the Committee of Public Assistance to present a provisional organizational system for administering and establishing the residence.”35 In the meantime, on December 30 and 31, 1792, three commissioners of the Committee of Public Assistance had been named by the Convention to inquire into the state of the Quinze-Vingts’ administration. Finally, with respect to the report of that committee, on July 22, 1793, the National Convention decreed the following: Article 1. The home of the Quinze-Vingts will be provisionally, and until the general organization of hospices has been completed, managed and governed under the supervision of the Department of Paris, in the manner below. Article 2. The General Council of the Commune of Paris will name four administrators and one cashier as officials. Only the cashier will be salaried . . .  Article 3. The twelve sworn members of the Quinze-Vingts will continue to be summoned to deliberations concerning the internal administration of the hospice and will have a deliberative voice.36 Article 4. All the employees necessary to service the residence will be named by the administrators and the sworn members by a simple majority of votes.37

With this decree, the members of the Quinze-Vingts thus continued to play a role in the government of their own residence. They were, though, liberated from the oath that bound them body and possessions to the community: article 5 of the decree allowed those who so desired to leave the hospice, “by indicating where they wished to move. They, as well as children under sixteen, will enjoy the treatment they had in the said hospice.”38 What’s more, article 6 stipulated that individuals leaving the hospice could dispose freely of the furnishing and effects they had brought there or acquired subsequent to their admission, “any donation thereof made to the residence becoming null and void as if it had never occurred.”39 Despite these favorable arrangements, the decree of July 22 did not put an end to the demands on all sides—not any more than it did to proposals for the hospice’s reform. On 20 Floréal Year II (May 9, 1794), for instance—that is to say two years before the adoption of the Law of National Beneficence—Citizen Lerebours presented Citizen Barère,40 in the name of the Commission of Public Assistance, with “some observations on the home of the blind, also known as the Quinze-Vingts.”41

Merging of the National Institute and the Hospice    Lerebours, in order to best apply the principle of assisted living encouraged, without being imposed, by the decree of July 22, 1793, notably proposed to 1. Suppress all new admissions to the home of the Quinze-Vingts; 2. Change the purpose of the hospice by ceasing to admit all blind people indiscriminately but only those who are sick and who have other serious illnesses in addition to blindness. These measures taken [pursued the reporter], any individual having no infirmity beyong the privation of sight would receive an annual assistance of 300 livres at the home of his choosing, just as any other pensioned citizen of the Republic.42

We should emphasize that the decree of July 22 and Citizen Lerebours’s report regulated in the first case—and proposed to regulate in the second—the administration of the Quinze-Vingts in provisional fashion, pending “a general organizational plan for the hospices.” It was in fact the assistance legislation the Directory adopted in Year V that would give the home for the blind the type of administration it was to have, more or less, throughout the nineteenth century, with the exception of the Restoration. The law concerning assistance of 16 Vendémiaire Year V (October 7, 1796), which entrusted the direct supervision of civil hospices to municipal authorities, left, however, “extant establishments for the blind and the deaf and dumb . . . in the care of the national treasury.”43 In application of Article 4 of this law, the Directory’s decision of 12 Nivôse Year V (January 1, 1797) placed the Quinze-Vingts under the direct supervision of the Ministry of the Interior for an annual sum of 150,000 francs. The Abbé Prompsault, chaplain and historian of the hospice in the nineteenth century, quite rightly remarked that in so doing, the state refused to settle its business with the establishment and to pay it its due: “It might have been thought at the time that making the treasury responsible for the Quinze-Vingts was the same thing, or close enough, to paying the latter the annuity the treasury had received on their behalf. That was a grave mistake. It is easy to see this today, but it is less easy to remedy.”44 Indeed, the state went from being a “debtor” to the “benefactor” of the establishment—which allowed it to revise downward the total sum annually allocated to the Quinze-Vingts. In the same spirit, the decree of

   the french revolution and the blind 12 Nivôse used the expression “living allowance” [“pension alimentaire”] to designate the remuneration recently given to the blind as a “wage” [traitement]. With a second decree of 27 Prairial Year V (June 15, 1797), the Executive Directory shaped a new administration of the Quinze-Vingts, composed of a “general agent” (under the command of the Minister of the Interior) assisted by four sworn members responsible for monitoring the cleanliness and security of the compound. They were named by the community’s blind. Bookkeeping was handled by a receiver-cashier whose accounts, verified each year by the general agent, were submitted for approval to the Minister of the Interior. “It was not possible, under a republican regime,” commented once again the Abbé Prompsault, “to completely destroy the democratic government established by Louis XI.”45 There were thus general assemblies, periodically convened on the minister’s orders, to debate general problems of the establishment. But it was the minister who appointed all the blind people and employees to their seats and withdrew the patents when he judged it appropriate. In contrast, the decrees of 15 and 28 Vendémiaire Year IX (October 7 and 20, 1800), which, as we saw earlier, placed the establishment under the supervision of the administration of the deaf-mutes, did not mention the sworn members and deliberative assemblies. With the consular legislation, there was nothing left of the fraternal association that the Revolution had maintained, albeit it in appearance, while progressively secularizing it,46 and the establishment that the blind workers joined in February 1801 no longer had much to do with the institution whose specificity and privileges had been relatively preserved up until the 1780 sale of the enclosure on the rue Saint-Honoré. It can be said that in placing the Quinze-Vingts under the authority of the Minister of the Interior and almost entirely under the subordination of the treasury,47 the Directory and Consulate, far from making a sudden break with the past, only perfected the process of reinforcing state control over the residence that had begun with the regulation of 1522 and the 1546 edict of Francis I.48 The blind of the Quinze-Vingts—who no longer played any part in administering their institution and whose communal patrimony had largely disappeared—now became recipients of state assistance, for whom mendicancy was more forbidden than ever.49

Merging of the National Institute and the Hospice    And by associating them with the Blind Workers, the legislators of Year IX intended to put them to work as well. As for the instruction the teacher of the Blind Workers was supposed to give “those who wish to take advantage of [it],”50 it would never really be an issue for the adults since, on the contrary, the blind youth—and the sighted children of the hospice members—would see their schooling sacrificed to work in the factories soon to be set up inside the enclosure. Would the formidable propaganda efforts Haüy and his first students made to change mentalities toward the blind and to enable them to obtain citizenship only lead, in the end, to the realization of the humanist theoreticians’ old mercantilist dream of assistance: “Not even the blind will be allowed to remain idle”?

c h a p t e r 10

The Blind in France at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

After the brilliance of the Age of Enlightenment, which seemed to have rescued the blind once and for all from the shadows to which they had been relegated by the prejudices and ignorance of others with regard to their ability to learn, work, and love—in short, to lead a useful and happy life—after the dignity regained, the egalitarian dream, liberated speech, the first years of the nineteenth century seemed to bode quite ill for the future of the blind in French society.

Light Under a Bushel? What could Haüy’s students in particular, evidence, for their “brothers in misfortune,” of the possibility of attaining citizenship through education, hope for now that they were shut up inside the Quinze-Vingts, transformed into a veritable ghetto by the consular government—and this, not only because it tried to bring together blind people who, until then, had been divided among different institutions, but also because time outside its walls was severely regulated? From the start, the regulations Chaptal gave the hospice on 23 Ventôse Year IX (March 14, 1801) stipulated that, at the end of their schooling,

   blindness in the early nineteenth century whose duration was fixed at eight years, “the administration would examine the abilities and the progress of each student and declare his means of subsistence. The teacher will give a detailed account of morals and good behavior, and the Minister will decide if the student should obtain one of the vacant spots at the Quinze-Vingts. In the opposite case, [the student] will be expected to return to his parents.”1 This arrangement would be reinforced a few years later. In 1813, in response to the administration’s repeated demands, the Count de Montalivet, Minister of the Interior of the Empire since October 1809, decided to reserve a certain number of places among the blind of the first class for the worthiest of the blind youth who had finished their studies. We are a far cry from the provisions of the Law of 10 Thermidor Year III, which gave the best students a sum of three hundred pounds upon their departure from the institute to help them establish themselves. After ten years of revolution, here were “blind citizens” doomed to spend the rest of their days in the hospice or returned to their former misery. As for the blind adults receiving aid from the Quinze-Vingts, their number remained limited to three hundred hospice members, boarders or nonresidents. The Consulate reinstituted neither the external pensions nor the home care for blind candidates that were created in 1783 and abolished on 1 Thermidor Year IV (July 18, 1796) as a result of the economic and monetary crisis. What’s more, the new regulations forbade the blind admitted after Year IX from residing at the hospice with their family: they were to choose between boarding at the Quinze-Vingts, with the advantages that entailed—but leaving their spouse and children on the outside—and the possibility of receiving the remuneration for external members at home. The blind of the Quinze-Vingts had, therefore, every reason to be as unhappy as the Blind Workers with the measures the new government took on their behalf. They were as ill disposed to welcome the newcomers as the latter were loath to come join them in the former barracks on the rue de Charenton. Indeed, it was in good part from the 150,000-franc subsidy the hospice received under the Directory that the blind youth, whose numbers the government planned on increasing to 120, were to be supported.2 Fortunately for the members of the hospice’s first class, the regulations of Year IX would never be fully applied. By 1806, the productivist

The Beginning of the Nineteenth Century    utopian projects elaborated under the Directory and implemented during the first years of the Bonapartist regime were abandoned. Finally, after the fall of the Empire, the blind youth regained their autonomy, and their institution would become the crucible in which new palliative techniques destined to give the blind full access to written culture would be elaborated. But before turning to the evolution of the only two institutions devoted to the blind in France in the early nineteenth century, we will preface this essential chapter in their history with some general considerations concerning blind people’s position in French society at this time. Through examples culled from a variety of documents, we will next take up the question of then-current social and cultural representations of the blind and blindness.

The Definition and Causes of Blindness As we indicated above, for a long time, doctors had no technical means of evaluating visual acuity and visual fields. This would still be the case during the first half of the nineteenth century and even beyond. The definition of blindness was thus based on practical criteria and not on objective measurements: any person “not able to see well enough to guide himself” and whose disability made him “incapable of any work” was considered blind. It is significant, in this regard, that medical encyclopedias and dictionaries of the day gave no legal definition of blindness.3 The Dictionary of Medical Sciences, edited by C. L. F. Panckoucke from 1812 to 1822, thus gave the following definition of the word blind: Blind, [Aveugle] caecus, adj., n., Deprived of sight: one can be blind from birth or become blind by either accident or illness. The term “congenitally blind” [aveuglené] is used for all individuals of the first sort. Without going into detail about the maladies or causes that can occasion loss or privation of sight, and which can be found in this dictionary under their respective articles, we will content ourselves with a few thoughts and observations.4

Considerations follow that are more philosophical than medical on the meaning of vision and its loss, borrowed word for word from the article “Blind” written by D’Alembert for the Encyclopédie and summarized

   blindness in the early nineteenth century in Diderot’s Letter on the Blind. This same dictionary, after a brief definition of the word “cecity” [cécité]—“complete deprivation of sight” (which it distinguishes from the word “blind” [aveugle], used only “in a moral and figurative sense”)—reviews the various possible causes of the different forms of blindness and the possible means of curing them; it does not specify what is to be understood by “complete deprivation of sight.”5 This vagueness would still be topical forty years later according to Georges Dumont, who, in a work published in 1865, wrote the following: Blindness [cécité] is the deprivation or abolition of vision. This disability exists any time it is impossible to do any work, insofar as the work requires the sense of sight. It can be divided into complete blindness and partial blindness, but authors do not explain what we are to understand by each of these denominations. . . . In adhering rigorously to the logical meaning of the word, we should doubtless use only the expression “complete blindness” in . . . cases where the sense of sight is completely abolished or there is total insensitivity to light; but in practice, it seems to us that this cannot be the case. There exists effectively but a slight difference between a blind person and someone who can only distinguish day from night. . . .  Thus, in our view, there is complete blindness every time a blind person cannot safely guide himself alone. Once this limit has been reached, the differing degrees of vision increase imperceptibly until this or that type of work becomes possible, and these different degrees are difficult for a doctor to appreciate.6

In spite of Hermann von Helmholtz’s perfection of the ophthalmoscope in 1851,7 Dumont’s definition of blindness is based, as at the beginning of the century, on practical criteria and not on objective measurements. In fact, as we indicated in this book’s introduction, it was not until article 1 of the ordinance of July 3, 1945, on the social protection of the disabled and incurably ill that there appeared in France a legal definition of blindness founded on optometric criteria. Even then, the choice of this type of definition gave rise to a number of reservations, some people preferring to remain on practical terrain: ambulatory, scholastic, or professional impediments.8 Beyond the difficulties that the absence of technical means for objectively evaluating degrees of vision caused doctors charged with examining applicants to the Quinze-Vingts and the Institute for Blind Youth, it is clear that the criteria used to define “complete” blindness—ambulatory

The Beginning of the Nineteenth Century    impediments, but especially, the impossibility “of engaging in any kind of work should the work require the support of the sense of sight”—lent credence, in the minds of the blind as well as the sighted, to the traditional argument of the blind’s inability to work. Of what profession, after all, can it be thought a priori that there is no need for vision? In this way, a definition that itself derived as much from representations of blindness as from realistic observation of its difficult consequences, perpetuated the social representations that gave birth to it in the first place. As for the causes of this disability in the nineteenth century, we will refer here to an earlier study based on documents concerning the blind candidates or those admitted to the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts under the Consulate and the Empire.9 From this study, we learn that the cause of blindness most frequently mentioned in the files in question was “amaurosis” or “gutta serena.” At the time, these terms covered different types of blindness without objectively apparent signs and whose cause was little understood or unknown. From the description of certain symptoms, we can recognize the group of ailments today called “glaucoma,” whose commonality is a rise in ocular tension. In other cases, it is perhaps a case of the detachment of the retina; in others still, of an optic neuritis accompanied by a neurological disorder. The diversity of ailments grouped under the denomination “amaurosis” prevents us from interpreting the frequency of this “illness” in terms of an etiology of blindness for the period. At the most, we can conclude that doctors were quite ignorant of ophthalmology before the invention of the ophthalmoscope. This would be confirmed in 1864 by R. Liebreich, author of the article “Amaurosis,” in the New Dictionary of Medicine and Practical Surgery, published by Baillère from 1864 to 1886: Amaurosis is a blindness whose cause is not externally visible. In the past, this term designated an illness or group of illnesses. . . . The discovery of Helmholtz, the eminent physiologist, brought about a complete transformation in this way of seeing things. The ophthalmoscope allowed for the direct observation of the vitreous body, of the choroid, the retina, and the extreme anterior of the optic nerve. Not only did it give us the means of directly observing morbid phenomena in these organs, but it also taught us, in a great number of cases, to draw more sure conclusions about the extra-ocular causes of blindness and of the pathologic state in general. . . .

   blindness in the early nineteenth century The discoveries that enabled the making of such a complete diagnosis were to bring about a total transformation of accredited opinions of the majority of diseases of the eye, and especially of amaurosis. The term “amaurosis,” which until that time had been the name of a disease, was now used to designate a symptom, the symptom of blindness without a visible external cause.10

After amaurosis, the causes of blindness invoked in the files of candidates and those admitted to the Quinze-Vingts are, in order of decreasing frequency, cataracts; opacification of the crystalline lens, whose exact etiology remains unknown today; smallpox, contracted before the age of fifteen for 92.86 percent of the cases found in our files;11 and finally, ophthalmia. Just as the term amaurosis served to designate several types of blindness without visible changes of the ocular environment, that of “ophthalmia” covered, at the time, diverse inflammatory ailments of the eye membrane: conjunctivitis, keratitis, iritis, iridocyclitis, choroiditis, whose true causes were unknown and which caused blindness for long or short periods of time for lack of appropriate care. As the dossiers of the applicants to the Quinze-Vingts who had become blind from this disease reveal, ophthalmia could arise in the first days of life, even at birth, or later, in childhood or adulthood. Purulent ophthalmia in newborns, in particular, was then one of the most common causes of blindness.12 An older child, whether or not he had been a victim of eye diseases in the first days or months of life, could be afflicted with ophthalmias that were the results of childhood infectious diseases such as measles, chicken pox, and scarlet fever.13 Lastly, among the various forms of ophthalmia that habitually plagued, or so it would seem, a broad swath of the population, we should mention the various etiologies grouped under the heading “Egyptian Ophthalmias,” brought by the French and British expeditionary brigades and spread throughout Europe by troop movements during the first part of the nineteenth century.14 In addition to the ailments of varying etiologies that caused blindness in France in the nineteenth century, we must reserve a special place for the injuries that, to read the files of the blind candidates for the QuinzeVingts at the beginning of the century, took more victims than each of the most common ocular diseases—when they were not themselves their cause.15 These injuries, half of which were due to workplace accidents,16 were principally the result of explosions, burns, gunshot wounds, falls, contusions, and the (superficial or deep) penetration of objects in the eye.

The Beginning of the Nineteenth Century    Poverty, ignorance, lack of hygiene, epidemics, dietary deficiencies, and unsafe work conditions thus appear to be responsible for the majority of eye ailments then afflicting, endemically, it would seem, a large part of the French population.17 Medical ignorance with respect to the true causes of these diseases and effective ways to remedy them did the rest. The unlucky victims of illnesses and traumas to the eye thus ended up completely blind after having undergone treatments as painful as they were useless, and on which some of them had spent their entire savings. But whatever the cause of their disability, how do we know of these blind men and women of the early nineteenth century?

The Blind in France in the Early Nineteenth Century We find the trace of the blind in literature, literary works of all sorts alluding to people who really existed—some of whom even gained a certain notoriety. We also recognize the familiar silhouette of blind musicians, beggars, and peddlers—often accompanied by a dog—in genre painting, drawings, and engravings. But there are also famous portraits of blind people, realized, for instance, in the form of engravings as frontispieces to books they authored. The destiny of the poorest of the blind is confined to hospital archives, especially to the files of requests for admission to hospices, where a number of documents are gathered together: birth, marriage, and death certificates, petitions, various attestations, medical certificates, and letters of recommendation, which constitute a precious source of information on the indigent blind. Finally, the archives of the Invalides furnish information about blind military men taken into that hospice, with its particular regime. What were the numbers of the blind? If the documents we have just enumerated enable us to have an idea of the fate and living conditions of a certain number of the blind from diverse social milieus in French society of the day, it is important to underscore that there is no statistical data that would allow us to evaluate their exact number. This inadequacy would persist until the census of 1851 (if the very global evaluation made at the time can be considered reliable).18 This is underscored, moreover, by

   blindness in the early nineteenth century different authors who wrote on the blind before that date, such as PierreArmand Dufau, who affirmed the following in 1850: Since the blind were paid little attention until now in our country, French statistics on the subject only provide fairly imprecise data. Our ministers’ portfolios, in which are buried a number of very detailed tables solicited at different times by departmental administrations, do not offer complete information in this regard; and in the very department charged with the highest responsibility for the two establishments open to the French blind,19 we have tried several times in vain to gather this information, so necessary, however, to the administration if it is to be able to realize what it is doing and to know what exactly it needs to do.20

The Prosperous Blind Among the blind whose numbers we do not know figure, as in the past, those privileged individuals who were educated or trained for intellectual work without the help of any institution. Their reputation comes to us through their own works and the admiring testimony of their contemporaries. One of them, the entomologist François Huber (1750–1831), was the son of the Genevan painter and friend of Voltaire, Jean Huber, called “Huber-Voltaire.” Of course, François Huber was Swiss, but in 1798, Geneva became the county town of a French department: the Léman. Besides, it was in French, the language of the Enlightenment, that Huber composed his scientific works on bees that made him famous throughout scholarly Europe and earned him admission to the Academy of Sciences of Paris as a corresponding member, two reasons that authorize us to include him within the framework of our study. Of writer and grammarian Charles de Pougens (1755–1833), a member of the institute born in Paris in 1755 (and perhaps the bastard son of the Prince de Conti), another famous nineteenth-century blind man, the francophone Fleming, Alexander Rodenbach (1786–1869),21 wrote that he was “one of the most distinguished blind men of the century.” Pougens seems not to have disdained the company of his young companions in misfortune as long as they shared his taste for literature and philology, as evidenced by a few letters he exchanged with Avisse appended to the complete works of the latter—and published by his widow soon after his death.

The Beginning of the Nineteenth Century    François Huber, who became blind at fifteen, and the Chevalier Marie-Charles Joseph de Pougens, a victim of smallpox contracted during his studies abroad in Rome, became blind later in life. For them, the question of a special educational method obviously never arose. It was in adolescence and adulthood respectively that they had to perfect strategies to continue to cultivate themselves, to carry out their research in their respective domains, and to write up, through dictation to a secretary, the results of their work. The poet Jean-Isaac Roques (1771–1837), on the other hand, born to a well-to-do family from Montauban, became blind at eighteen months as a result of smallpox, but strictly speaking, he did not receive any “special education” either. He learned, as did the blind of previous centuries, from the reading aloud that people were willing to do for him and by discovering on his own, in empirical fashion, little ways of getting around his infirmity. He would not have occasion until much later to visit the museum of the blind founded by Haüy soon after the Institute for Blind Workers merged with the Quinze-Vingts and to discover the procedures Haüy had used for nearly twenty years. Even more than de Pougens, Roques took an interest in the situation of the blind by founding, in 1828, a prize meant to compensate “the work that would best indicate improvements to the lot of the blind.”22 Put off from year to year due to the inadequacy of the works presented, the competition ended in 1837, shortly before Roques’s death after a brief illness on March 9 of the same year. The members of the Society for Christian Morality, the judges of the competition, awarded the prize to a work by Eugénie Niboyet, On the Blind and their Education, which was acknowledged by a gold medal presented to the author by Queen MarieAmélie and Madame Adélaïde. In addition to the people who became famous thanks to the literary or scientific reputation of their work—and among whom we may note the absence of feminine personalities23 —there were doubtless also a number of blind people born into relatively advantaged social milieus but whose life, idle or industrious, happy or unhappy, left no trace—unless a reversal of fortune due to the vagaries of existence or the political upheavals of the end of the previous century forced them to ask for assistance or even a place at the hospice. Indeed, we have discovered in the archives of the Quinze-Vingts, for the period of the Consulate and the Empire, a file of

   blindness in the early nineteenth century a young noblewoman of thirty, Pierrette de La Folanches, whose father, “a former captain of the cavalry and a Knight of Saint-Louis, ruined by the Revolution,” died in his eighties in 1807, leaving her alone and without any money, which obliged her to apply in 1808 and again in 1813 (still to no avail) for a place in the imperial hospice for the blind.24 In a similar vein, we may cite the twenty-five-year-old bachelor, JeanBaptiste Girot, whose family “had a few properties on the Island of San Domingo [but] was obliged to abandon them at the time of the Negro resurrection and to take refuge in France.”25 This young man, blind since age fourteen, was also forced to request a place at the Quinze-Vingts—which he did in 1813 and then in 1814, with no more success than the preceding candidate. Lastly, among these victims of the vagaries of existence, we may also mention a young blind woman from Nancy, born to a relatively wellto-do family of artisans and shopkeepers in 1803: Thérèse-Adèle Husson. When she reached the age of twenty-one, this young girl’s parents suffered a reversal of fortune. The following year, in 1825, she addressed a short work to the director of the Quinze-Vingts—Reflections on the Physical and Moral State of the Blind, which doubtless accompanied a request for aid from the hospice, immediately granted in the form of an external pension of 155 francs per year.26 The Poor Naturally, despite the total absence of statistics, we can be certain that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as in preceding centuries, the majority of the blind were poor people from the laboring class, whose disability, whether congenital or acquired, kept them in or precipitated them into poverty. They were the most numerous not only because this was the society’s largest class, but also because illness, lack of hygiene, malnutrition, and the accidents responsible for blindness were more prevalent among them than in other social categories. Some of them got by thanks to help from family, when it was not too poor to feed a “useless mouth”; they could sometimes benefit from help at home distributed by the bureaus of beneficence and later charity, in the form of bread, vegetable soups, and clothing, but also in the form of cash payments (the elderly and the blind were the only poor authorized to collect assistance in monetary form).

The Beginning of the Nineteenth Century    Others practiced, as in the past, little trades of the street or highway: they were singers or ambulant musicians, animal trainers, knife-grinders, peddlers, fortune-tellers, or distributors of lottery tickets. We find their traces in the files of requests for admission to the Quinze-Vingts. This was the case, for instance, of a man of forty, blind since the age of three, Jean-Baptiste Degrais, who lived in Joigny in the Yonne. In August 1808, the mayor of that commune attested that the blind man, registered as an applicant to the Quinze-Vingts since 1795, “had no other means of earning a living other than playing his violin, which is insufficient to provide for his subsistence and that of his wife and child.”27 We also find those street personages, some of whom became “celebrities” in the picturesque literature of the day and in the tales of provincial or foreign travelers describing the Paris of the early nineteenth century. Engravings even captured some, such as the blind man at the pianoforte, performing sonatas outdoors, of whom Kotzebue speaks in his memoirs: “We do not go far with out encountering a third poor wretch bereft of the most valuable of the senses. He has an old harpsichord placed before him on the Boulevards, and is thumping a sonata with all his might. Numbers of people stop to hear his performance; but the pewter cup, fastened in front of his instrument, seldom resounds with the boon of pity.”28 Jean-Duplessi Bertaux represented him surrounded by several artists of the time: the pianist Pradère and two singers from the Comic Opera, Persuis and Elleviou, improvising a concert for his benefit on the Boulevard de la Madeleine on 5 Messidor Year X (June 24, 1802), while Elleviou’s wife passed the hat among the onlookers.29 A similar case, about ten years later, was that of the singer and blind hurdy-gurdy player Frélon, painted by Antoine-Pierre Mongin for the Salon of 1814. Godefroy Engelmann made a lithograph from this painting in 1816 entitled “The Blind Man’s Dog,” in reference to a famous sentimental ballad of the time, a few sheets of which figured in the painting and the engraving, and which was sold for “2 francs for the benefit of the Blind Man,” as indicated on the first page of the score.30 As for the “Lucky Blind Man,” Philippe-François Bellanger, a former pyrotechnician who had become a member of the Quinze-Vingts, well known to Parisians as a vendor of numbers for the national lottery, he took the starring role in a criminal case that was the talk of the town

   blindness in the early nineteenth century in 1805 and which ended with his capital execution at the Place des Grèves on 9 Messidor Year XIII (June 28, 1805). An engraving once again captured the affair and immortalized Bellanger’s features: “drawn from life at the Conciergerie on the day of his execution.”31 Conversely to those blind who practiced a “trade” verging on mendicancy—which some of them denied, such as Jean-Baptiste Laurence, who, after having sold “a corner of a hut that was his sole possession so as to buy a portable organ,” refused, when the 1808 decree against mendicancy was implemented, “to be confused with all those rogues who never did anything but beg or worse”32—others continued to ply the trade that was theirs before they acquired a disability. This was so for André Chicot, a candidate to the Quinze-Vingts in Year IX, who had been completely deprived of sight since age twenty-four. Though blind, he had long been a hatter in Lyon, where he had even supplied hats to “Republican troops”; but from the end of Year VI, “events unforeseen and unforeseeable had taken place and brought about his ruin,” forcing him to request a place at the national hospice of the blind in Paris.33 This was also the case of Charles Jean-François Vallée. Though deprived of sight, this man from Rouen, registered as an applicant to the Quinze-Vingts on March 31, 1814, “never stopped working as a “writer and optician-engineer of skill and distinction” as a “Report to the Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts of Rouen on the Manner in which the Optical Lenses Presented by Sire Vallée Can Be Envisaged” attached to his admissions request file attests.34 Alas, “the fate of circumstances and the times” put this pour soul “in a distress that not only deprived him of the ability to procure tools and primary materials of the utmost necessity for his work,” but also reduced him to partaking as an “ashamed pauper” of the “weekly assistance distributed by the receiver of the bureau of beneficence of the city of Rouen.”35 More numerous, no doubt, than all the others together, were the blind who purely and simply begged—and this, in spite of the reiterated interdictions of the different governments that succeeded each other in France from the start of the Revolution. For Paris and its environs, we can find their trace in the archives of the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière hospices, to which some of them were admitted “by order of the Prefect of Police,” or in the archives of the Saint-Denis and Villers-Cotterêts depots of mendicancy.36

The Beginning of the Nineteenth Century    If the well-to-do blind generally lived in the bosom of their family or, at least, if they were celibate, surrounded by enough domestics to provide the necessary help to ensure a well-run household, if other blind people—from modest but not impoverished milieus—could also find in their entourage the moral and material support they needed,37 the files on the blind aspiring to places at the hospice in the first years of the nineteenth century reveal that among the poorest, many were isolated: married people abandoned by their spouses, orphans, widows, and widowers, whom wars deprived of their family support. We will cite two examples: that of a widow who was fifty-nine in 1812, Marie-Julienne Pétré, née Blin, blind for two years after a long treatment that cost her all her savings. Her husband, a day laborer and former soldier, died “as a result of his wounds”; she had a son in the armies, where he had been serving for thirteen years “with honor.” This poor woman, twice a victim of war, thus found herself with neither help nor support and could count on no “relative to care for her.”38 As for Thérèse-Jacqueline Parent, a congenitally blind woman from Boulogne-sur-Mer whose father “died on the field of honor,” her file tells us that since the death of her grandmother, she had “been in the care of an aunt, a mother of two young children whose husband [was] in the military.” She had two other uncles, but they too were “in His Majesty’s frontline troops.” In the margins of a letter requesting admission to the Quinze-Vingts, addressed on her behalf to the Minister of the Interior in 1809, there is a recommendation by the mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer: “Since her grandmother’s death, she no longer has close relatives who can feed and take care of her. Let us note [specifies the municipal official] that it would be dangerous to leave this young person [then twenty-one years of age] with no means of support to the mercy of events, especially in a city filled with soldiers, sailors, and an infinite number of foreigners.”39 In spite of this recommendation, which speaks volumes about the extremes to which young disabled and destitute people could be driven,40 it would seem that the request formulated by Parent, deprived of family support as a result of the Empire’s wars and the death of her grandmother, did not turn out favorably. In Paris, a number of these misfortunates lived in such misery and isolation that failing admission to the Quinze-Vingts, they came to

   blindness in the early nineteenth century accept—and even to themselves solicit—a place at Bicêtre or the Salpêtrière, where the blind of all ages, whether suffering or no from associated neurological problems, were mixed with the elderly, the chronically ill, and the sick of all categories that formed the population of these two hospices.41 Other isolated individuals could also be admitted into one of those hospices against their will, either because they had been caught in flagrante begging on public highways or in application of the decrees of 6 Messidor Year X (June 25, 1802) and 26 Prairial Year IX (June 16, 1803) ordering the transfer to these hospices of the incurable indigent of the Hôtel-Dieu or other Parisian hospices and having no other place to live. Indeed, these poor people, kept on out of compassion following treatments or surgical procedures, needlessly occupied beds when nothing more could be done to improve their health. Among them could be found a number of blind people operated on unsuccessfully for cataracts or treated in vain for purulent ophthalmia and other eye diseases of infectious or accidental origin leading to permanent blindness. On this subject, we cite the example of Pierre-Martin Paillet, an unmarried orphan of twenty-six in 1812, “suffering for six months from a disease that had entirely deprived him of sight”: “having entered the La Charité Hospice on January 4, 1812,” this young man, “completely without resources,” was “on the point of being turned out of the hospice, because we do not keep sick people whose illnesses are incurable.”42 More fortunate than many of his brothers in misfortune, Pierre-Martin would be admitted to the Quinze-Vingts in 1817. A Category of Its Own: Those Blinded in War Among the hospitalized blind, we should mention the victims of the Revolutionary and Imperial Wars taken into the Hôtel des Invalides. We already mentioned the situation of the military victims of Egyptian ophthalmia and the unrealized project to transfer them to the Quinze-Vingts. From many perspectives, the Invalides,43 its personnel, and its boarders enjoyed a special status and privileges. Particularly well endowed, this institution, placed under the authority of the Minister of War, was administered by a governor (who also had its military command), a steward, and a treasurer. There was, of course, an administrative council, for which the governor had the determining

The Beginning of the Nineteenth Century    vote. By comparison, while a decision of September 28, 1810, combined the functions of cashier of the Quinze-Vingts with those of the agent general (who became the “general accountant”) with a salary increased to six thousand francs, the organic decree of March 25, 1811, set the salary of the governor of the Invalides at fifty thousand francs, that of its steward at twenty-five thousand, and that of its treasurer at fifteen. (At the time, the secretary of the administration and the controller of the Quinze-Vingts earned annual salaries of four thousand). As for the Invalides’ military men, their privileges with respect to other hospitalized disabled people varied, of course, in accordance with their ranks: simple soldiers, noncommissioned officers, or officers. Men who had lost an eye—similar in status to those who had been amputated of one limb—were accorded, in principle (it was not always the case in reality), the rank of honorary lieutenant. The blind—similar in status to those amputated of two limbs—were accorded, for their part, and still “in principle,” the rank of honorary captain. Theoretically, the disabled afflicted with eye problems thus had the rank of (noncommissioned) officers. What’s more, from 1813 on, blind invalides had the right to special pay that was added to the other advantages, pecuniary and in kind, that the ensemble of military men of the Invalides enjoyed. We should also mention the quality of the care the military disabled received, especially those who resided at the main institutution, where the medical service was of the highest quality. The high fees of the doctors, surgeons, and pharmacists who worked there should also be noted: while Bélivier, the surgeon at the Quinze-Vingts from 1800 to 1827, earned eight hundred francs a year under the Empire—which is to say four hundred francs less than the lowest-ranking surgeon at the Invalides—the surgeon and doctor-in-chief of this last earned six thousand francs each. Finally, we should note that the visual handicaps affecting the blind in one eye and the totally blind admitted to or granted pensions by this one-of-a-kind institution helped differentiate them from ordinary blind or partially sighted people taken in by the civil hospices: it was a matter of special etiologies linked to combat, but also of the very harsh conditions of military life, aggravated by the shortcomings of the Supply Corps and the powerlessness of the health service during the Napoleonic campaigns. For all these reasons, which make war invalids a particular category of

   blindness in the early nineteenth century the visually handicapped, we will limit ourselves to these introductory comments on this population, unique in its composition—exclusively male—and in the specifically military organization of life at the Invalides. Indeed, military invalids could themselves be the sole object of a study, in expansion of the work of Jean-Pierre Bois on the former soldiers of the eighteenth century.44 We can point out, however, after having gone through ten out of twenty-five registers “containing the names of military men entering the main institution or its branches” from 1811 to 181645 in the process of our inquiry, that 206 of these suffered from ocular disorders—loss of an eye, feeble vision, total blindness—whose cause was indicated in only 72 cases. It is of interest that of these 72, 31 were victims of various ailments and only 41 were wounded (2 of them from an accidental explosion). The same remarks hold true for the combined ailments affecting 102 of the 206 men surveyed who were either blind in one eye or completely blind. At the root of their illnesses were more rheumatic pains, leg pain, hernias resultant from intense exertion, and chest problems than war wounds proper. In conclusion, we note the relative youth of many of the men listed as “worn out,” “exhausted,” “obsolete,” or “cacochymic”: Luc-Bierné Bayen, for example, a corporal in the Fifth Infantry Regiment of the front line, was admitted to the Avignon branch of the hospice on August 6, 1812, at age twenty-six. “Blind, he was, moreover, suffering from chronic rheumatic pains and worn down by battle fatigue.”46 Yet he had “only” completed five years, seven months, and ten days of service. “Battle fatigue,” so subtly analyzed by Arlette Farge with respect to the eighteenth century,47 was thus more than ever an overwhelming reality for the armies of the Republic and the Empire, where malnutrition, forced marches,48 harsh climates, lack of hygiene, and diseases49 doubtless took more victims than the combats themselves. Captain Moiret, in his Memoirs of Napoleon’s Egyptian Expedition, thus repeatedly evokes the forced marches on burning sands, smallpox, dysentery, and the notorious ophthalmia, “a disease so common in Egypt that we rightly called it ‘the land of the blind.’ ”50

chapter ii

Social Representations and Literary Figures of Blindness in the First Third of the Nineteenth Century

The blind, rich or poor, famous or obscure, who lived in early nineteenth-century France were, as in the past, the object of diverse representations that have come down to us in texts of various genres and with various objectives, whatever the cause—often badly identified—of their disability and whatever their number (which we do not know).

Representations of Reality In texts about well-to-do blind people who became famous for intellectual accomplishments while sharing family values in full accord with the sensibility of the times, we read the admiration of their contemporaries. In contrast, an apparently unshakable conviction as to the average blind person’s inability to be useful to him- or herself or society emerges in the majority of documents concerning the blind of the laboring class. In comparing these different texts, we might quite simply be tempted to see in these apparently contradictory representations the two sides of the “prejudice against blindness” exposed by Villey. It is important, however, to be somewhat prudent when interpreting these documents; they respond, each in accordance with its genre, to very specific goals prescribing form and content.

   blindness in the early nineteenth century Biographical and, a fortiori, necrological notices belong to the genre of eulogy. We should not be surprised to find in them a sometimes excessive admiration for the persons whose career we trace. The most we can do is look with a critical eye at what is reported, especially when it comes to the blindness of the people evoked, in order to discern what in an author’s discourse is the product of commonplaces concerning talents generally attributed to blind people—an exceptional musical ear, a prodigious memory, an innate sense of obstacles—and what indicates accurate observation of the real qualities of the persons at hand and of their ability to compensate for their disability. This is not always so easy. Why suspect Candolle of exaggeration, for instance, when he evokes Huber’s “prodigious aptitude” for music and his so-to-speak “innate taste” for that art? Candolle gives certain details on the way François Huber took up singing and harmony that leave little doubt as to the reality of his gifts: He had an agreeable voice and had been introduced in childhood to the charms of Italian music. The manner in which he learned tunes is worth recounting and may be of use to others. “It was not just from memory,” his son wrote me, “that he retained melodies.”1 Grétry had taught him counterpoint in about a dozen lessons, and by studying on his own, [Huber] had become an able harmonist. Teaching him a tune began with dictating the bass of a musical phrase; he arranged this according to a series of chords; then came the melody, which he executed with his voice. Once a phrase was so organized, he knew it perfectly, and he never needed to learn it more than once. He proceeded to the next, and so on, through to the end of the entire piece, which he then performed from start to finish without trying the patience of the person dictating. He owed a lot, in this regard, to the indulgence of his sister.2

In contrast, when Madame de Staël describes the visit of Léonce and Delphine to Monsieur and Madame de Belmont—who were modeled after Huber and his wife, Marie-Aimée—her comments on the sensibility and musical talents of Belmont probably say more about her own feelings concerning the blind and music than they do about the blind themselves and their relationship to that art: The father began a prelude on the spinet with considerable talent and deep sensibility. I know nothing so touching as a blind man surrendering to the inspiration of music; he is cut off from nature in its plenitude but it is as if restored to him by the diversity of sounds and of the impressions they arouse. The natural timidity

Social Representations and Literary Figures    inseparable from so unfortunate an infirmity prohibits discussing with others the pain one feels, and one almost always avoids mentioning it; but it seems that when a blind man plays melancholy music for you, he reveals the secret of his unhappiness: it gives him pleasure to have found at last a delightful language that allows him to touch the heart without fear of wearying it.3

Documents concerning the indigent blind generally serve a purpose diametrically opposed to biographical notices and are addressed to very different readers. Given our sources, it is most often a question of documents and files intended for the administrators of charitable institutions or the Ministry of the Interior’s division of hospices and assistance. Their aim is not to elicit public admiration, but to obtain a place at the hospice or help at home by proving that the “exhibitor,” an unlucky victim of “the cruelest of infirmities,” is absolutely incapable of fending for him- or herself. As total blindness was a prerequisite for entering the Quinze-Vingts and as the definition of blindness, as we have seen, depended on practical criteria—ambulatory and professional impediments—the letters of recommendation and medical certificates accompanying requests for a place in the hospice generally present the applicants as being “incapable of making their way” and “unable to work, being totally deprived of sight,” to borrow the expressions used in the files. Does this mean the doctors, city officials, and notables who were signatories of these documents were convinced of the inability of all blind people to practice any trade, and this, regardless of their age or of the age at which they became disabled? Based on the current state of research, it is impossible to know. Still, it is certain that the situations described in the admission files were truly dramatic, even if we bear in mind the exaggerations inherent to these types of documents.4 We therefore believe that the argument of blind people’s inaptitude for work, which seems to be a matter of consensus (even on the part of the parties concerned) in the documents pertaining to the blind from the laboring class, actually serves to mask society’s own inability to find appropriate solutions to the problems the disability posed for those of its members “accustomed to working and suddenly deprived of sight, the one thing that would have allowed them to do so.”5 In support of our view, we cite a report drafted in 1809 by the administrators of the Quinze-Vingts to ensure that, in accordance with the

   blindness in the early nineteenth century regulation of Year IX, a certain number of places at the hospice would be reserved for young blind people who had completed their eight years of studies. The administrators sought to convince the Minister of the Interior that it was impossible for the most underprivileged of these blind boys and girls6 to live off the fruit of their labor alone, independent of any structure “appropriate to their habits and needs.” 7 Were these men, who had been able to observe their young charges for eight years—albeit from on high—really convinced of what they claimed when they wrote that “experience . . . has demonstrated that the blind man, however hardworking he may be, whatever education he has received, . . . is too reliant on the help of others, that the circle of his activity is too circumscribed, for him to assure his living by his work alone?”8 Some of them, such as the Abbé Sicard, appointed as administrator of charitable establishments on 5 Brumaire Year XIII (October 27, 1804), doubtless were; in the case of others—Mathieu de Montmorency, Garnier (chief clerk of the Imperial High Court), Desmeuniers (a senator), and Malus (financial commissary of the first military division)—we have no way of knowing. What is certain, though, is that there was no organization for placement or patronage to help young blind people establish themselves when they had completed their studies.9 Their institution was too new and had been forced to confront too many difficulties at its inception for a structure of that type to have been created. Much worse, as we already noted, the endowment provided for by the Law of Thermidor Year III to support the establishment of students leaving the institute had been suppressed. Now, rather than encouraging the political figures responsible to reconsider the decision and come up with new solutions—and commenting in passing on the organization and contents of the education dispensed at the institute—the administrators of the Quinze-Vingts, “prisoners of their charitable profession”10 and anxious to meet the authorities’ expectations,11 preferred using the hackneyed argument that the blind’s inability to work kept them in poverty. Benevolent toward their young charges (“Is a particular benevolence not owed the unfortunates who have never enjoyed the blessing of light . . . and who, from their earliest childhood, have in some way become the government’s adopted children?”12) and faithful to the principles that governed the nationalization of the “Institute for Blind Children,” these philanthropists were representatives of a social

Social Representations and Literary Figures    elite preoccupied with combating mendicancy but unwilling to attack the deep causes of the laboring classes’ economic precariousness. They thus intended to keep their “protégés” from the dangers associated with the poverty that would result from practicing an insufficiently lucrative trade, but in so doing, they did not wish to discard tried and true solutions of centuries before: While acknowledging how much the instruction of blind children is a boon worthy of the government’s generosity, or how much work may soften their fate, we nonetheless see the necessity of an asylum where aid supplements the insufficiency of their resources. We therefore think, with a few exceptions whose details would at present be superfluous, that the subjects who make up the Institute for Blind Youth should next join the ranks of those who make up the old foundation. . . . As blind people, they still have the right to the asylum for the blind.13

As with the files of blind applicants for admission to the hospice, we have here a stereotypical discourse, one that cannot be evaluated for the intimate convictions of its speakers as to the abilities of the blind, but one that we believe would have been well received by its addressees: BarbierNeuville, head of the “hospices and assistance” division in the Ministry of the Interior; Gérando, secretary general of the ministry; and finally, the minister himself, alone qualified to make a decision in favor of the measure called for by the Quinze-Vingts administrators.14 The administrators’ agreed-upon discourse nevertheless reveals a crack in their demonstration’s fine structure: to whom do they refer when they allude to “a few exceptions whose details would at present be superfluous” and apart from whom “the subjects who make up the Institute for Blind Youth should next join the ranks of those who make up the old foundation”? At the time, there could be found among the second generation of institute students reaching the end of their studies, as among Haüy’s first students eight years earlier, a few brilliant subjects who had become, for the most part, tutors of their young schoolmates. The remarkable success some of them had in scientific, literary, or artistic fields, of which the ministerial officials were obviously aware, could not be passed over in silence. Yet to speak of it in a more detailed fashion would go against the supposed failure of “the instructional method for the blind . . . whose creator had evidently taken his wishes for expectations.”15 The administrators skirted the difficulty by barely alluding to it, while suggesting that only a

   blindness in the early nineteenth century small number of students were concerned, individuals who, as they specified, were “blessed with very unusual abilities.”16 As everyone knows, it is exceptions that confirm the rule best applied to the majority of people, in this case, the placement in the Quinze-Vingts of students educated at the institute founded by Haüy for blind children of working-class origin. Whether the authorities and charity professionals liked it or not, it was, however, thanks to the “exceptional” successes of those rare individuals that the edifice of prejudices erected to impede the social integration of the indigent blind began to crumble. Despite difficulties, the blind belonging to the Institute for Blind Workers’ second generation of student-tutors would prove what poor blind people who had profited from education were capable of, and they would do so not by offering themselves up for spectacle as had the preceding generation, but by engaging in professional activities that made them known beyond an inner circle on the one hand, and on the other, by publishing the first attestations written by blind people from modest milieus to be educated at the Institute for Blind Youth.17 It should still be acknowledged that, given the modesty of the income from their work, the indigence of their families, and the absence of a political and administrative will to find solutions beyond that of welfare to assist them, most of these pioneers were obliged to have recourse to the Quinze-Vingts in the form of lodging on site or equivalent pensions. As an example, we cite Jean-François Galliod, who entered the Institute for Blind Children in 1787 at age ten and was admitted in September 1801 to the first class of the blind members of the Quinze-Vingts along with his blind wife, a music tutor at the institute. In 1806, when musical instruction again became a significant part of the blind youth’s schedule, Paul Seignette, agent general of the hospice, made Galliod responsible for its organization. The latter became the musical director and orchestra conductor of the institute, where he then created a wind band. From 1815 to 1816, when the institute regained its independence, Galliod preferred to remain at the Quinze-Vingts, where, three years later, he was appointed music teacher of the chapel’s choir children and where he recreated an orchestra that performed Masses set to music. Himself a composer, he invented a musicography in which notes were represented by letters and numbers in linear relief, which the Quinze-Vingts cantors were to use for

Social Representations and Literary Figures    nearly fifty years. Galliod thus had a real career as a musician and pedagogue whose talents were recognized beyond the Quinze-Vingts, for he was sent students from outside the establishment who had excellent results at the conservatory examinations. Yet this career evolved entirely within an institutional environment: he remained at the hospice until his death there on January 16, 1852. In contrast, Jean-Baptiste Penjon, who entered the Institute for Blind Workers in 1797 at fifteen, and whose success was a model for his schoolmates, left that specialized milieu to make his career at the Lycée of Angers, where he was appointed professor of transcendent mathematics in 1810. Married and the father of nine children, he would only enter the Quinze-Vingts in 1840, after his retirement, even though he had been granted a first-class spot in 1806 in recognition of his scholarly successes. He would leave in 1864, a few months before his death, retaining the hospice’s external pension of two hundred francs. As for the representation of blind beggars hawked in travelers’ tales and picturesque literature—from the memoirs of Kotzebue to Louis Prudhomme’s Le Miroir, the Personnages célèbres of Jean-Baptiste Gourier, and the observations of Etienne de Jouy—it respected the rules of the genre by appealing to a certain number of clichés. Even when they describe people who really existed, these texts must be used with caution. We will say that, if we are to believe the authors of this type of literature, blind beggars—who were quite numerous at the beginning of the nineteenth century—evoked curiosity and compassion more than the irony and disapproval that became more common in the 1840s: “We find many blind people in the streets of Paris,” wrote Prudhomme, for instance, in the early years of the century, “[and] it is hard not to pity these wretches. They have dogs on ribbon leashes, and the faithful animals answer to their masters.”18 We find the same compassion in Kotzebue: This day, my sweet friend, we pursue our excursion . . . , and I will not answer for it that a tear may not now and then steal into your eye. Just by, we meet with a blind man singing his song in simple and affecting accents. Besides him lies his his faithful guide, the shaggy dog, sometimes shaking his bell. Not far from him sits another blind man, who probably cannot sing; instead of singing, a kind of stage stands before him, on which several bells of various tones are suspended, which it puts in motion with threads. He does not beg aloud; but only puts his hand now

   blindness in the early nineteenth century and then into his hat to try whether or not he cannot grasp the charitable token of some passing benefactor. He generally draws it back empty.19

The tone would be quite different in the 1841 Prism. A Moral Encyclopedia of the Nineteenth Century under the pen of Maria d’Anspach: Ambulant musicians encumber our streets. . . . Paris, which does not lack for beggars, is little adept at concealing or seizing them. And are they not beggars, I ask you, those blind people with their squawking clarinets, those eternal singers of laments, those little hurdy-gurdy players, unlucky children of both sexes on the road to a life of opprobrium and misery? If there must be poor people, may charity at least be freely exercised, and may we prevent importunity and nascent vice from snatching food from the mouths of the true children of God!20

The various texts we have just cited—biographical notices, files, and administrative reports, literature about Paris, but also fiction, with the character of Belmont in Madame de Staël’s Delphine—refer to blind people who really lived in nineteenth-century Paris or elsewhere in France, but the representations of the blind and blindness to which they speak are not objective for all that. Rather, we have seen that these texts convey a number of stereotypes and may testify more to the prejudices and fears of their authors than to the realities of blindness. When it comes to fictional characters, theatrical literature and novels of the first third of the nineteenth century provide us with diverse representations of the blind and blindness, sometimes borrowed from the ancient comic tradition and sometimes inspired by the knowledge and new sensibility born of Enlightenment reflections on blindness—when they do not attest to the Romantic vision of the blind person: a striking figure, overcome by misfortune or, in contrast, a luminous visionary of invisible realities.

Fiction Without claiming to be exhaustive, for the period ranging from Year X (1801–2) to 1830, we have inventoried about twenty works whose plot is constructed around the real or supposed blindness of one or more protagonists: two novels by Isabelle de Montolieu, Sophie, or the Blind Wife [So-

Social Representations and Literary Figures    phie ou l’Aveugle] (1812) and The Young Blind Girl [La Jeune aveugle] (1819), imitations, respectively, of German and English novels; a novel by Baroness de Tully, Louisa and the Little Beggar Girl [Louisa et la petite mendiante] (1829), in which the heroine’s father, old Morin, is a former sergeant in the Great Army blinded during the Russia campaign; two novellas from two collections of edifying stories for young people: The Blind Boy [L’Aveugle] by Madame Guizot (1822) and The Young Blind Girl [La Jeune aveugle] by Laurent-Pierre de Jussieu (1827–28), probably an imitation of the same German text as Sophie, or the Blind Wife. The other books inventoried are an opera by Lebrun with a libretto by Armand-Croizette and Châteauvieux, The Blind of Franconville (Year X, 1802), and several plays: two melodramas “in prose and à grand spectacle,” The Illustrious Blind Man [L’Aveugle illustre] by Caignez (1806) and The Blind Man of Tyrol [L’Aveugle de Tirol] by Frédéric (1807); a verse tragedy in five acts by Jouy on the hackneyed theme of Belisarius, “received, studied, but not represented at the Théâtre français” in 1818; and a dozen comedies of different sorts, from burlesque to bourgeois: The Blind Beggars or Game and Revenge [Les Trois aveugles ou Partie et revanche], a one-act vaudeville by F.-P.-A. Léger (Year X, 1801) that takes up the plot of Cortebarbe’s The Three Blind Men of Compiègne 21 and perfectly corresponds to the definition of a vaudeville, a genre “born in the eighteenth century from the refinement of the old scatological and saucy farce”22; Blind Cassander, or Harlequin’s Concert [Cassandre aveugle ou le Concert d’Arlequin] by Chazet and Moreau and The So-Called Blind Man [L’Aveugle supposé] by Lepître, both created in Paris in Year XI (1803). To these creations should be added, from the same year, the revival of a 1716 comedy by Legrand at the Théâtre Français, The Sighted Blind Man [L’Aveugle clairvoyant]—whose main character, a middle-aged man, returns from a long voyage pretending to be blind in order to test the love of a young widow he had promised to marry before his departure.23 We also note a short scene from a “ folie in two acts” by Dorvigny staged at the Montansier theater, in which there appeared three blind musicians guided by a little boy proposing their services for a wedding. The following year (Year XII, 1804), Jacquelin and Rigaud created an “anecdotal comedy” at the Variétés-Montansier: Blind Piron [Piron aveugle], inspired by an episode of the life of poet Alexis Piron (1689–1773), a rival of Voltaire who was

   blindness in the early nineteenth century blind during the last years of his life. About twenty years later, in December 1822, Scribe and Mélesville put on a sentimental comedy at the Théâtre Français, Valérie, whose considerable success immediately gave rise to two burlesque imitations—Mr. Oculi, or the Cataract [Monsieur Oculi ou la Cataracte] by Desaugiers and Adolphe, and The Cataract [La Cataracte] by Dupin and Varner, created respectively in January and February of the same year. The success of Valérie, to which we will later return, probably also lies behind the creation, between February 1823 and July 1824, of four other plays with blind characters as protagonists: The Two Blind Men [Les Deux aveugles] by Carmouche and Courcy (February 3, 1823); The Blind Man from Montmorency [L’Aveugle de Montmorency] by Brazier, Gabriel, and Gersin (March 6, 1823); The False Blind Woman [La Fausse aveugle] by Cuvelier and Caron (November 25, 1823); and finally, The Three Blind Men [Les Trois Aveugles] by Brazier, Mélesville, and Carmouche24 (July 24, 1824).25 Of these plays and novels, we will consider those that best illustrate the various fictional representations of the blind at the time: the burlesque character born of the fairground; the melodramatic hero, an unlucky victim of mankind’s duplicity; the imposter, whose subterfuge puts the feelings of those close to him to the test; and the blind man who recovers his sight thanks to the combined miracles of love and science, thereby enabling a near-century of fictive restagings—in the sentimental or burlesque mode—of Enlightenment philosophy’s foundational scene. In The Blind Cassander, or Harlequin’s Concert, a comédie-parade with vaudevilles, the hero, a great lover of music, is a tyrannical father. He has promised his daughter Colombine to Harlequin. The latter has gone to seek his fortune in Russia, and during his long absence, Cassander loses his sight and becomes infatuated with Gilles, a buffoon who claims to be an oculist, serves as Cassander’s reader, and flatters his passion for music. Breaking his earlier commitments, Cassander decides to make Gilles his son-in-law—disregarding warnings from his old friend Dubreuil as well as Colombine’s feelings. The play opens with the return of Harlequin, who, thanks to an improbable subterfuge that turns on Cassander’s blindness, manages to confound his rival, regain the esteem of Cassander—who becomes convinced of the foolishness and duplicity of Gilles—and recover

Social Representations and Literary Figures    the hand of his betrothed. In this play descending from the Italian theater, the blind character is once again the dupe of his friends and family— first of Gilles’s flattery and then of Harlequin’s cunning. Is he not convinced that he attends a concert at the opera—for which there are no more seats—by being driven around in a carriage and then back home to his own salon, where Harlequin has assembled a few musicians? Cassander’s blindness and his incredible credulity are also a metaphor, of course, for his “moral” blindness”: a domestic despot, he is content to be blind when it comes to family, and he is easily deceived by those who know how to take advantage of his weaknesses and flatter his passions. At the end of this improbable play, the combination of the cunning of Harlequin and sincerity of Dubreuil—the only person not to have deceived him—at last permit Cassander to see clearly. The plot of The So-Called Blind Man, “a comedy in one act with vaudevilles,” is also driven by deception, and as with the previous play, it is the heroine’s father who is the principal dupe of the story. But he is not the only one to be deceived, and unlike Cassander, Chrysogon, father of the charming Sophie, is not blind but rather, an oculist. He is not any more clear-sighted for all that, since he does not uncover the deception of Derval Junior, who feigns blindness and takes up lodgings with him under the name of Valcourt—supposedly to be treated but in reality to test the heart of Sophie, whom his father, an old friend of Chrysogon, has designated as his wife. Perhaps more greedy than incompetent, Chrysogon becomes attached to caring for Valcourt, because the latter pays a high fee and agrees to give music lessons to his daughter—for free. An indictment of the ignorance and greed of doctors (and, as it happens, of the charlatanism of a great many oculists, whose incompetence and dishonesty were then notorious), a plea in favor of love matches (though considerate of paternal authority when it is exerted with discernment—it so happens that the marriage Derval arranges entirely corresponds to his son’s tastes and aspirations), this play, which in certain ways draws upon the most classic sources of the comedy of intrigue, turns out to depart completely from tradition with respect to the representation of the blind and blindness in comic theater. It is when she believes he is blind that Sophie is taken with Valcourt. Contrary to Léonor, the

   blindness in the early nineteenth century young betrothed widow of The Sighted Blind Man, who could only look with “horror” upon the prospect of marrying a disabled person, Sophie responds as a lover to the questions of Derval Senior, who discovers her feelings for “Valcourt”: Derval: I am discreet, Sophie, admit that you love this young man; that you are loved, I see from your silence . . . But answer another question: you would not refuse his hand, despite the misfortune he has suffered? . . . A blind husband? Sophie: If he could see me better, would he love me more? Derval (aside): Charming girl! (aloud) And you would condemn yourself to live forever by his side? Sophie: To console him, to guide his uncertain steps, this would be my sweetest pleasure.26

To be sure, Sophie’s motives are not entirely disinterested: she hopes a blind husband will be spared the temptation of infidelity; unlike Damon, “the clear-sighted blind man,” Valcourt is young; and finally, in spite of his putative blindness, Valcourt possesses all the qualities one could hope for in a lover. An agreeable voice and physique complement the charm and delicacy of his feelings, and his eyes, in particular, remain “brilliant and beautiful.”27 There is still a question as to whether the vaudeville’s public— aware of Valcourt’s subterfuge—was capable only of pitying the naiveté and devotion of Sophie, or whether it was able to identify with her to the point of admitting the validity, not only of her feelings, but of a marriage between a sighted girl and a blind man. The question is all the more difficult to answer because, in the plays about love between a blind and a sighted character created in Paris at the end of the eighteenth and during the first third of the nineteenth centuries, the stricken hero or heroine always recovers his or her sight, thereby voiding, as in The So-Called Blind Man, the possibility of a “mixed” marriage. The issue, moreover, was not central to these plots, where the blindness of one of the two protagonists essentially intervened to put the solidity and the depth of amorous feelings to the test, with each person generally rivaling the other in abnegation. Whatever sympathy the theatergoing public may have had for the fictitious love between a blind and a sighted person, its attitude would hardly predict society’s tolerance for a similar situation’s occurrence in reality. Huber’s biographers recount that once the ineluctable nature of Huber’s blindness was

Social Representations and Literary Figures    known, Mr. Lullin, father of Huber’s future wife, refused to consent to the marriage of the young people, who considered themselves as having been engaged since adolescence. Marie-Aimée had to wait until her majority (age twenty-five, at the time) to marry the man she loved.28 While the representation of blindness in The So-Called Blind Man is more positive than those of the burlesque tradition, it still is governed by stereotypes at some remove from reality. In contrast, in Jacquelin and Rigaud’s Blind Piron, the main character’s blindness is depicted in a far more credible manner. The plot of this “anecdotal comedy”—built essentially around the theme of the deceiver deceived—derives, as we already said, from authentic episodes of the life of Alexis Piron, who, as Grimm noted in his Correspondance littéraire of January 1773 (Piron had died on the twenty-first), “had been completely blind for ten or twelve years.”29 Nanette, niece of the author of Metromania, has secretly married a musician, Capron, who sets the verses composed by her uncle to music. But Piron, whose mind, still nimble despite his advanced age and his infirmities, had been the joy of his contemporaries,30 has apparently guessed everything. He thus good-naturedly plays a trick of his own on Nanette and Capron to avenge their lack of confidence in him. First he pretends to want to marry Nanette to a neighbor, M. Folleville, who “comes every evening to hum under her window.”31 Next he summons his notary and dictates—to music, his wonderful will in the presence of Nanette and Capron. For reasons that I keep secret, Of fortune I deprive Nanette . . .  But I make a donation To my niece, wife of Capron!32

Everything ends for the best with a meal washed down with plenty of wine and prepared by Landel, the caterer of Caveau,33 Piron’s old friend and the two lovers’ confidant. This light comedy, whose plot is really quite thin, is of interest for its treatment of the main character’s blindness. While the blind Cassander, for example, cut an awkward figure and was fooled in a most improbable way, Piron, with his wit and vivacity, is able to use his other senses to compensate for his disability and to thwart the ruses of his friends and family. The blindest people, when all is said and done, are the two lovers

   blindness in the early nineteenth century who thought to fool him, and whom he fools in turn: “Lovers are certainly blind, are they not, my niece?”34 What’s more, Piron’s good humor and natural cheerfulness prevent self-pity. It is true that the “cheerfulness” of the blind was a commonplace comparable to the sadness of the deaf. Still, it is plausible that [the real] Piron, endowed by nature with a happy character, lived his blindness better than, say, Madame du Deffand, who was afflicted by chronic “ennui” that blindness only accentuated. Far from complaining or withdrawing into himself, Piron is preoccupied with his less fortunate “fellows” and agrees to write a couplet for “the poor blind man . . . who is usually at the terrace of the Feuillants near the passage to the Vendôme Square”35 and who comes that very morning to request the favor. We may wonder, apropos, what the well-to-do blind, including those who were somewhat well known, and the poor wretches begging at church portals or on public streets thought of each other at the time. Unfortunately, we found nothing on this subject for the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At most, we can recall the sympathy the famous Pougens displayed for the humble Jean-Denis Avisse, the impecunious tutor of the Institute for Blind Workers. But Avisse, though neither rich nor famous, was cultivated, and he did not hail from a background of utter deprivation. And it would have been at the very least surprising if Pougens, who by family, education, and culture belonged to Enlightenment society, had been impervious to the shift in opinion of some of his far-sighted peers in favor of educating the indigent blind. Such an attitude would not predict any feeling of “complicity in misfortune” between the blind elite and beggars suffering from the same infirmity. The resurgence of comic themes such as that of the Three Blind Men of Compiègne proves to what extent blind beggars could still be objects of derision or scorn in the first half of the nineteenth century.36 It is possible, if not probable, that the “distinguished” blind of the period cultivated a feeling of difference visà-vis those sorts of people rather than one of commonality. There could, though, be complicity between blind people of the same “world,” as attested to in the previous century by Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Madame du Deffand or Pfeffel, Weissenbourg, and Mademoiselle von Paradis. Whatever the response to this important question of a shared sense of identity between blind people of different classes—a sense of identity

Social Representations and Literary Figures    whose emergence would be palpable a little later in the nineteenth century—we may conclude from the study of blind people presented by the writers of comedies in the beginning of the century that their depiction of the blind and blindness varies by case. The blind are grotesque when they let themselves be fooled by their friends and family, touching when in love, likable when they good-naturedly put up with the miseries of age and infirmity, but most of the time, not very realistic, except when, by chance, as in Blind Piron, the authors present a person who truly existed and whose behavior in the face of the disability was probably too well known to be completely distorted. With melodrama, a coded genre par excellence, where character types were strictly set,37 things, as might be expected, did not evolve in the direction of plausibility. In this “popular tragedy,” à grand spectacle that began to flourish in the last years of the Directory,38 the blind took up the tradition of shadows while completely breaking with that tradition born of medieval theater. It was no longer a question of a mocked rascal but of a poor soul to be pitied, were he responsible for his own misfortune. This is the case of Ernest, Count of Holsberg, protagonist of a melodrama by Frédéric created on March 16, 1807, at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, The Blind Man of Tyrol, which was still being staged with success in 1812. Deceived by the ignoble Astolphe, governor of Innsbruck, who coveted his wife, Albertine, in vain, Ernest, wild with jealousy, struck the latter with a blow of his sword that he believed fatal. He then fled his castle, bringing with him his son Armand, and then the country, where his father-in-law, the Baron de Retz, was seeking to punish him for his crime. Taking refuge in France, he was struck with an illness that, having nearly killed him, left him completely blind. A new Gloucester, the Count of Holsberg, guilty of hasty judgment for having trusted a traitor, was thus condemned to forever wander “from land to land, dependent upon the compassion of others for coarse nourishment for [himself] and [his son].”39 When the play begins, four years after these tragic events, Ernest “swathed in rags and carrying a beggar’s pouch and a gourd around his neck” and guided by his son, “who attentively helps him steer clear of anything that might get in his way or pose him any danger,” returns to his country.40 The first person he encounters on the road to Wolsen is brave

   blindness in the early nineteenth century Fideman, a former soldier become a farmer. This last not only gives alms; he offers shelter to Ernest and Armand. Now it is precisely at the home of Fideman, a former farmer of the Baron de Retz, that Albertine has taken refuge under the name Clotilde. Contrary to what her husband and father thought, Albertine escaped death. She then secretly fled her castle with the complicity of an old servant who entrusted her to Fideman’s care. She hoped she might one day prove her innocence, for if everyone believes her dead, they also believe her guilty of infidelity to her husband. To do so, she would have to confound Astolphe, who is still invested with his powers as governor. In the meantime, to escape the traitor, she has been hiding at Fideman’s disguised as a farm girl. Straightaway, husband and wife are unknowingly reunited under Fideman’s roof. Because he is blind, Ernest cannot recognize in Clotilde the wife he believes he killed; Albertine, not knowing that Ernest has left France, and unaware that he has lost his sight, does not immediately recognize him in the beggar lodged by Fideman; as for Armand, a baby when his father fled with his son in his arms, he has no memory of his mother— whom he also believes to be dead; for the same reasons, Albertine cannot recognize her son in the nine- or ten-year-old child guiding Ernest so considerately. Only two individuals know the true identity of the three people: Bruzman and Soler, agents who work for Astolphe and who plot to “seize the count, his wife, and his son and to take them to the castle of Innsbruck.”41 At the beginning of the play, the inhabitants of Wolsen are preparing to celebrate the village festival, which Count Astolphe and the Baron de Retz, en route to Innsbruck, are also supposed to attend. Bruzman and Soler, disguised as itinerant merchants, are counting on taking advantage of the festival’s hustle and bustle to carry out their crime. We will not go into the details of a plot rich in twists and turns that naturally ends with the punishment of the traitor and the reuniting of families thanks to Fideman’s devotion and heroism. Albertine and Ernest, recognized and pardoned by the Baron de Retz, can finally enjoy the happiness of being together with their little Armand. Instead, we will explore the way the blind character is portrayed and how this portrayal is inscribed in the “moral” discourse that melodrama, “an essentially pedagogical genre,”42 meant to convey. From the first, the blind man and his guide arouse the pity of Fideman, who runs into them while coming home

Social Representations and Literary Figures    from the hunt: “Upon leaving the neighboring forest, I met a wretched blind man led by a child of nine or ten. This child came to me and in a voice whose tender accents would have moved the soul of the hardest heart, he begged me to ease the misery engulfing his unlucky father.”43 At Fideman’s story, his son Etienne commiserates in turn: “How this man is to be pitied!”44 Yet according to Fideman, if this man is miserable because of his infirmity, he is not as miserable as one might think, because “a man . . . never is so entirely when he finds support and consolation in his children.”45 What’s more, since the blind man is dependent upon the compassion of others and the solicitude of his family, his disability serves the designs of Providence; it allows individuals to demonstrate their sensibility and their generosity, and it especially keeps children from being selfish or ungrateful toward their parents. Admire the goodness of Providence. This man owes his existence to the compassion of others. His only legacy to his son will be poverty and the memory of his misfortunes; and yet, he is loved, adored. It is his son who guides his steps, who makes him forget his troubles, whereas many men, after having madly dissipated their fortune to satisfy the slightest caprice of the child they adore, realize too late that all they have done is sow ungratefulness and insensitivity in its heart.46

Fideman’s monologue helps us understand that melodrama, the “only theatrical genre that brings all social classes together”47 makes the representation of the dependent blind person its own for reasons identical to those of philanthropic discourse. On the one hand, there is an exaltation of virtue with a view to the reconciliation of classes through the practice of charity; on the other is praise of personal morals and filial piety, which basically encourage the resolution of problems concerning age or illness through familial solidarity. But if the blindness of unlucky heroes allows charitable men, loving wives, and devoted children to display “proper sentiments,” it also reveals the “black souls” of villains—thereby serving the very Manichean issue of melodramatic morality.48 Far from being touched by Ernest’s disability, Astolphe and his associates take advantage of his state to trap him and try to kill him. We note, in this regard, that the hero’s blindness can also accentuate the theatrical effect of particularly moving scenes. We can easily imagine, for instance, the reaction of the Gaîté’s public when, in one of the last scenes of the final act, Astolphe, dagger in hand, throws himself

   blindness in the early nineteenth century on the unlucky blind man, who is saved in extremis by the arrival of the other protagonists. The role of the blind person in melodrama, a sort of personification of misfortune responsible for highlighting the sensibility of the good and the perversity of the bad, is thus to inspire various feelings in the spectators: from pity for his “sorry fate,” to tenderness at the sight of his friends’ and family’s solicitude, to fright at the dangers that assail him from all sides.49 If this be pedagogy, we are certainly far from the teachings dispensed on the stage of the “little theater of Beneficence,” where Haüy strove to inform the public of the abilities of the “blind citizens” educated at his institute. And what of the treatment reserved for the heroine of Isabelle de Montolieu, author of Sophie, or the Blind Wife, a novel in two “periods” published in the Mercure before coming out with Paschoud in 1812 in an edition augmented by two new episodes? Before analyzing this work by the prolific Swiss novelist, we should specify that we have not found the first version of Sophie: information concerning its publication date and the Mercure’s tables for the years preceding the novel’s publication by Paschoud is lacking. Our analysis will therefore be based on the second revised and expanded edition, published in a collection of Twelve Novellas in four volumes, of which the four volumes of Sophie alone constitute a single tome of 257 pages.50 The four novellas that make up Sophie, or the Blind Wife, a roman édifiant dedicated to the glorification of family virtues, correspond to four stages in the life of narrator Henri de P***. In the first novella, twentyfive-year-old Henri pays a visit to his childhood friend Charles, whom he has not seen for thirteen years. As the two young men enjoy the happiness of being together on a beautiful spring day in Charles’s garden, they hear “a melody [seeming] to come from the heavens.”51 After a few more chords from the harpsichord, “the most touching, most harmonious voice” begins to sing a song celebrating “the beauty and happiness of existence.”52 Moved to tears, Henri asks his friend, “Who is the angel that sings thus?”53 To his stupefaction, he learns that it is a blind girl, Charles’s neighbor and friend of three years. Sophie, for such is her name, is nearly twenty; she was seven when smallpox deprived her of sight, fortunately without her disfiguration.54

Social Representations and Literary Figures    Deeply moved by his friend’s tale, Henri pities “the poor thing . . . , still so young and plunged in eternal darkness”55 and imagines her a prey to bitter despair. Charles immediately disabuses him: Sophie is always happy and serene, because God, in his grace, “has put a light in her soul that consoles her for that of which she is deprived.”56 Sophie’s character is outlined thus: young, beautiful, a musician, blessed with an angelic voice and a cheerful nature. What’s more, the blind girl has a lively and penetrating mind with a great capacity for concentration and an astonishing memory. These natural qualities were fostered thanks to a remarkable education dispensed by a tender and devoted mother who was able to compensate for her daughter’s visual deficiencies by using her other senses. It seems clear that the novel’s author—Montolieu or the person who inspired her—had read Diderot and had found in Mélanie de Salignac a model for young Sophie. Certain passages concerning Sophie’s love of studies, her musical talents, her “special feeling for the presence of objects and how to avoid them,”57 “her hearing, so practiced and so fine that when she or others dropped something, she could tell from the noise, place, and distance where the object was and find it immediately,”58 her dexterity at needlework, are practically paraphrases of Diderot’s text. The author also turned to other sources to make Sophie an ethereal being that blindness has kept from evil and temptation: “ ‘Who knows,’ she sometimes said to herself, ‘how many dangers this salutary affliction has spared me?’ ” And don’t you think [Charles asks his friend] that Sophie is right? Her ideas, taste, desires, have taken a different shape. She is nearly ignorant of evil; her soul has remained a mirror that no breath has tarnished; no bold or voluptuous gaze has ever made her lower her eyes with a painful blush; and if a few words of that sort were to offend her ears, she would not comprehend them.59

We note in passing that this type of remark recalls the reflections of Saint-Samson’s biographer or those of Malaval on the “providential” nature of a disability which, in safeguarding them against the spectacle of the world and its temptations, gave them readier access to inner illumination. From Charles’s enthusiastic description, his childhood friend understands him to be in love with his young neighbor, and he points it out. But when Henri meets the girl for himself, he shares his friend’s opinion: “No,

   blindness in the early nineteenth century it is not a terrestrial love that Sophie can inspire.”60 Sophie is an angelic being whose outward appearance reflects her inner disposition: I was struck at first by the elegance of her slim figure and the lightness of her step; she was dressed in white; her face was somehow ethereal and heavenly; I thought I was seeing one of the angels who visited our first parents in the Garden of Eden, and I was tempted to prostrate myself. When she came close, the impression did not fade. Her dazzlingly fresh young face had an expression words can hardly describe. It was not in her eyes that I could see her soul, for they were shut, but it could be found in the perfect harmony of her features, the outline of her lovely oval face, her pure and transparent complexion, in her smile, above all, which revealed everything her eyes would have conveyed.61

A daughter of the Enlightenment by education, behavior, and the ease with which she overcomes her disability, Sophie, through the purity of her soul and thoughts, is radiant from head to toe; she is a being of light, for whom one can only feel a platonic veneration. In this sense, she prefigures a certain romantic vision of the blind woman, illustrated, for instance, by the character of Dea in Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs: Dea was his dream. She seemed a vision scarcely embodied. There was in her whole person, in her Grecian form, in her fine and supple figure, swaying like a reed; in her shoulders, on which might have been invisible wings; in the modest curves which indicated her sex, to the soul rather than to the senses; in her fairness, which amounted almost to transparency; in the august and reserved serenity of her look, divinely shut out from earth; in the sacred innocence of her smile— she was almost an angel, and yet just a woman.62

Back at home, Henri is still pursued by the image of the “interesting blind girl,” which “animates his solitude”63 before rendering it unbearable. Finally resolved to ask for Sophie’s hand, the young man is preparing to write Charles to share his decision when he receives a letter announcing that after Henri’s visit, and as a result of his insight, Charles has understood the nature of his own attachment to Sophie. After having triumphed over the resistance of the young woman, who, while sharing his feelings, had qualms about her situation, Charles obtained her consent. To their happiness is added “the sweet joy of Sophie’s mother,”64 reassured by the idea that when she passes, her daughter will not be alone in the world— something, we might note, that remains a major concern of the parents of handicapped children to this day.

Social Representations and Literary Figures    In one month, then, gentle Sophie is to become the lifetime companion of Charles, who asks Henri to join them as the witness to their happiness. It will be several years before Henri wishes to see his friends again. Ten years have gone by when Henri de P., at thirty-five, takes up the rest of his story. “Eléonore or Beautiful Eyes,” the second episode of Sophie, or the Blind Girl, begins five years after Charles and Sophie’s marriage, which Henri has not managed to forget. Had he wanted to free himself from Sophie’s memory, his regular correspondence with Charles would have prevented it. One evening at a ball, though, Henri encountered “the most beautiful, big brown eyes” he has ever seen.65 These eyes, he writes, “had such a gentle, such an eloquent expression that before the end of the evening, I could no longer understand how it was possible to be appealing without two big brown wide open eyes.”66 And so the young man was delivered of his futile passion for Sophie. Eléonore de P***—the name of his “the brown-eyed beauty,” was an orphan, and her guardian was in a hurry to establish her. As she was quick to respond to Henri—who, moreover, has a respectable fortune—their marriage was soon decided. Henri, in turn, could write to Charles that he was “the happiest of men. My Eléonore,” he continued, “has the most beautiful eyes in the world, but these eyes see no one but me.”67 This is a naive presumption that Henri has shaken after five years of married life. “When we see everything, we risk having more pain than pleasure, and at present, I don’t know if it is not better to see nothing at all than to see too much.”68 It turns out that Eléonore not only has beautiful eyes, but good eyes. This visual acuity, which is her pride and joy—“I see all; nothing escapes me; and everything is a source of amusement. I will not conceal [the fact] that I feel a veritable shiver of pride when I have seen or discovered what others do not see or see badly”69 —has become the source of many disappointments for her husband. Particularly sensitive to appearances, the young woman notices the slightest flaws in everything, whether it be her husband’s face or the decor of his house. Since she cannot change the one, she spends the first two years of their marriage constantly renovating the other, tapestries, furniture, and knick-knacks, at great cost—in order, she says, to satisfy “a delicacy of vision” that causes her to have “a sort of aversion for anything that is not perfect.”70 Having become

   blindness in the early nineteenth century a mother after two years of marriage, Eléonore puts the same determination into perfecting her own little Sophie, whose sight she has trained to the detriment of all other senses. When it comes to her daughter’s education, she displays the same capriciousness she had previously shown in her choice of furnishings, abandoning a method one day for another vaunted the evening before, and changing her mind again the next. Things reach a breaking point when Eléonore, returning to society after two years dedicated to her child’s education, allows herself to be dazzled by a brilliant seducer, the Count de Launai, who has flattered her by praising the beauty of her eyes and the soundness of her views. It is at that moment that Charles and Sophie, informed by Henri of the threat to his household, intervene. “Blind Sophie, for whom a long voyage could only mean suffering, Sophie, accustomed to her home, to the garden in which she could run without a guide, Sophie, the most tender mother of a little girl she could not bring with her,”71 the “good Sophie,” has unhesitatingly proposed to visit her husband’s friends so as to convince Eléonore to renounce her imaginary conquest. In accordance with the moralizing intentions of the novelist, the ethereal Sophie—the young Enlightenment blind woman who foreshadows the radiant blind person of Romantic literature—has been transformed, over the years and through motherhood, into a guardian angel of domestic virtue. We can appreciate this evolution in the portrait Henri gives of the young woman, whom he has not seen for several years: As I looked at Sophie . . . , I believed I saw calm, reason, wisdom, happiness in our midst, beneath her enchanting form. She had changed little: there was still the same celestial smile, the same grace, the same beautiful oval of a face, though it was a little fuller. Her whole person had something less ethereal about it; but she also had a more imposing bearing that, in conjunction with her affability, her sensitive countenance, and the sound of her voice, inspired both respect and confidence. Sophie was a wife and mother in all senses of the terms; there was no mistaking it, and everything in her announced the happiness attached to these two titles.72

To some extent, the way the author presents the character of Sophie—both before and after her marriage—provides us with a positive image. The fact that she allows her heroine to marry and to know the joys and torments of maternity is without a doubt more original and more in-

Social Representations and Literary Figures    novative than to have confined her to the role of an unmarried woman doomed to the joys of the mind alone and deprived of any possibility of a love life. Here, a comparison with a novella by a later author of romans édifiants, Madame Hippolyte Taunay’s The Young Blind Woman (1842), is particularly instructive. Victoire, Taunay’s heroine, sacrifices herself so the man she loves can marry someone else and dies of chagrin at the end of the novel.73 And yet, upon closer examination, Henri’s speech on Sophie’s qualities and on the advantages of her blindness in comparison with the drawbacks of Eléonore’s keen vision deserves consideration. Indeed, it would seem that the blindness of women would be a condition for the happiness of husbands and for peace in the home. Does not Henri, after having expressed his disappointment at his wife’s demands and prodigality, write quite simply and with utter seriousness: “My Eléonore was truly kind and sensitive, she had many appealing qualities, and had she been blind like Sophie, I don’t doubt that she would have made me happy”?74 In point of fact, if we revisit everything the author writes about young Sophie and then Sophie as wife and mother, what do we find? Protected by blindness from all bold or voluptuous eyes, safeguarded against the vanity her beauty might have afforded her, kept by her mother—who selected her readings—from anything that might have tarnished the purity of her thoughts, Sophie comes to marriage without knowing evil, with a chaste mind and an innocent soul. Once married, she creates an ideal image of her husband and can find no fault with him. More comfortable at home than in the world and its bustle, she is not tempted by vain pleasures and extravagant expenses. In sum, for her, there can only be “one man in the world; and this man is her husband, the person . . . to whom she owes the foremost of joys, that of motherhood.”75 We already saw this praise of blindness as a guarantee of conjugal happiness in the theater, but it was not uttered very seriously, and we could laugh at it. In contrast, under the edifying pen of Isabelle de Montolieu, the demonstration is meant to be convincing, and—even if we take Sophie’s blindness as a symbolic opposition to Eléonore’s frivolous scopic drive76 —this valorization of a blind woman in a speech on the glories of bourgeois marriage leaves us wondering. We can, in particular, ask a question that Montolieu—ultimately more inspired by Rousseau’s

   blindness in the early nineteenth century morality than by Diderot’s impertinence77—probably never asked herself when writing, or adapting, this story: is a husband such an imperfect being, and married life so boring, that to be content with them a woman must be blind? Whatever the case, the second episode of Sophie, or the Blind Woman concludes with Eléonore’s return “to domestic bliss.”78 The fickle woman’s “conversion” is so complete that she no longer wishes to be apart from her new friend, and she convinces Henri to move so as to “organize their life” around Charles and Sophie. Henri can thus end his tale with the Edenic tableau of the two couples and their children together in the garden their two houses share, “as happy as one can be on this earth. . . . Eléonore’s eyes, he concludes, are as beautiful as ever and only see what must be seen; Sophie’s remain shut, but her heart makes up for them: it senses everything, foresees everything, and she is truly our guardian angel, the bond of our happy company.”79 We will not dwell on the two last episodes of the book, “Our Children: Henri de P. at Fifty” and “The Blind in Paris,” which are less directly related to our subject. We will only mention the account of Sophie’s visit to the establishment of blind youth, in the fourth and last novella: “delighted and moved,” the young woman hears her “companions in misfortune . . . decipher music and read with facility, through touch . . . , books printed for them in relief.”80 After having admired this “beautiful invention,” she decides “to become a student at their institution,” promising herself to take “great pleasure in [her] studies.”81 She then questions “with a sisterly interest, several young people as to the cause of their blindness, their occupations, their families, etc.” and the narrator comments that “all agreed that they shared the same sentiment she had once confessed to me: extreme pleasure with regard to overcoming the ever-present difficulties relative to their state.”82 At the end of the visit, Sophie cannot help but compare her fate with that of “these poor children, sightless, and living in the midst of strangers,” even though “educated and treated with extreme gentleness,”83 and she finds herself quite lucky to have been brought up in her family, surrounded by “cherished souls” whose sole thoughts were to protect her from sorrow.”84 After numerous, highly improbable events, Sophie, or the Blind Woman ends by evoking “the group of learned men and agreeable women who often gather . . . around the interesting blind woman”85 to converse,

Social Representations and Literary Figures    read, and play music. The narrator concludes, like a hero out of Rousseau: “Paradise can be found on earth when one loves, when one is loved, and when one brings together love and virtue.”86 While a prolific and fashionable novelist in her day, Montolieu was a mediocre writer, and the story of Sophie doubtless deserves the oblivion into which it has fallen since. But this badly written novel—whose plot is strewn with rocambolesque episodes—had a certain audience, as its 1812 publication with Paschoud following its serialization in the Mercure attests. From our perspective, this success confirms the nineteenth-century public’s continued interest in the theme of the blind, so in vogue in the previous century. Montolieu herself would write another edifying novel in the same vein, The Young Blind Girl—this one aimed at children, whereas Sophie addressed a public of women—published by Arthus Bertrand in 1819. We will not provide the details of this story in which the blindness of nine-year-old Hélène allows her family to vie with each other in attentions without turning her into a spoiled child for all that. Three years after the publication of this novel, which concludes with Hélène’s cure at the hands of a noted oculist, the audience of the Théâtre Français made Valérie, a three-act prose comedy by Scribe and Mélesville staged for the first time on December 21, 1822, with Mademoiselle Mars in the title role, a triumphant success. In order to play Valérie, a young orphan blind since birth—who also recovers her sight at the play’s conclusion— it was said that the actress observed the behavior of a young blind girl, Sophie Osmont, “daughter of a vaudeville actress known as Minette.”87 Or so reported the Journal des Dames et des Modes of June 30, 1828, citing Alexandre Rodenbach’s Letter on the Blind, a Sequel to Diderot’s [Lettre sur les aveugles faisant suite à celle de Diderot]: “When you see the beautiful Mademoiselle Mars play Valérie, it is Sophie and all her blind behavior that she is imitating.”88 This sentimental comedy—whose heroine is cured by her lover, Ernest, who has returned incognito from a long stay in Paris, where he secretly studied surgery with a famed oculist—consistently roused emotions at the Comédie Française, where it ran until 1847, for a total of 398 performances.89 Its success was such that, from its creation, it gave rise to two parodies: Mr. Oculi, or the Cataract by Desaugiers and Adolphe, a “burlesque imitation” in one act with vaudevilles, staged at the Variétés on

   blindness in the early nineteenth century January 29, 1823, and The Cataract by Dupin and Varner, a “ folie-vaudeville” in one act, staged at the Gymnase the following February 4. It also gave rise to a plagiary: Valérien, or the Young Blind Man, a “melodrama” in two acts by Carrion-Nisas and Sauvage, staged at the Porte Saint-Martin on April 17, 1823, with Marie Dorval, the rival of Mademoiselle Mars, in the role of Valérien. As we said above, the success of Valérie and its imitations—where the spectacle of the congenitally blind person returned to light was fictively staged throughout the century in various modes (sentimental, burlesque, dramatic)—doubtless lies behind the creation of four other plays, in 1823 and 1824, whose plot revolved around the real or simulated blindness of one or more characters: two comedies in one act with couplets, The Two Blind Men by Carmouche and Courcy (created at the Vaudeville on February 3, 1823) and The Blind Man from Montmorency by Brazier, Gabriel, and Gersin (Variétés, March 6, 1823); a drama in one act, The False Blind Woman by Cuvelier and Caron (Théâtre du Cirque Olympique, November 25, 1823); and a one-act vaudeville, The Three Blind Men by Brazier, Mélesville, and Carmouche (Variétés, July 24, 1824). We will not discuss them here except to say that Sir Edwin, the hero of The Two Blind Men, also recovers his sight at the end of the play as a result of a surgical procedure. At the end of this overview of representations of blindness in some fictional works from the first third of the nineteenth century, we are obliged to admit that, with rare exceptions, French theater and the French novel of the day transmit an image of the blind and of blindness that, for all its differences, is not more realistic than that of the past—and this, in spite of the discoveries of the previous century. In particular, in the two literary genres inherited from the late eighteenth century, the sentimental novel and melodrama—moralizing genres par excellence—blindness is of less interest to authors in and of itself than it is a springboard for a discourse on good and evil, where the blind are asked to make us see something other than themselves. What has changed, though, is that the blind person is no longer suspected of having a pact with the world of shadows. On the contrary, the hero or heroine of the roman édifiant, of sentimental comedy, or of melodrama is always on the side of the “good.” Similarly, we have seen how, though some authors of parades or vaudevilles aimed at a popular audience represented blind beggars in a fairly traditional fashion,

Social Representations and Literary Figures    these burlesque characters no longer possessed the “black” soul of the blind of medieval farce or the picaresque novel. We are forced to admit, however, that in fiction as in the documents concerning real individuals or objective social situations, the image of the blind is that much more positive when it involves persons belonging to—or said to belong to—a loftier social milieu. On the comic stages of the early nineteenth century, blind beggars continued to make a public amused by their blunders laugh, while in reality the blind poor were still considered incapable of social insertion through education and work if they lacked the assistance of charitable institutions.

c h a p t e r 12

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire: Implementing a Productivist Utopia

On 28 Pluviôse Year IX (February 16, 1801), the members of the Quinze-Vingts hospice and the students of the Institute for Blind Workers found themselves in the same establishment under the supervision of the philanthropic administration of charitable establishments dependent on the Minister of the Interior.

The Quinze-Vingts Administration in Pluviôse Year IX and the Regulation of 23 Ventôse (March 14, 1801) To the administrators appointed in Vendémiaire, Year IX—Armand-Joseph de Béthune-Charost, La Salle, and Jean-Louis Brousse-Desfaucherets—were added, by a decree of 4 Nivôse Year IX (December 25, 1800), Bonnefoux and Adrien-Cyprien Duquesnoy, former member of the Society of 1789 and a former member of the Constituent Assembly who oversaw the publication of the Recueil des mémoires sur les établissements d’ humanité traduits de l’allemand et de l’anglais, ordered in Year VII by

   blindness in the century of louis braille François de Neufchâteau. In the meantime, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt had been appointed as an administrator to replace the deceased BéthuneCharost, but having announced his “absence for the entire winter,” he was replaced by Mathieu Montmorency, appointed on 18 Brumaire Year IX (November 9, 1800) by a decision of the Minister of the Interior.1 These five administrators were seconded by Henry, Gaspard, Charles Bouret—a former deputy and friend of Thomas-François Jouenne—whom the decision of 28 Vendémiaire Year IX (October 20, 1800) confirmed in his post as Agent General of the Quinze-Vingts, which he had already held for three years. On 22 Nivôse Year IX (January 12, 1801), the administration carried out article 7 of the decision of the preceding 15 Vendémiaire by presenting “a detailed plan of the establishment’s internal regulations and organization.”2 Chaptal answered these proposals with the regulations of 23 Ventôse Year IX (March 14, 1801). They were preceded by a preamble that referred, first of all, to the decisions of the Executive Directory of 12 Nivôse and 27 Prairial Year V (January 1 and June 15, 1797) concerning the establishment of the Quinze-Vingts, then to the police regulations of 24 Prairial Year VIII (June 13, 1800), and finally, to the decisions of 15 Vendémiaire and 14 Nivôse Year IX (October 7, 1800, and January 4, 1801) concerning the merging of the Blind Workers and the Quinze-Vingts. They consist of six chapters, the last three of which are devoted solely to the blind youth. The first chapter treats the general administration of the hospice of the blind. The administration of the Deaf-Mutes—to which the administration of the Quinze-Vingts and Blind Workers, “united in one place,” was entrusted—was made responsible for the control of goods and the implementation of regulations.”3 Aside from the Agent General, appointed by the minister, it was to have under its command “a cashier, a secretary-archivist, a bookkeeper, an office boy, and teachers.”4 An architect and health officer [officier de santé] would also work for the establishment. The health officer would be especially responsible for caring for the children and was, in particular, to take the steps necessary to “protect from smallpox those who had not yet been exposed to it.”5 This was March 1801. The year before, the Committee for the Popularization of the Vaccine had been organized at the initiative of La RochefoucauldLiancourt, and on 17 Pluviôse Year IX (February 6, 1801), the first public

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    vaccination had taken place at Liancourt, immediately followed by the creation in Paris of a central hospice for free vaccinations under the supervision of the General Council of Hospices.6 It was not yet a question, in the regulations, of giving regular eye care to the hospice members and even less so of organizing external consultations.7 Prevention of epidemics, prevention of idleness—that other scourge a paternal administration sought to keep from the indigent children entrusted to its care. The regulations of Ventôse charged the administration with “forming workshops in the Quinze-Vingts hospice to which all children will be required to go. It will put all its efforts into finding the means to usefully occupy the blind youth and those elderly blind people who may wish to work.”8 After having settled on the composition and defined the missions of the administration, the Quinze-Vingt regulations addressed the number, assistance, and regime of the blind the hospice would accommodate. The number of the blind admitted was set at 420 people, “divided in two classes, one of three hundred men and women [who] may occupy individual apartments, and the other of one hundred and twenty blind children of both sexes, from seven to sixteen years old.”9 On this subject, we learn from the Notes on the Regulations of 23 Ventôse Year IX, neither signed nor dated, but handwritten by Paul Seignette (director of the Quinze-Vingts from 1802 to 1824) and probably drafted in 1814–15, around the time when the Grand Almoner of France again became head of the establishment, that in fact “the number of one hundred and twenty blind young people was never reached but was capped at ninety.”10 Appointments to vacant spots were to be directly undertaken by the Minister of the Interior. To be admitted, applicants had to present a certificate from the mayor of their commune as to their indigence and moral standards. They also had to provide an attestation from the head surgeon of the hospital nearest their domicile, “duly stamped by the subprefect of the arrondissement,”11 certifying that they were afflicted with total blindness. But that did not suffice: indeed, “the blind who present themselves to the administration equipped with the ministry’s authorization will immediately be seen by the establishment’s surgeon, who will state whether or not their blindness is real, and if it is, they will at once be inscribed in the register of admitted blind people.”12 As we can see, total blindness,

   blindness in the century of louis braille required for admission to the Quinze-Vingts since 1783, was more and more strictly verified. Yet the absence of technical means for evaluating visual acuity and visual fields rendered these controls just as aleatory as those of twenty years earlier. From the time of admission, each blind person was to receive a daily allowance of ninety centimes. Of this sum, the blind of the first class received thirty-three centimes in silver, the remainder being distributed in kind (bread, vegetable soup, meat). To these daily handouts were added the allocation of one outfit and three cubic meters of firewood per year. Of course, the thirty-three centimes daily allowance did not apply to the blind of the second class, who were “nourished, clothed, and supported by the common purse.”13 The husbands and wives of blind people admitted before the new regulations took effect would receive, for their part, “a daily allocation of twenty-five centimes”14 in kind (bread and vegetable soup). The sighted children under age twelve of blind members also got a ration of bread, a bit smaller than the adults’, until they were apprenticed. The regulations specify in their regard that “the administration will take the most effective measures for them to quickly learn a trade that will give them a means of subsistence.”15 They also insist that “the teacher attached to the establishment will teach them reading, writing, calculation, and their religious duties.”16 Parents, here called upon to properly apply the regulations, were asked to see to the behavior of their children, who would be deprived of “all stipends” if they were absent from school or the workshops. As for widows and widowers of the blind, we know that the new regulations anticipated excluding them from the establishment: those who had lived with their spouse for at least five years from the onset of his or her blindness and who were at least sixty years of age or afflicted with ailments preventing them from working would “be appropriately placed in civil hospices for the sick and indigent elderly.”17 These were cruel dispositions whose execution was entrusted to the vigilance of the administration, responsible for consulting with that of the civil hospices. We learn from Seignette’s Notes, however, that “the minimum age set for entry to Bicêtre or to the Salpêtrière [being] seventy and not sixty, it was never possible to reach an understanding with the civil hospices to put this article into effect.”18 We presume the article remained a dead letter and that elderly or sick widows and widowers stayed on at the Quinze-Vingts.

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    Widows and widowers who were not elderly or sick were to retire “to their home, where they would receive an allocation of thirty-three centimes a day,”19 that is, as much as a blind member of the hospice opting for a representative pension. Finally, “those who have not lived for five years with a blind person and who are not unable to work will return to their homes and will not obtain any aid.”20 On these last points, Seignette’s Notes assure us that, unfortunately for the parties concerned, the regulations were really and truly followed. We already have seen that the spouses and children of the newly admitted blind were also forbidden to stay at the Quinze-Vingts. As a result, any admitted blind person choosing to stay at home could do so and collect the allocation of thirty-three centimes. As for the already-admitted blind people “who might marry each other or outsiders,” they were to leave the hospice and would “receive, in that case, at the domicile of their choosing, the remuneration granted by Chapter 2, article 5,”21 or ninety centimes, which is, to say the least, surprising in comparison with the preceding provision. It is true that in reality, again according to Seignette’s Notes, the provisions of the regulations of Ventôse Year IX on marriage of the blind were repealed “for the well-being of the blind and the security of the residence.”22 The blind thus continued to marry and to stay on at the hospice with their spouses and children. Only marriage between blind people remained “absolutely forbidden.”23 Another important aspect of the regulations of Ventôse Year IX was a reminder to all hospice members that it was “absolutely forbidden to beg in the city of Paris or elsewhere.”24 For a first infraction, offenders exposed themselves to the deduction of half of their daily stipend for one month; for a second offense, to the deduction of the totality, and if, despite these severe fines, they committed yet another offense, they were to be removed from the hospice’s registry. But once again, the regulation was not enforced in all its rigor: “Mendicancy was sometimes dealt with ruthlessly,” wrote Seignette, “but most often, given the insufficiency of aid, we turned a blind eye to this blatant and shameful abuse.”25 The third chapter of the regulations of Ventôse Year IX concerns the establishment’s police. It essentially takes up the provisions of the police regulation of 24 Prairial Year VIII while reinforcing the confinement plan to which the blind were subjected. The text is a precious source of

   blindness in the century of louis braille information on daily life at the Quinze-Vingts. If we are to believe the interdictions that pepper the twenty-three articles of the chapter, life in the enclosure was not lacking for excitement or the picturesque, and the administration, it would seem, had a good deal of trouble imposing some basic rules of discipline and collective hygiene on the hospice members: “All citizens occupying lodgings on the premises are forbidden from throwing things from their windows. They will bring [dirty] water to basins and excrement to the public latrines, or there will be a penalty of three days’ deduction of their daily stipend. The same deduction will apply to those who throw refuse in the corridors or on the landing of the latrines.”26 Yet this behavior of the Quinze-Vingts inhabitants was but a reflection of Parisian inconsiderateness, as noted in the tales of foreign visitors at the time: “No matter how good a walker one is,” wrote, for instance, Reichardt in 1802–3, it is hard to make oneself slosh about in streets full of refuse and covered with thick, slimy mud. . . . Yesterday, while walking to the national Jardin des Plantes, I went through alleyways where the poverty, dirt, and immodesty of passers-by are such that just thinking about it makes me feel nauseated. . . . It is the first time in my peregrinations across Europe that I am aware of my stomach and that I understand the sensation known as ‘mal au coeur.’27

What are we to think, moreover, of the state of certain apartments (they were all of small dimensions) whose occupants raised rabbits, pigeons, and chickens? From this point on, the practice was forbidden “on penalty of confiscation for the first offense, and for the second, confiscation and a one-day deduction.”28 This practice, and its interdiction, were not new, since an ordinance of 1523 forbade raising “hens, chickens, cocks, goslings, [and] pigeons” within the hospice walls.29 After bedroom breeders, it was dog owners who attracted the legislator’s attention: “No one will be permitted to let his dog roam in the courtyards and corridors. Offenders will be subject to one day’s deduction for the first offense, two for the second, and so forth.”30 These errant dogs were indeed at the origin of various accidents, and some months after the regulations of Ventôse went into effect, on 1 Floréal (April 21), the administration was obliged to make another attempt: The administration, advised that in spite . . . of the regulations, . . . several blind people have allowed themselves . . . to let [their dogs] wander unsupervised and

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    that yesterday, the unpleasant consequence was that a dog bit the thigh of Citizen Chartier, the wife of Guinault, a blind woman, decrees that henceforth, no blind or sighted hospice resident will be permitted to let his dog wander: that nobody will be allowed to keep one unless it is for his use, particularly as a guide, and that even this will not be allowed unless he continually keeps it on a leash, under penalty of being punished in accordance with the exigencies of the case.31

This new warning having been to no avail, on 2 Ventôse Year X (February 21, 1802), the administration decided to completely forbid the presence of dogs in the hospice. It would seem that this time the administration had the last word, since Seignette made the following comment in his Notes: “For some years now, there have no longer been dogs at the residence; but such is humankindness that when a blind man accustomed to being guided by a dog was admitted, he entered the hospice with it—though it was not replaced, if ever he lost it.”32 We should note that by forbidding the blind to have dogs, the administration, firmly resolved to prevent the Quinze-Vingts members from engaging in mendicancy, perhaps thought to “kill two birds with one stone.” How would blind people accustomed to getting about with a dog be able to go begging in Paris without their customary guide? In this way, a measure we might view as solely inspired by a legitimate concern for hospice security and safety doubtless responded as well to preoccupations of another order. As proof, we have the fact that in Year X, the administration, alerted to the crime of mendicancy committed by several hospice members, decided during its session of 2 Ventôse (February 21, 1802) that “the articles pertaining to dogs and mendicancy [well and truly covered with the same opprobrium] will be renewed at the sound of the bell, so that nobody may claim ignorance of them.”33 Other troublemakers in this hospice where the government intended to reestablish order by excluding the families of the newly admitted were the sighted children of blind members: “Fathers and mothers will take care that their children do not flock together in the courtyards and hallways and that they do not play dangerous and forbidden games: that they not throw stones under penalty of a reprimand for the first offense and fifteen days of deduction for a recurrent offense.”34 And further on appears this article, inspired by the centuries-old fear of fire in the hospice for the blind: “It is forbidden to throw or toss

   blindness in the century of louis braille firecrackers both in the courtyard and out the windows as well as to start a fire under any pretext, under penalty of a fifteen-centime deduction from fathers and mothers, when the offense is committed by their children.”35 The regulations turned next to the ban on members’ “taking in [or] offering a bed to anyone without having obtained the administration’s consent.”36 This rule, which was not new, was regularly transgressed, despite calls to order on the part of those responsible for the hospice. It is true that here, as elsewhere, the Revolution only accentuated the liberties the blind took with respect to regulations. The record should probably be set straight. Still, it seems to us that this ban assumed a new significance in light of the measures against the spouses and children of new members as well as those against widows and widowers of the blind, henceforth excluded from the hospice: any resident tempted to take in one of those undesirables was liable to sanctions. Whatever the reason, somewhat further down, and this, in spite of arrangements tending to eliminate sighted members from the QuinzeVingts community, the new regulations borrowed a recommendation from the establishment’s oldest statutes regarding those people in particular: “Any sighted person who does not take care of a blind person entrusted to him, who mistreats him, or who does not assist him in the way his infirmity demands will be sent to the house jail for the first offense and expelled in the event of a subsequent one.”37 This recalls the Regulations of 1522: “We likewise order the said sighted brothers and sisters to lead the blind gently, charitably, and truly to collect alms and to the places where they may have business, and that they not take any payment for this.”38 An echo of archaic customs reverberating strangely at the heart of regulations little marked by Christian charity, article 18 of the police regulations of Year IX conveys a permanent and timeless image: that of an infirmity that will forever necessitate a special solicitude for those affected by it. These few lines that might easily go unnoticed—one brief article out of the eighty-four making up the regulations Chaptal gave to the Quinze-Vingts—are probably the key to the failure of provisions concerning the marriage of the blind and the exclusion of their spouses from the establishment. If hospice security and the lodgers’ well-being required the presence of sighted people to watch over the blind and to come to their assistance, would it not have been preferable to entrust that role to wives

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    and husbands rather than to paid employees? The hospice administration, torn between a will to reform and an age-old image, would never manage to impose communal life on the Quinze-Vingts blind. Of course, to reorganize life completely at the hospice, it would have been necessary to make huge financial investments from the start. Above all, it would have been necessary to overcome the resistance, founded on age-old habits, of the blind themselves and to get beyond the “prejudice against blindness” that made the blind perennial beneficiaries of welfare. As it happened, this prejudice allowed the blind to retain the only privilege they still had after twenty years of reform and revolutions: that of living with their families while benefiting from the material advantages reserved for blind people living inside the enclosure. After the provisions concerning individuals, several articles of the new Quinze-Vingt police regulations took respect for the buildings as their subject. But if damaging buildings was punishable by fine, much more severe penalties were envisioned for troublemakers: “It is . . . forbidden to make noise in the hallways and to disturb the public peace, under penalty of arrest and even more severe punishments in the case of a subsequent offense.”39 The severity of the penalties suggests the frequency of the type of infraction: disputes and rows, day or night, especially as a result of the effects of alcohol, must not have been infrequent at the Quinze-Vingts. And violence could assume forms more serious than simple quarrels between neighbors, since the following article of the police regulations provides that “any individual fight, any violence or assault will be reported to the Agent General, who will make a provisional ruling before recurring to the administration.”40 Individualist, dirty, noisy, and quarrelsome: at this time as in the past, not all members of the Quinze-Vingts were choirboys, and whatever the utopians of the ministerial offices may have thought, we wonder how much they took away from the lessons of the teacher of the Blind Workers. After generalities and provisions pertaining to the blind of the first class and their families, it was the special provisions for blind youth that were the subject of the last three chapters of the regulations of 23 Ventôse Year IX. Article 1 of Chapter 2 fixed the number of young blind people

   blindness in the century of louis braille who could be admitted to the hospice’s second class at 120. Article 1 of Chapter 4 stipulated that places would “preferably be given to children of both sexes of citizens who died while serving the state.”41 In 1783, the Philanthropic Society had decided, all infirmities being equal, to help “orphans who ha[d] lost both father and mother, followed by orphans who ha[d] lost either one or the other, and, for want of those, children whose fathers were burdened with the largest families.”42 In 1801, after ten years of war, the Consulate gave preference to orphans whose fathers had died for their country. This provision would be ever more in effect under the Empire, which also privileged the parents and widows of “defenders of their country” when it came to granting places to the blind of the first class. To be admitted, blind children had to be impoverished and at least seven years of age, but no older than sixteen. They were to be chosen by the Minister of the Interior for [a stay] of eight years. During these eight years, the administration would “put every effort into teaching them a useful trade.”43 By “useful trade,” did the authors of the Year IX regulations mean professions such as that of teacher or musician? Certainly not. With a few rare exceptions, musical instruction, for instance, was reserved for a few students identified as having a particular talent for the art. Music was to be no more than “recreation” for the others, because in the upper echelons there was a fear that mediocre instrumentalists would one day swell the ranks of street musicians. For the legislators of Year IX, as for the authors of the regulations of 1792 for the establishment of deaf-mutes and the congenitally blind, “a useful trade” meant above all a “manual trade.” After these considerations on the conditions for admission to the institution, and the duration and purpose of studies, the regulations came to the organization of those studies and then to discipline and schedules. The headmaster was made responsible for organizing instruction. We know that despite the profound disagreement that had arisen between the government and Haüy, the latter retained his functions for the time being. In order to carry out his mission successfully, he was assisted by a team of eleven people: “a second teacher; an adjunct; two tutors and two shop foremen. A music master (all sighted). Two blind tutors for music, selected from the students. Two mistresses or supervisors for the girls.”44 If we include the headmaster—himself responsible for teaching the

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    blind boys with the help of one of the sighted tutors—12 people were to carry out the teaching and education of 120 young blind people, in addition to sighted children under twelve of blind members of the hospice (whose number was estimated at 87 in Germinal of Year IX45). This is a far cry from the total of 16 employees appointed to the service and education of the 59 students46 of the Institute for Blind Workers at the time of its union with the Quinze-Vingts. The blind youths’ employees, appointed by the minister “on presentation by the head teacher and the opinion of the administration,”47 were placed under the “immediate supervision” of the headmaster, with the exception of the shop foremen, who were “under the orders and management of the chief general of Quinze-Vingts workshops.”48 This reservation may seem minor; it was not, if we keep in mind the important role of the workshops in the blind youths’ new schedule, and this, from the beginning of their school years. The fact that the supervision of the foremen was outside the headmaster’s purview proves that the manual labor henceforth required of blind children no longer had to do with any apprenticeship, as it once had at their institute. It was now, for the youngest and oldest Quinze-Vingts members, a matter of productive work in combination with a requisite profitability. The workshop heads were no longer “masters” but foremen; they were no longer accountable to the headmaster but to the person responsible for the output of the entirety of the Quinze-Vingts workshops. The headmaster and his adjuncts’ teaching of “all sighted and blind children in the hospice” was limited to “the lessons necessary for them to learn their religious duties, to read, to write, and to do basic calculations.”49 Haüy’s 1784 hopes—“and I believe I already see the nephews of this generation listening attentively to the lessons of a new Saunderson around one of our chairs in mathematics”50 —appeared thoroughly dashed. The eighth and last article of Chapter 4 of the Year IX regulations, on the lodging of the blind youth, placed their installation at the QuinzeVingts under the sign of separation. Separated from the world in their “hospice-institute,” the blind youth were to be lodged “in a main building apart from that inhabited by the elderly. The boys and girls will eat separately, and no one will be allowed to attend courses reserved for them without the permission of the administration or the teacher. The classes will be open to sighted children alone and only at specified hours.”51

   blindness in the century of louis braille These children cloistered inside the sad walls of an ancient barracks transformed into a hospice were further bound by strict discipline and a busy schedule essentially dedicated to manufacturing. If the regulations’ exigencies concerning cleanliness “of persons, clothing, and furnishings,”52 proper deportment, respect and docility with regard to teachers, and punctuality in class and in the workshops are hardly surprising, we may ask ourselves about the provisions of Chapter 5, article 4, entitled “Student Duties”: “It is absolutely forbidden for any student to raise a hand to anyone [emphasis ours] and to act in any way harmful or contrary to decency; any student culpable of this infraction will be severely punished.”53 If it seems normal to prevent “harmful” action (and, just the same, it would be appropriate to know just what the regulations’ authors meant by this word), the interdiction in the name of “decency” against raising a hand to others derives from a narrow-minded moralism from which all boarders of nineteenth-century collèges and lycées were to suffer. For children deprived of the contact—as furtive as it might be—of a glance, not being allowed to touch someone on any pretext imprisoned them much more effectively than their confinement within the hospice walls. To communicate with each other, they had nothing left but their voices, which everyone could hear. This was tantamount to having no way of avoiding the combined surveillance of their educators, the administration, and employees: “If an administrator or a person charged with the general discipline of the hospice finds a student in serious contravention of the present regulations, he may immediately impose one of the penalties designated [by the regulations], taking care to alert the headmaster.”54 Punishments, laid out in Chapter 5, Title 2 of the regulations, ranged from the privation of recreation to a diet of bread and water to isolation in the discipline room to absolute expulsion from the hospice (a sanction that could only, however, be declared by the minister). As for rewards, the second pillar of the disciplinary edifice, they were, respectively: a distribution of medals and the inclusion of the students concerned “in a registry, one copy of which will remain with the headmaster and another of which will be deposited with the administration.”55 These registries were to be used not only for honorific and edifying purposes (they were to be read in front of the students during the annual distribution of prizes), but also for

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    a more “practical” purpose. They were what was consulted in the drafting of an annual report on each student’s school year, and it was after seeing this report that the government could decide “to secure . . . the fate of those students whose good behavior might be worthy of attention,”56 by reserving them, for example, a place among the blind of the first class at the end of their studies. After the definition of student duties and the laying out of a disciplinary system, the regulations turned to the theoretically more cheerful chapter on recreational activities and vacations: “There will be an entire day and a half-day of repose.”57 But how was this recreational time really spent? “On half-days, weather and season permitting, there will be a promenade outside the hospice.”58 In the way of recreation, as Paul Gerbod reminds us in his study of daily life in nineteenth-century lycées and collèges, such weekly walks, effectuated in rows “two by two, without anyone being allowed to choose his companion in line” and “closely supervised,” were but “a glum and silent march across the city.”59 As for “recreations on ordinary days,” they took place at the Quinze-Vingts, “weather permitting, in the first courtyard of the hospice of the blind in such a way that the boys and girls always remain separate. If rain prevents them from going outside, [the students] will remain in their respective classrooms.”60 In principle, students were to “exercise as much as their infirmity permits.”61 The question is what the regulations’ authors meant by this. Given the arrangement of the buildings and the little space the blind children had inside the enclosure, we may ask ourselves what kinds of exercise the children could take up: relatively freestyle games in the courtyard of the hospice reserved for them, or, on the contrary, “military” types of exercise, where the body was constrained and movement strictly choreographed. Unfortunately, we cannot answer this question for lack of documents on this particular aspect of the blind youths’ activities during their time at the Quinze-Vingts. A last point in the chapter on the seemingly dreary leisure activities of the young blind workers: “all games of chance are strictly forbidden.”62 This interdiction suggests at a minimum that such activity did take place within the hospice and that the blind youth were not immune to its temptations.

   blindness in the century of louis braille As for vacations, the regulations say nothing a priori about those of the students, while they fix the annual holiday of the instructors at two months—on condition that one of them always remain with the students. This last clause reveals that some boarders never left the establishment: children without families, children whose relatives were too far away or too poor to pay for a long and expensive trip, and finally, unwanted children whose families had abandoned them to the good care of the administration and teachers.63 However, the length of the students’ annual vacation would soon be set in the following way: The administration, not seeing anything that might prevent the young students from spending some time a year with relatives who have asked for them [emphasis ours] decrees that vacation will begin on 1 Fructidor [mid-August] and end on 30 Vendémiaire [the third week of October] and that no student will be permitted to leave the establishment outside the period determined above, except in cases indispensable, necessary, and sufficiently acknowledged, be it for student health or other reasons.64

Regrettably, for lack of documentation on the subject, we do not know what the students who remained in the hospice did during the school vacation. After discipline and leisure activities, the regulations set out to codify the blind youth’s daily schedule, a fifteen-hour day in all, eight of which were spent spinning wool in the spinnery, and only two in the classrooms, as Galliod confirmed in his memoirs: “Mr. Haüy, kept on as headmaster and assisted by Mr. Germain, a sighted tutor, was responsible for two hours of class with the boys and Mr. Bertrand, the second master, with the young ladies. The rest of the day, the students were busy spinning wool in a textile manufactory inside the enclosure.”65 As for the public demonstrations, only recently the spearhead of the propaganda Haüy created for his institution, they were now to take place but once a month: “All the other lessons, be they for boys or for girls, are internal, and outsiders are never to be admitted.”66 If in the past there had been abuses with respect to the frequency of such demonstrations, the fact that they were reduced to such a point again accentuates the process of confinement of which the students of the Institute for Blind Workers incorporated into the Quinze-Vingts were the victims. The sixth and final chapter of the regulations of 23 Ventôse Year

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    IX, “Duties of the Teachers and Tutors,” simply added some details to certain provisions concerning discipline and scheduling. We will only mention the system of permanent and hierarchical discipline imposed on the Institute for Blind Youth: The special supervision of work falls to the Chief General of the workshop, the individual [workshop] heads, and the tutors; they must all take turns, so that one of them is always with the students. They will perform, together and concurrently, as will the girls’ supervisors, the most vigorous surveillance at bedtime, during the night, at rising, at mealtimes, and during promenades outside the facility. The boys’ tutors and the girls’ supervisors will eat at the students’ tables. They will serve them appropriate portions at meals. They will have no bedroom save the dormitory of these same students, where they will be distributed throughout, so as to prevent any disorderliness or accidents.67

The students were thus subject to discipline at every instant,68 but those who disciplined them were in turn monitored: either directly, by the headmaster, to whom they regularly had to “make reports,”69 or indirectly, by the administration and the hospice’s director general. We should note how much the cloistered and austere life imposed on these young, unmarried people rendered their fate as unenviable as that of the students they were responsible for managing. This, it is true, would be the fate of all secondary and high school teachers and tutors throughout the nineteenth century, on whom the Imperial University would soon impose70—as it would on other members of the teaching body in secondary establishments—a lifestyle borrowed from the ancient university and monastic tradition: celibacy, communal table, lodging at the schools inside buildings that were often dilapidated, somber, insalubrious, and badly heated. In any event, it was henceforth up to the new hospice administration—equipped with the new regulations—to organize life at the QuinzeVingts in keeping with the government’s desires. In the beginning, they would have their work cut out for them, given that they had to at once install the blind youth in buildings conceived for purposes entirely different from those of a place of education, draw up an inventory of their furnishings and of those of the hospice, buy them linens, decide on their new schedules, reorganize the insitute’s personnel, and, not the easiest thing, oblige Haüy to submit to the hierarchical discipline and to work conditions imposed by the regulations of Ventôse Year IX. At the same time,

   blindness in the century of louis braille they had to set up the manufactories whose installation at the QuinzeVingts had been decided by the government: a textile manufactory, a carded wool spinnery for the textile manufactory, a tobacco manufactory, and a printworks. After having examined the regulations governing the reform of the Quinze-Vingts and the Institute for Blind Workers at length, we will now look at the architectural framework within which this reform was carried out—dwelling in particular on the housing conditions of the blind youth at their new institute, at once a hospice, workshop, and educational facility.

The Buildings of the Quinze-Vingts in 1801 and the Installation of the Blind Youth A comparison between different maps and engravings of the Hôtel des Mousquetaires Noirs [the Black Musketeer’s residence] in 1699 and the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts in 1785, 1786, and 1806 does not reveal major changes. In 1801, with the exception of a two-story building constructed after 1787 to house the infirmary, the buildings of the Quinze-Vingts were still those of the old hôtel, simply refurbished on the inside in 1780 to house the blind and their families. The apartments of the adult members were located in the group of buildings around the hôtel ’s first courtyard, which one could enter by the door on the rue de Charenton. As in 1780, unmarried blind people, widows, and widowers were lodged in a little room without a fireplace. Let us not forget, however, that in 1801, the government had not yet abandoned the project of replacing the individual apartments with dormitories and putting the blind at communal tables—in other words, of setting up a collective kitchen and several refectories. The hospice’s second courtyard, which could be accessed through a covered entryway leading to the group of buildings at the far side of the first courtyard, was surrounded on three sides by buildings (the former stables of the musketeers) that were partly unoccupied. It was there that the government intended to set up the workshops where it planned to “usefully occupy” the blind and sighted children of the hospice members prior to their beginning an apprenticeship.

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    It was also in this part of the hospice, “in a big dormitory in the building at the left of the second courtyard,”71 that the blind boys were lodged when they first arrived. The girls, for their part, were installed in one of the infirmary halls.72 While waiting for something better, girls and boys took their meals all together in the same refectory, but “separate workrooms for each group . . . were set up to receive them during the day.”73 As for married students, many of them were housed “in private rooms, either in the infirmary or in a section of the buildings in the second courtyard.”74 According to the Agent General, “since 28 Pluviôse, workers of all sorts and laborers were employed almost night and day cleaning all the buildings and carrying and setting up the possessions wheeled in by wagons and other vehicles.”75 Bouret’s report makes it easy to imagine the disorder and improvisation surrounding this sudden move. It also hints at the confusion of the blind youth, transplanted from one day to the next to premises inhospitable and unknown that would take a certain amount of time to commit to memory. In any event, on 2 Ventôse, four days before the arrival of the blind youth at the rue de Charenton, Bouret was able to announce to the administrators: “everything is . . . in place to receive the people who still remain at the residence on the rue SaintDenis.”76 However, until such time as they would be able to legislate on the definitive organization of the Blind Workers, the administration decreed that among the teaching and civil servants employed there, only Haüy, Angiboust, Decuré, and Clerget—head and second masters, adjunct teacher, and workshop foreman, respectively—would be lodged at the hospice. As for the adult married students, they would “temporarily remain at the home on the rue Saint-Denis, with the exception of Citizen Gervais and his wife, who have already moved in, and Citizen Avisse, who is sick at the infirmary.”77 A last point about the administration’s decisions concerning the occupancy of the premises: “the printworks [of the Blind Workers] will be transferred and set up in the two adjoining rooms of the apartment occupied by Citizen Haüy.”78 In other words, if we consider the noise reigning in a printing workshop, we see that the administration was hardly concerned with the comfort of “Citizen Haüy” and his family. Two months later, during an administrative meeting of 27 Germinal

   blindness in the century of louis braille (April 17), the Agent General returned to the question of lodging the blind youth: “The various premises occupied by the blind youth . . . being far from each other, the administration should hasten to make a definitive determination to lodge them such that they are within reach of each other and closer to their workrooms, dormitories, and refectories.”79 Despite the urgency of Bouret’s proposed adjustments, the administrators decided “to put off everything until the house architect has given his estimate as to the sums that will be occasioned by all the construction and related projects.”80 Six years later, nothing had been accomplished, at least with respect to the dormitories: on June 6, 1807, the administration asked the Minister of the Interior for the authorization necessary to set up a new dormitory for the young blind boys. In support of its request, it cited, notably, a report by Bélivier, surgeon of the hospice, “in which he presents some important considerations [on] this subject concerning student health.”81 The dormitory of the blind youth was indeed insalubrious and becoming too small for the increasing number of students on government scholarship—which had grown from thirty-seven boys and twenty-two girls in Year IX to sixty boys and thirty-five girls in 1807. As for the blind girls, they were still in the infirmary, which the administration wished to return “to its first and essential purpose.”82 Alas, despite the insistence of the administrators, the minister responded in the negative on the following September 5. And so, at the session of September 12, the Agent General settled for proposing to take advantage of the vacation period to fill in “the holes and crevices” of the blind boys’ dormitory wall, “which are a refuge for bugs.”83 All these requests for developing and cleaning up the buildings occupied by the blind youth give us an idea of the precariousness, discomfort, and unhealthiness of their installation, effectuated in haste in that grim month of February 1801 and never really improved during the fifteen years of their stay at the rue de Charenton. On this subject, the foreign visitor Kotzebue wrote in his Souvenirs of Paris in 1804: “These . . . poor wretches seemed infinitely less well taken care of than the orphans of La Pitié, of whom I spoke above. The residence is big, but dirty.”84 Poorly equipped, dilapidated, and humid, the premises where the blind youth lived and worked were doubtless partly responsible for the high number of deaths Sébastien Guillié mentioned in his Report to the

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    Minister of the Interior on the State of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth during the Fiscal Years 1816 and 1817: “Between 1802 and the transfer of the institute [effectuated in February 1816], 42 students have died, which makes an average of three per year.”85 For our part, we have discovered throughout the deliberations of the Quinze-Vingts administration from Year XII (1803–4) to 1811, thirty-three deaths among the blind youth (without being able to know whether this number is exhaustive)—which would bring the average number of deaths per year to more than four. We noted that of these thirty-three deaths, ten were due to tuberculosis (in the guise of “consumption” or “scrofulous disease”), an infection whose transmission and evolution are particularly linked to living conditions—especially hygiene and promiscuity. Be that as it may, the point-blank objections of the different Ministers of the Interior to the arguments advanced by the hospice administrators demonstrate the fidelity of the authorities in charge of charity under the Consulate and the Empire to the politics of the budgetary economy for the Blind Workers decreed in Year IX. Why else invest important sums of money in the renovation and refurbishment of buildings by definition unprofitable, given that they were occupied for free by the blind children of the poorest class?

The Organization of the Hospice The “Regulations Concerning the Daily Timetable” Badly housed, doubtless rather sadly dressed—though clad in new clothes by the administration shortly after their installation at the rue de Charenton—the blind youth soon had to submit to the Regulations Concerning the Daily Timetable and the Organization of Work for the Blind Youth and Sighted Children of the Quinze-Vingts Hospice, adopted on 5 Messidor Year IX (June 24, 1801). The blind boys were divided into two classes according to their grade level; the sighted boys were, for their part, brought together in a third class, distinct from those of the blind; the young blind girls had their own class, of course; and a second class was reserved for the little sighted girls of the hospice’s blind members. The classes for the sighted boys, sighted girls, and second class

   blindness in the century of louis braille of blind boys, met, respectively, from seven-thirty to nine-thirty in the morning. During that time, the blind boys of the first class worked in their workshop, and the young blind girls in theirs. At ten o’clock, the sighted boys went to their spinning workshop. The execution of this part of the regulations was the object of special supervision: the second teacher was “responsible for asking all sighted boys older than seven for a note from the Chief General of the Workshops attesting to their punctuality at the spinnery: every ten days, he will send a note to the Agent General that this be taken into consideration during the distribution of bread.”86 At the same hour, the blind youth of the second class would enter their workshop—located in the textile manufactory—to work there until dinnertime, which was at one in the afternoon. From eleven to one, the headmaster taught the blind boys of the first class, and the second master, the young blind girls (in the presence of one of their supervisors). Work began again at three, after dinner and the recess following it, except for those students admitted to the music class.87 It went on until suppertime, at seven-thirty. More than half of the blind youth’s day was thus spent in the wool spinnery, with the exception of a few students admitted to the music class or to the printworks. What’s more, in the workshop hall, “and for the duration of that work,” the tutors and supervisors were to make the students recite the lessons they “have had that morning . . . to ensure that they have profited from them.”88 The blind youth’s time was thus doubly filled: while their hands were at work, their mind was forbidden to wander. And always that discipline: “There will always be a tutor with the blind youth and a supervisor with the young girls at lessons, recreation, and meals,”89 and those gazes: “Foremen will keep their eye on all labor for its duration,” that the regulations of Year IX—like those of 1792—suspended over the heads of those children who could not see. In this way, the institute founded in 1785 to use education to lift the obstacles the infirmity placed in the way of the blind poor’s social integration became, in 1801, the place where they were constrained by invisible eyes that made them ever greater prisoners of blindness.90 The regulations concerning the schedules of the blind youth conclude, moreover, with an article recalling the pyramidal organization of the disciplinary plan put in place for them: “The strict execution of the

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    minister’s regulations and the present regulations is left to the teachers responsible for supervising the tutors; [they are] to put an end to the least contravention as soon as they catch sight of it and, in serious cases, to report it to the Agent General, who will inform the administration.”91 For this “beautiful” organization to function, it would still be necessary for there to be complicity between the teachers, the Agent General, and the administration, which is to say that such a project was utopian under the circumstances. Indeed, Haüy, revolted by his institute’s predicament, was to demonstrate total unwillingness to apply the regulations for which he was to act as principal guarantor. But before bringing up the crisis that would lead to the forcing of the blind’s headmaster into early retirement, we will examine the reorganization of the Institute for Blind Workers’ personnel undertaken by the administration of the QuinzeVingts at the behest of the government. The Employees Hired to Instruct the Blind Youth First of all, we observe, in examining the inventory of the teaching personnel’s wages, that between the months of Germinal Year IX (March–April 1801) and Messidor of the same year (June–July 1801), their numbers dropped by more than half, primarily thanks to the elimination of the jobs of blind tutors and foremen—who were admitted to the hospice’s first class on 1 Vendémiaire Year X (September 23, 1801). The savings were considerable, since the salaries of these nine employees amounted to 10,500 francs per year. Moreover, the salaries of the remaining employees were lowered. But the fact that the first victims of the reduction of the institute’s budget were Haüy’s former students become their schoolmates’ teachers took on a significance for the blind as a group that went well beyond the purely budgetary motives invoked by the government. It appeared clear that, in going after Haüy’s collaborators, who could testify by their example to the validity of his method and the success of his undertaking, it was the creator of instruction for the blind poor and the promoter of their social emancipation who was the real target. We note in passing that the measure was illegal, since it was contrary to article 5 of the decree founding the Institute for Blind Workers, confirmed by article 7 of the Law of 10 Thermidor Year III, which had not been repealed: “the

   blindness in the century of louis braille blind will preferably be admitted to posts that their talents and disability allow them to hold.” In Messidor of Year IX, after the first suppression of positions, the “employees engaged to instruct the blind youth” were thus, respectively, Haüy, headmaster, with a salary of 5,000 francs a year; Bertrand, second master (named in Prairial Year IX), with a salary of 2,500 francs; Angiboust, adjunct, with a salary of 2,000 francs; Germain, head tutor, with a salary of 1,000 francs; Clerget and Dubuisson, foremen; Biardiau and Rideau, first and second supervisors of the girls, all four with a salary of 600 francs a year. The yearly expenditures had thus dropped from 23,400 francs to 12,900 francs. We may also note, in the inventory of the teaching personnel’s wages for the last months of Year IX, the absence of the music teacher, “Citizen Mathieu,” despite his appointment “with a salary of six hundred francs” by a decision of the Minister of the Interior on 13 Prairial Year IX (June 2, 1801).92 As he also does not figure in an inventory of salaries for 22 Pluviôse Year IX (February 11, 1802), where we find all the institute’s personnel, we may presume that musical instruction had been abandoned to two older students: Nicolas Hildevert Jarost, a good violinist, and Cécile Hélène Moreaux, pianofortist, both named unpaid music tutors by the decision of 13 Prairial Year X. We should underscore that this step of appointing older students tutors without paying them—or paying them little and irregularly—inaugurated a practice that would not truly cease until the directorship of Alexandre-René Pignier, after a visit Adolphe Thiers made to the institute in 1833. At that date, the Minister of the Interior did grant Pignier the budget necessary to pay a regular salary of three hundred francs a year to the institute’s blind tutors.

Putting the Blind to Work: The Manufactories As early as the new school year of 1 Brumaire Year X (October 22, 1801), the sighted children and “the blind of the second class, known as the blind youth,” began to study again—and especially to work on behalf of the wool spinnery recently installed on the hospice grounds. At this date, according to the government’s wishes, three manufactories were installed at the Quinze-Vingts: first, that for spinning carded wool, created by the

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    administration’s decision of 22 Pluviôse Year IX (February 11, 1801) and organized according to the plan proposed by François-Emmanuel Molard, administrator of the Conservatory of Arts and Trades, at the request of Chaptal. A certain Lefebvre was named director, according to the regulations of the following 2 Ventôse (February 21). Immediately afterward, a textile manufactory was created whose regulations were decided by the administration on 22 Ventôse (March 13); last, the establishment of a tobacco factory, directed by “Citizen Ovide,” was decreed on 2 Prairial Year IX (May 22, 1801) for the following 1 Messidor (June 20, 1801).93 If the blind adults could be employed indiscriminately at any one of these three manufactories, the blind youth were only to engage in spinning—unless they were recognized as capable of joining the printworks. For the cloth made at the Quinze-Vingts—which Chaptal wished to figure at the Industrial Products Exhibition that was to take place at the Louvre for the five complementary days of Year IX—the hospice administration struck a deal with the military academy on 25 Fructidor Year IX (September 12, 1801). As for tobacco, “both powdered and leaf,” a decree of the Council General of the Administration of Hospices of the Seine of 25 Prairial Year X (June 14, 1802) determined that all the tobacco sold and distributed in the hospices would come from the manufactory of the Quinze-Vingts,94 while a decree of the Minister of the Interior on the following 2 Thermidor (July 21, 1802) took the same decision with respect to “prisons and houses of arrest and detention of the department of the Seine as well as the poorhouse [dépôt de mendicité] of Saint-Denis.”95 That is to say, the Consular government was preoccupied with the results of its productivist enterprise and took all the steps necessary for its success. The blind, for their part, were much less enthusiastic. According to the regulations of 23 Ventôse, only “those elderly who might wish to work”96 would be employed at the manufactories. In reality, it appears they had no choice. Article 9 of the administration’s decision of 24 Floréal Year XI (May 15, 1803) specifies, for example, that “the stewards will hire as many of the blind listed in the administration’s register as possible to produce tobacco, this number being no fewer than fifty.”97 What’s more, sanctions were anticipated for those blind workers about whom the stewards might have reason to complain. Further down, article 11 of the same decree allowed for arrangements to be made with respect to these workers’ pay and for that of “every blind person working within the factory.”98

   blindness in the century of louis braille Finally, a Journal of the Blind Who Will Work Days at the Tobacco Manufactory of the Quinze-Vingts proves that not only adult members of the first class, but also the blind youth of the second—contrary to the regulations concerning their schedule—did in fact work at the tobacco manufactory from 24 Prairial Year XI (June 14, 1803) to 18 Messidor Year XIII (July 6, 1804), the dates with which the journal begins and ends.99 As for the spinning of wool, article 6 of the regulations, given on 2 Ventôse Year IX to the carded wool spinnery, allowed for the hiring of four workers to train apprentices, among whom article 8 of the same regulations stipulated the following: “There will be five men, two of whom may be blind, three women, and twelve children, or women from whom the blind may be hired. In the choice of students [apprentices, that is] the blind of the Quinze-Vingts, their wives, and their children will be given preference over outsiders.”100 As for the workers’ salary, The initial work being part of an apprenticeship, it will not be [paid] in the first months as it will in the months to come, according to the quantity and perfection of the product, but rather at 75 centimes a day for the men, 60 centimes a day for the women, and 30 centimes for the children, when they work an entire day and half that when they work but a half-day.101

The workday was ten hours. Last, with regard to the blind employed at the textile manufactory, as early as Ventôse Year IX, Chaptal invited the administration to “examine whether or not it would be possible to have them make the clothing they were to be given every year. This would be a new way,” the minister specified, “of putting an end to the idleness in which they have lived until now.”102 It was precisely because the blind were indeed employed there that Chaptal asked the administration, the following 12 Fructidor, to exhibit “the most beautiful fabrics made in the workshops of the Quinze-Vingts,”103 at the Industrial Products Exposition. He was so proud to have succeeded in putting the blind to work that he organized a visit of the First Consul to the hospice on 5 Messidor Year IX (June 24, 1801), during which Bonaparte was interested “principally [in] the textile manufactory newly established through the attentions of the Minister of the Interior.”104

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    The Revolt of the Members of the First Class Some members of the Quinze-Vingts, who had doubtless not understood that the days when the blind had a say in things were well and truly gone, took advantage of the occasion to present the First Consul with a petition protesting the new organization of the hospice. The almost immediate consequence of this step was the closure of the reading room,105 where, according to the administration, “all the firebrands of the house met to spew their venom and their diatribes.”106 It was also followed by a three-day incarceration in the prison room of Citizen Burard, one of the petition’s signatories and probably its principal redactor.107 Chaptal, judging this penalty insufficient, sent a letter to the administration two weeks later with the order to “definitively strike this blind man from the registry, to expel him from the hospice, and to consult with the prefect of police to bring him from one brigade to another back to his home town, where he shall remain under the surveillance of the municipal administration.”108 So that no one would be unaware of the order, the minister asked that it be posted, and he also recommended “using all possible means to maintain a police presence at the establishment.”109 On 27 Messidor Year IX (July 16, 1801), three weeks after the First Consul’s visit, “Citizen Burard” was thus turned out of the hospice.110 Now among the grievances Burard and the cosignatories of the petition presented to Bonaparte had formulated against the administration was the issue of the desire to transform the Quinze-Vingts hospice, “founded by the King, protected by all, enriched by its own savings and its usufructuary inheritances . . . into a house of corrections,”111 and this, by modeling its organization “on the regime of the poorhouses of Saint-Denis and Pontoise, places formerly intended to suppress vagrancy.”112 The blind also accused the administrators of having diminished their daily wages (which had gone from one franc twenty centimes in currency under the Directory to ninety centimes partly paid in kind since the regulations of 23 Ventôse) so as “to force them to accept their frightful system.”113 The fact is that with monetary assistance reduced to thirty-three centimes a day, the blind—if they were responsible for a family—were indeed obliged either to beg (which was rigorously forbidden by the regulations) or to go work at the manufactories—unless their musical talents allowed them to

   blindness in the century of louis braille belong to an orchestra, such as that of the “Café of the Blind” [Café des Aveugles] at the Palais-Royal. We find an echo of this conflict between the blind of the first class and the hospice administration in the 1816 pamphlet by François-Bernard Gilles: Parallel between Napoleon Bonaparte and Cardinal de Rohan and the Charity They Practiced at the Royal Establishment of the Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, in which the author notably accused Bonaparte of having obliged the blind to work: He had two types of manufactories set up, one for tobacco and the other for woolen cloth, so as to make the blind work; those who had the strength earned tolerably good money by grinding tobacco, but several of them who were too weak, who had wanted to work there, died of exhaustion. Those who were engaged in carding wool received fifteen sous a day for twelve hours of labor;114 during that time, they lost about three francs of merchandise, their infirmity preventing them from seeing if what they were doing was good or bad; and when the employees of that manufactory reproached them for their work, and the former objected by citing their infirmity, the latter had them shut up in prison for seven or eight days. The blind who worked the loom to make fabric were assigned a sighted man to help them attach their strands, one who could have made the fabric himself with more swiftness and more regularity; but Bonaparte and his proselytes preferred that money be given to sighted men, so they could use them to torment those who could not see.115

Without naming him, Gilles alluded shortly thereafter to the treatment reserved for Claude Burard: One citizen was a talented and very learned man who addressed a new memoir to Bonaparte in which he made some sound observations, but the latter (not of a mind to hear any of this) gave the order to have him taken from his residence by two gendarmes who led him to the prefecture of police, where he was imprisoned for about three weeks, after which he was put in a cart and escorted like a thief from one brigade to another, all the way back to his village. His wife and children were immediately sent away and, with him, struck from the list of those receiving stipends.116

It is, moreover, interesting to observe that in order to denounce the violence done to the blind when the manufactories were installed at the Quinze-Vingts, a former member of the hospice did not hesitate to make

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    his own the argument of the blind’s incapacity to properly and profitably do the work imposed upon them. As for the blind youth, they clearly did not have the chance to express their opinion on regulations that compelled them to long hours of manual labor in exchange for only two hours of “general” instruction. It was therefore their “headmaster”—though answerable to the administration for the proper execution of the regulations of 23 Ventôse—who took it upon himself to organize the opposition in this regard and in other areas as well. The Conflict Between Valentin Haüy and the Administration of the Quinze-Vingts We can follow the evolution of the conflict that opposed Haüy to the regulatory authorities by perusing the records of the administration’s sessions between Pluviôse Year IX and Pluviôse Year X. On 12 Ventôse Year IX (March 3, 1801), for instance, the administrators asked the headmaster to refrain from holding any open classes “until further notice,”117 which evidently means that he organized more than were allowed by the regulations without, of course, notifying his superiors. On 22 Prairial (June 11), the administration, having learned that “Citizen Haüy took the liberty of having passes printed and signed by him for the blind youth without the participation of the Agent General, decrees that the porters be enjoined to let no blind person equipped with such a permission leave the premises; the Agent General will have new ones drawn up, which he will sign himself, and these will be the only ones the porters will accept.”118 In the meantime, according to a letter of Chaptal dated 29 Germinal (April 19) to the “Citizen Administrator of the Quinze-Vingts,” “Citizen Haüy [had] sent a detachment of his blind people to Citizen Bénézech to beg for mercy with respect to the treatment to which he was being subjected. This mission took place three days ago.”119 The minister asked his interlocutor to check on Citizen Haüy’s behavior, and, if necessary, to use a firm hand in dealing with it: “It is scandalous that at the very moment the administration is busy improving the lot of these unfortunates, someone wishes to trouble their heads by seditious means. . . . At least reproach Citizen Haüy for his more than reckless action and assure him that the administration is keeping an eye on him in a very special way.”120

   blindness in the century of louis braille The administration kept such a good eye on him that on 12 Thermidor (July 31), the Agent General “in conformity with the decree of the fifth of the month” placed “the behavior of Citizen Haüy from the time he entered the Quinze-Vingts before the administration’s eyes”121 in the form of a detailed report, destined as a last resort for the Minister of the Interior. The Agent General reproached Haüy first of all with never having heeded the administration’s “fraternal” warnings, “and, notably, on 2 Floréal [April 22], when it made him aware of the Minister of the Interior’s letter of 29 Germinal.”122 Worse, it seemed that these calls to order had for him been “one more reason to . . . be continually in breach of the regulations and to change the order of things without the administration’s participation.”123 In a word, to listen to Bouret, Haüy’s direct superior, the latter “could not accept the idea of having no power save that conferred by the position of teacher.”124 The principal grievances against the headmaster were as follows: not only did he not give the blind and sighted children of the establishment the lessons laid out in the regulations to instill in them their religious duties, but he also prevented his collaborators from doing so: “Instead of lessons or prayers, every day he reads them some odes to Rousseau, some fables, or other things, telling them that this is the religion of the Theophilanthropists, that there is no other, and that he wants them to learn and practice it.”125 He was even accused of having taken a few blind girls from church, where they had gone with one of their supervisors, on the day of their confirmation, “to personally give them a music lesson, even though he was aware that the music class had been suspended for lack of a teacher by order of the administration.”126 Despite the regulations, he also dared to give several public classes in a single month, “and even two on the same day,”127 which wreaked havoc with the children’s schedule. But above all, he took advantage of these public lessons to read a few fables alluding to many things, interpreting them as he pleased while pretending to feel sorry for the blind, while hinting that they are more miserable today than previously because of the way they are governed.”128 He also spurned the regulations to the point that, on several occasions, he had writings printed and posted inside the hospice that should have been torn down, not to mention a text “in which

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    he distorted the facts pertaining to the First Consul’s visit,” which he had posted “in abundance all over the city.”129 He was also criticized for accepting sighted children from the outside into his classes (as had been the practice at the Catherinettes) and of drawing the older blind students to his home “to read them newspapers and books,”130 which amounted to countering the decision to close the reading room, decreed by the administration on 12 Messidor Year IX (July 1, 1801). But of all the schemes with which Haüy was reproached, would not the worst, in the eyes of a minister so concerned with the success of his productivist program, have been that “he prevents the blind youth from being diligent at the spinneries by continually summoning them and diverting them from their work, purportedly to send them to class, when they are supposed to be under the supervision of the workshop foremen”?131 It was, in any event, the subject on which Bouret elaborated the most, relating in particular a “scandalous” scene that had taken place eight days earlier between Haüy and Citizen Lefebvre, director of the wool spinnery, in the presence of two manufacturers from Sedan at the workshop of the young blind girls: He prevented the manufacturers from seeing the young girls’ work, saying that there was nothing for anybody to see there, that it was his property, with the result that the manufacturers, who had been filled with enthusiasm for the spinning of these young blind people, were obliged to leave without having been able to examine everything they had meant to see. . . . (Citizen Lefebvre gave an account of the scene to the administration in his letter of the fifth of this month.)132

The coincidence of the dates of the wool spinnery director’s letter and the administration’s decision asking the Agent General for a report on Haüy’s conduct allows us to understand that this last escapade must have been, to speak colloquially, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Still, just in case the story of this unbelievable scene did not suffice to bring about the storm that had been brewing in the ministerial offices, Bouret, for good measure, also recalled that Haüy had “a school called the Lyceum of the Blind on rue Simon Lefranc”133 and that he went there every day “with Citizen Angiboust, which prevents him from teaching his class,”134 which he abandoned to one of the tutors. What’s more, he set up a printworks to do all the work only recently entrusted to that of the Quinze-Vingts. As a result, in Messidor, there had not been “a single address printed at the

   blindness in the century of louis braille blind’s workshop, as the administration will be able to confirm from the printery’s records of receipts and expenses kept by Sire Clerget, foreman, which are left on the desk.”135 After having heard this long report, the administration decided “that it should be sent to the Minister of the Interior to make him aware of the facts.”136 There is no trace of the minister’s immediate reaction upon reading this document, which probably only made facts already known in high places official by putting them to paper. In any case, Haüy’s days at the helm of his institution were numbered. Six and a half months later, on 28 Pluviôse Year X (February 17, 1802), Chaptal gave the Quinze-Vingts administration his consent to reorganize “the Institute for Blind Workers, called the workers of the second class,” and “to diminish the bulk of salary expenses for teachers and employees.”137 Attached to his letter was a certified copy of a decree of the same day stipulating that “the position of headmaster of the Institute for Blind Workers joined to the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts under the denomination of the blind of the second class, will be and will remain abolished as of the first of Ventôse, Year X (February 20, 1802).”138 From that date, his salary would cease to be paid, and Haüy would receive “an annual sum of two thousand francs as a retirement pension, which the Quinze-Vingts administration would pay him from that hospice’s funds.”139 Exactly one year after the transfer of the blind youth’s institute to the Quinze-Vingts, its founder was thus chased from the establishment like the blind Claude Burard, and for the same motives, albeit a bit more tactfully—and hypocritically: “Regarding the suppression of the position of headmaster,” wrote Chaptal to the administration, “you will find the certified copy of my decision attached. Be so kind as to make it known to Citizen Haüy and to convey regrets that economic necessity could not be reconciled with the preservation of the post he had been granted.”140 Evidently, no one was fooled by the reason the Minister of the Interior invoked for getting rid of a far too undisciplined civil servant. It should still be acknowledged that by suppressing the position of headmaster, the government really did save money, all the more so since the suppression paved the way for more measures of the same order. When comparing “the statement of sums owed to employees” of Messidor Year IX (June–July 1801) with that of Messidor Year X (June–July 1802), we find that the total

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    sum paid to employees of the Institute for Blind Youth dropped from 12,900 francs to 6,400 francs in one year. With Haüy’s elimination, moreover, the Minister of the Interior and the hospice administration were finally going to be able to effectively apply their plan to put the blind youth to work, and this, by limiting instruction “to whatever is most useful and practical, so that two hours of study in the morning will suffice for each class of students, the rest of their day being invariably devoted to working with their hands.”141 And so it was that the foremost institution in the world for the education of the blind poor was transformed into a charity workshop like those founded in England, Scotland, and Ireland between 1791 and 1799. As for Valentin Haüy, he withdrew to his “Lyceum for the Blind,” which soon took the name “Museum for the Blind and School for Languages of the North and South,” while remaining in the same building, the Hôtel de Mesmes, at the corner of the rues Simon le Franc and Saint-Avoye. He admitted blind children from well-to-do families “for an annual fee of one thousand livres for a living allowance and a general education plus . . . three hundred livres for the honoraria of the piano master.” Each child had to bring “his bed, linens and so forth, clothing, place setting, and tumbler, objects that would be returned upon his leaving the establishment.” He could also buy work instruments for the sum of one thousand livres, “an expense which, once paid, covers a blind person’s entire life.”142 It was in some ways a return to what took place before 1785, when pedagogical innovations based on the principle of sensorial transfer had been reserved for a small number of blind children from privileged backgrounds. The Failure of the Productivist Utopia It might be feared that the events that occured at the Quinze-Vingts in 1802 sounded the death knell for the social innovation born of the imagination of the “first teacher of the blind,” brutally dispossessed of his charitable organization. And yet— Six months after Haüy’s departure, between 10 and 17 Fructidor Year X (August 28 and September 1, 1802), a granted, less spectacular event

   blindness in the century of louis braille took place at the Quinze-Vingts: Paul Seignette was presented to the adminstration and then named “Agent General of the hospice to replace Citizen Bouret, who has resigned.”143 This man of thirty-three, born in La Rochelle on December 17, 1769, and recognized as a doctor of medicine at Montpellier in 1791, was a philanthropist; he had just translated and published one of Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford’s Essays Political, Economical, and Philosophical. He was married, and a list of hospice employees drawn up in 1812 indicates that he was the father of three children at that time. From 1798 to 1800, he had held the post of secretary at the French embassy in Madrid and was employed at the office of the Minister of the Interior’s archives during the months preceding his appointment to the Quinze-Vingts. An honest civil servant, then, but nothing a priori in his career that merited particular attention. Yet this man, who held the post of Agent General at the QuinzeVingts until his retirement, was soon to become the salvation of the blind youth and to definitively rescue the work of Valentin Haüy. The latter could thus write him, in April 1806, shortly before leaving for Russia, where the czar had summoned him to found an institute for the blind in Saint Petersburg: “Mindful . . . of everything that concerns me in the great affair I undertook, I have noted with pleasure, it pleases me to repeat to you, that you have replaced me as the adoptive father of my children.”144 What had happened between 1802 and 1806 to enable this good-willed civil servant to draw the sympathy of the man whose position he had taken, by force of circumstance, as head of the institute? In fact, despite the government’s desire to put the blind to work, the textile and spinning manufactories—keystones of the productivist system set up by Chaptal—soon proved to be “onerous for the hospice.”145 During its session of 12 Prairial Year XIII (June 1, 1805), the administration had to announce the suspension of work at the textile manufactory and its decision to rent the premises. A few months later, on 16 Frimaire Year XIV (December 7, 1805), it also had to decide to “completely suspend wool spinning, since the hospice is overburdened with spun wool and cannot sell it competitively in the commercial marketplace.”146 Regardless of the work then envisaged for the blind youth—the knitting of stockings, the spinning of linen and hemp on small wheels—the administration recognized that thenceforth “manual labor should be divided into more

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Consulate and the Empire    intervals than it was when rapid manufacturing absorbed a considerable quantity of spun wool.”147 The Agent General, Seignette, could thus suggest that “a few more hours than previously” be devoted to teaching and that music, in particular, be taught “in a more competent manner and with more ensemble work than has hitherto been the case.”148 To this end, Seignette, according to Galliod’s Notes, called upon Lesueur, Haüy’s first student, and had a conversation with him “to learn what the blind were suited to do.”149 He then proposed that the administration “appoint a supervisor-tutor sufficiently educated to be able, under the direction of Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Germain, to go over the lessons and the readings of these teachers at appointed hours, be they in history, geography, or literature, asking whatever questions on these subjects seem useful to him and answering those posed by students.”150 And so, little by little, thanks to the bankruptcy of the textile manufactory and the spinnery, and thanks to the interest Seignette took in the instruction of the blind, general and musical education once again took their place at the Institute for Blind Workers. This rebirth of Haüy’s project was sealed with the administration’s adoption of new regulations, in March and April 1806, “concerning the division of study, work, and recreational hours”151 for the blind youth— but also for the sighted children of hospice members, whose school was reopened in March 1806. On this last subject, it is interesting to remark in passing that it was a blind member of the hospice, Mademoiselle Causin, who was appointed headmistress of the school of little sighted girls by a decision of the administration on April 17, 1806. She required only the assistance of a writing teacher and a person responsible for maintaining order in her classroom.152 Reassured as to the future of his enterprise, Haüy, accompanied by his wife, his son, and his blind student and collaborator Alexandre Fournier, could leave for Russia in the early days of May 1806 with his mind at ease. En route, he stopped in Berlin, where he was invited to demonstrate his methods at the Academy of Sciences, where Frederick-William III granted him an audience, soon followed by the creation of an establishment for the blind at Steglitz, a suburb of the Kingdom of Prussia’s capital. Far from having fallen into oblivion and despite the disgrace into which its creator fell in his own country, the education of the blind, a

   blindness in the century of louis braille universally oriented project like the Enlightenment that gave rise to it, was thus to make great strides with the founding of schools on the French model in several European countries. In the meantime, at the Quinze-Vingts, the blind workers’ printery and the tobacco manufactory—which had survived the collapse of the manufactories—were closed in turn at the beginning of 1811, following imperial decrees of February 5 and December 29, 1810, respectively, regulating printing and the making and selling of tobacco. After ten years of fruitless trials, Chaptal’s attempt to integrate the blind into a productivist system ended in failure. With the fall of the Empire, the next thing to come to an end would be the ghettoization of the blind of all ages within a single establishment.

c h a p t e r 13

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Restoration: A “Memory Site” of the Ultra-Royalist Reaction

On May 3, 1814, Louis XVIII made his solemn entry into Paris. The following December 9, “at two o’clock in the afternoon,” the most venerable of the anti-Concordat prelates, Monsignor AlexandreAngélique de Talleyrand-Périgord, Archbishop and Duke of Reims, First Peer and Grand Almoner of France, came “as Grand Almoner to take possession of his rights to the Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts and to exercise his functions as general and immediate superior of the said establishment.”1

The Return of the Grand Almoner of France and the Departure of the Blind Youth To the administrators—“Monsieur the Viscount Mathieu de Montmorency, Knight of the royal and military order of Saint-Louis . . . ; Monsieur the Abbé Sicard, member of the institute; Monsieur the Baron Garnier . . . ; Monsieur the Baron Malus [ . . . and] Monsieur the Baron de Gérando”2—the Grand Almoner gave the title of “governor-administrators,” which dated from the administration of the Cardinal de Rohan. He also raised their number from five to six by appointing Monsignor de

   blindness in the century of louis braille Quélen, vicar general of the Grand Almonry, who would soon be charged with taking over “all of his duties at the hospice in the event of his absence.”3 Monsieur Seignette, the Agent General, became the “general director and secretary of the administration.”4 As was the practice under the ancien régime, when they took office, the governor-administrators and the director general took the following oath on the Gospels: “I swear and promise in the hands of Monsignor the Grand Almoner of France to care benevolently and charitably for the government and administration of the Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts as well as to protect its possessions, revenues, and privileges, and finally, to execute the statutes of the said hospice, so help me God and these holy Gospels which I touch with my hand.”5 Lastly, “Monsignor the Grand Almoner’s exercise of his duties bringing an end to the supervision of the hospice previously accorded the Minister of the Interior, His Excellency has promised to write the minister to inform him of his taking of office.”6 The tone was set: the Quinze-Vingts, founded by Saint Louis, tutelary figure of the French monarchy, were “restored” along with the monarchy itself. As a result, they regained their 250,000-franc annual income that had been their due from the public treasury since the sale of the premises on the rue Saint-Honoré. This restitution, first expensed on the civil list, permitted a regular augmentation of the internal and external hospice members’ daily stipend. On January 1, 1815, the stipend of widows and unmarried members rose to one franc a day; that of the married blind, to one franc thirty centimes, to which were added fifteen centimes a day for each legitimate child until the day of his or her apprenticeship; lastly, blind members of the hospice residing in the provinces received an annual stipend of 233 francs. The restoration of the income the state owed the Quinze-Vingts also permitted the reestablishment, from that moment on, of the May 14, 1783, payment of 150-franc stipends to one hundred blind pensioners. The number of these external pensioners subsequently continued to grow, such that in April 1830, the sum was raised to four hundred, with a view “to fully realizing the beneficent designs of the king recorded in the decision of March 14, 1783.”7 The economic regulations approved by the Grand Almoner on February 17, 1815, also allowed for the daily distribution of white bread to

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Restoration    internal hospice members, the provision of one complete outfit every two years for the men and every year for the women, and the distribution of firewood every year. As in the past, external members enjoyed a payment in kind to the exclusion of all other benefits. The church of the Quinze-Vingts, which was home to the succursal Saint-Antoine since 1809, of course regained its role as “chapel of the royal hospice.” On December 29, 1814, a solemn mass of thanksgiving “in recognition of the kind deeds His Majesty has done for the blind poor of the Quinze-Vingts”8 was celebrated there—by Monsieur the Abbé Sicard. This mass was followed by a two-choir Te Deum performed by more than fifty blind people led by Jean-François Galliod, who would soon be promoted to master of the Quinze-Vingts chapel. Due to the interference of the Hundred Days, it was not until December 1815 that an ordinance of the Grand Almoner reestablished the office of Chevecier [dignitary in charge of a Church chevet] of the Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts and took two other ecclesiastics into the spiritual service of the hospice. Throughout the Restoration, a certain number of solemn offices animated by the orchestra and choir of the blind, led by Galliod, took place in the Quinze-Vingts church, occasionally in the presence of members of the royal family. As for the blind youth, a former military doctor from Bordeaux, Sébastien Guillié, was appointed their headmaster on April 21, 1814, to replace Louis Bertrand, who had died on the preceding March 4. In his memoirs, Galliod relates the event in these terms: “Mr. Bertrand, headmaster, died on March 4, 1814; he was missed by some of his students; he was missed even more when they met Mr. Guillié.”9 An authoritarian and ambitious man, Guillié would not rest until he obtained the separation of the Institute for Blind Youth from the hospice. For their part, the Quinze-Vingts, who had just recovered their administrative and financial autonomy with respect to the Ministry of the Interior, had no use for the budgetary burden the blind youth represented. And so, on February 3, 1815, an ordinance whose execution, impeded by the Hundred Days, would not go into effect until a year later, stipulated “measures for the transfer of the Blind Youth to a site outside the hospice.”10 The same ordinance “returned the teaching establishment to the Minister of the Interior.”11 We should note that, for the cause, the

   blindness in the century of louis braille institution was clearly designated a “teaching establishment” and not a shelter for assistance through work. In any event, on February 20, 1816, the blind youth left the rue de Charenton to move into 68 rue Saint-Victor, the former College of Good Children become the Saint-Firmin seminary in the eighteenth century, located in one of the poorest and most insalubrious neighborhoods of Paris. While the blind youth moved out, life at the Quinze-Vingts was organized according to the regulations of February 17, 1815, under conditions generally better than those of the Empire. Still, with the return of the Grand Almoner, a certificate of Catholicity was required of blind people applying to the hospice, as had been the case in the ancien régime. After the death of Cardinal de Talleyrand-Périgord in October 1821 and the accession of the Prince of Croÿ, bishop of Strasbourg, to the office of Grand Almoner of France, this climate of religious reaction grew weightier, while the control the hospice administration exerted over the blind intensified.

The Quinze-Vingts, Fiefdom of the Ultra-Catholic Reaction Gustave-Maximilien-Juste, Prince of Croÿ, “took possession of the Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts” on November 27, 1821. He was, in the true sense of the term, a “prince of the Church.” In his book on the Restoration, Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny cites the cardinal-prince of Croÿ as “an extreme case” among the Restoration prelates chosen from the old nobility and completely devoted to the monarchy, who, “on his pastoral rounds, traveled with two coaches, ten horses, six domestics for his service and for that of his vicar general, and with red pack straps and cross-belts [riding] a white horse at the head of the procession, escorted by two gendarmes.”12 Upon arriving at the Quinze-Vingts, the prince-bishop (who was not yet a cardinal) announced the appointment of the Abbé Feutrier, Vicar General of the Grand Almonry, as governor-administrator to replace the Abbé de Quélen, who had been named bishop of Paris. In December 1822, the Abbé Feutrier was replaced in turn by the Abbé Jean-Marie de La Mennais, who would be succeeded in July 1824 by the Abbé Pierre Perreau, Grand Almoner of the Knights of the Faith—whose Grand

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Restoration    Master was the doyen of the hospice governor-administrators, Mathieu de Montmorency. Under the authority of the Prince de Croÿ, who in 1822 became, like his Vicars General, a member of the Congregation, the internal members were the object of increased discipline with respect to their morality and religious practices, and on December 1, 1823, came the following: “His Highness Monsignor announces that there will be a mission for the hospice blind in the course of the next month; He expects the greatest advantages from it, and He deems it necessary, after what religion has suffered in recent times.”13 A year later, the administration granted a pecuniary compensation to “Demoiselle Cholat,” schoolmistress of the little sighted girls, for “her zeal during the time the of mission.”14 On May 15, 1824, the Knight of La Croix d’Azolette—brother of Nicolas-Augustin de la Croix d’Azolette, a member of the Congregation and Vicar General of the Bishop of Belley—was named director general of the hospice to replace Seignette, who was “forced to retire due to illness.”15 The new director, whom the Abbé Prompsault would later describe as “an incompetent honnête homme,”16 completely shared the views of the Grand Almoner, his Vicar General, and the other governor-administrators (and in particular, of de Montmorency and Alexis Noailles, appointed in 1822) regarding the Catholic reconquest undertaken at the heart of the hospice. In a confidential report to the Grand Almoner on June 20, 1824, he thus denounced the presence of “two or three Protestant families in our holy asylum . . . , a manifest violation of Saint Louis’s regulations,” and suggested “placing elsewhere . . . these co-religionists, whose presence . . . in our house is pernicious to the establishment.”17 The reference to Saint Louis, which verges on ridicule given its anachronistic relationship to the information expressed, was recurrent in the Quinze-Vingts administrators’ discourse at the time. From the moment he took possession, the Grand Almoner set the tone by speaking of the Quinze-Vingts as “a foundation to which the revered name of Saint Louis will ever lend a radiance belonging to no other,”18 while the members of the hospice became, under the administrators’ pen, “the venerable blind of Saint Louis.”19 In any case, in November 1832, Daniel Heilmann, a blind Protestant who had succeeded Haüy as head of the Museum of the

   blindness in the century of louis braille Blind—and become a member of the Quinze-Vingts in 1811—would testify that he had indeed been obliged to leave the hospice “at the time of the Grand Almonry . . . rather than to subject himself to an abjuration.”20 In November 1825, La Croix d’Azolette alerted the Council, this time to two households, the Lahayes and the Houzés, whom he had reason to lament “from a moral perspective.”21 Regarding the second of the two households, which consisted of a father, a mother (who went begging and got drunk), and two children, he particularly insisted on the parents and the sixteen-year-old elder child’s lack of religious observance. The Council decided that the Lahaye household would be turned out of the QuinzeVingts and that the Houzé couple and their eldest son would be reprimanded and threatened with expulsion if they did not mend their ways. In the meantime, facilitating its task of social control, on January 10, 1825, the administration decided to have the blind boarders wear a uniform, a practice that had been suspended ten years earlier. The uniform, which the blind were to wear to the chapel, to the administration’s offices, and when they left the enclosure, consisted of “a frock coat, vest, and pants of iron-grey Elbeuf cloth, with a royal blue collar and facing and with copper buttons bearing a fleur-de-lis with the numbers 15–20 for the men; a dress of printed cloth [and] a blue belt with a fleur-de-lis for the women.”22 This reform, which provoked great resistance on the part of those concerned,23 clearly spoke to the goal of policing individuals: “the easy monitoring of the blind of both sexes, both in town and within the enclosure.”24 In fact, the administrators were especially anxious to prevent the blind from begging or engaging in other activities in town denounced by La Croix d’Azolette in his report of June 1824: “going to play at dance halls; to sing or sell songs [songs “almost all contrary to accepted standards of good behavior,” as he was to specify in another report25] in the streets and in public places; to tell fortunes, read cards, etc., etc.”26 Moreover, the administration sought to prevent these types of activities, which it judged illicit and degrading—but which persisted nonetheless—by encouraging the blind to work. Its solution was not new. To this end, it commissioned a “list of the various arts and trades practiced by the inhabitants of the residence, be they blind or sighted”27 that might inspire those blind people wishing to supplement their daily stipend by taking up a lucrative occupation. Among the trades inventoried in the course of this

The Quinze-Vingts Under the Restoration    survey, whose results were presented to the administration on February 28, 1825, were several that required no particular qualifications: twelve turners of cutlers’ wheels, an organ blower, a bell ringer, two water carriers, a lock pick carrier, and—a giver of holy water.28 Among the other blind people exercising a variety of professions, from teaching grammar, mathematics, and English, to playing music (the biggest contingent), to caning chairs, were a few individuals who kept shops within the hospice walls, as had been the practice since the Middle Ages: two wine merchants, two tobacco merchants, and a woman who sold semolina and noodles. In total, the management of the Quinze-Vingts counted 68 blind people “working and selling goods” out of 225 members present at the hospice on the date of the survey (15 of whom, aged or sick, were being treated at the infirmary and were thus unable to work). Despite the administration’s efforts to encourage the blind to work—it made provisions, for example, to advance the sum necessary for an apprenticeship or for the acquisition of tools for those who desired to practice a trade—the Council continued, on many occasions, to deplore the fact “that certain members, in defiance of the regulations on mendicancy, still allow themselves to so dishonor the royal house that hospitably receives them.”29 Threats of punishment—the most severe of which, for the multirecidivists, was definitive expulsion from the hospice—seemed to have no effect on the recalcitrant. There is no trace of plans for forced labor at this time. The failure of the experiments under the Consulate and the Empire doubtless served as a lesson in that regard. As for the steps toward Catholic reconquest the Quinze-Vingts administration took under the Restoration, they would be swept away by the July Revolution. The new regime would again place the “ancient foundation of Saint Louis,” memory site of the Ultra-Royalist legitimists, under the tutelage of the Minister of the Interior, who in October 1830 appointed Jean-Denis Cochin, member of the Council of Hospices, as provisional administrator of the Quinze-Vingts. On November 20, Cochin installed James-Antoine-Hippolyte Chabaud-Latour, named director to replace the resigning Nicolas-François Hamel de La Barre (La Croix d’Azolette had retired in December 1824), by a decision of the Minister of the Interior dated October 25. Chabaud-Latour, “a Calvinist whose son was in the service of the Duke of Orléans,”30 having almost immediately been put

   blindness in the century of louis braille on leave for health reasons, Joseph Simon-Durand, an architect originally from Nîmes and the “widower of a wife belonging to the reformed religion,”31 was named interim director on December 1, 1830. A Lutheran, Mr. Schlumberger, appointed hospice treasurer on October 22, 1830, took up his duties on January 1, 1831. By decree of the Minister of Commerce and Public Works on May 16, 1831, the hospice chapel was suppressed as of June 1, and consequently, by a decree of June 2, the Abbé Prompsault, former second chaplain of the Quinze-Vingts—and future historian of the establishment—was appointed almoner of the hospice. And so it was that the July Monarchy completed—once and for all—the secularization of the Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts begun during the Revolution of 1789.

c h a p t e r 14

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration

Despite their renewed autonomy, the early years of the Restoration were a difficult period for the blind youth. But beginning in 1821, their institute, despite a certain number of obstacles, particularly of a budgetary order, became the crucible where new trades and new modes of written communication were forged that would definitively open the door to social and cultural integration.

The Directorship of Sébastien Guillié: A Despot Enamored of Fame A new set of regulations, decided by the Minister of the Interior on October 18, 1815, governed life at the Institute for Blind Youth, where Sébastien Guillié had become director. With the exception of a few modifications, the regulations would officially be in effect until April 1845. The number of subsidized spots was set at 90 instead of 120: 60 for boys and 30 for girls. Children had to be between ten and fourteen years of age to be admitted, and the duration of their studies was set at eight years. As always, since its nationalization, the establishment could take in paying boarders. In 1825, Montigny described a visit to the institute on the day prizes were awarded, to which he was brought by “a very respectable and witty lady” who was sponsoring “a little seven-year-old congenitally blind

   blindness in the century of louis braille girl, the daughter of one of her farmers, [who] is being brought up at her [the lady’s] expense and is taking advantage . . . of the benefits of an education appropriate to [her] unfortunate position.”1 The director, who was also headmaster and chief doctor of the institute, needed to report only to the minister and to the administration council—of which he was a member—which is to say that he had complete authority over the house and its occupants. Sébastien Guillié was to exercise this authority despotically from 1816 to 1821—but also, as Joseph Guadet wrote in his history of the institute, “with considerable skill in the difficult art of making things look good.”2 The students had a fifteen-hour day divided between intellectual work, music, manual work, meals, and recreational activity, not to mention religious duties. Discipline was quite strict, the alimentary regimen frugal, the separation of sexes absolute.3 Indeed, it was the “indispensability”4 of this separation that determined the choice of the site on the rue Saint-Firmin, which was so unhealthy and so inadequate in other respects. Along the same lines, touch remained a taboo, as borne out by article 114 of the 1815 regulations—which, on that subject, took up the provisions of the regulations of 23 Ventôse Year IX: “It is expressly forbidden for any student to lay a hand on anyone or to allow himself to act in any way harmful or contrary to accepted standards of good behavior and decency. Any student culpable of this infraction will be severely punished.”5 Seven of the regulations’ articles were devoted to punishment, and only six to rewards. The most severe chastisements were imprisonment in the discipline room for one to several days and, as a last resort, dismissal from the institute—as had already been the case at the Quinze-Vingts. However, a report presented in May 1821 to the administration council and then to the Minister of the Interior on the state of the institute immediately following the departure of Guillié, obliged to step down in 1821, mentions punishments far crueler and more humiliating: Two sets of iron chains were and remain in place, one in the refectory and the other in the garden. They were used to attach boys thus subject, like criminals, to an ignominious punishment. . . . The oldest and youngest were both so used to the whip that their only concern was the pain the punishment inflicted. The enforcer was one Dominique, who died a short while ago at Bicêtre and was replaced by Simon, a servant of Mr. Guillié.

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    The girls, at times when their health should have been most respected, were treated in the same fashion. The trauma the whip caused one of them made her sick for five months. Madame X, the water carrier, accomplished these important tasks in exchange for five sols. Outsiders having conveyed the horror they felt upon seeing chains in such a place, the punishment seems to have been abolished for girls of late. The chain’s hook is still embedded in the wall of the girls’ workshop. You have before your eyes, gentlemen, the chain and the whip, the only furnishings the former teacher left behind in her apartment.6

If it is important to be circumspect when examining a report drafted at the behest of regulatory authorities about a director forced to resign, the abuses denounced by Alexandre-René Pignier—Guillié’s successor as head of the institute—were quite real, as evidenced by a letter written to Guadet in 1861 by Zélie Cardeilhac, the former girls’ headmistress,7 justifying the use she and Guillié made of the whip for certain students—while downplaying its frequency. The same types of corrections were used in other establishments at the time, as Jean-Claude Caron shows in his A l’école de la violence. Châtiments et sévices dans l’institution scolaire au XIXe siècle. Caron notes that these practices were nonetheless beginning to be viewed and condemned as barbaric, which is precisely what Pignier did in his report. In short, we are quite far from the methods used by Haüy and even from Seignette’s benevolent leadership of the blind youth during their stay at the Quinze-Vingts. One tradition remained from days gone by: that of the public demonstrations. The Report of the Institute on the Budgetary Years of 1818 and 1819, written by Guillié for the Minister of the Interior, even mentions an increase in the capacity of the demonstration hall, which could accommodate an audience of 400 instead of the 280 of the two previous years. In 1821, Antoine-Jean Letronne, a member of the French National Institute and inspector-general of universities responsible for studying the state of literary instruction at the institute upon Guillié’s departure, asserted that, in the very opinion of Pierre-Armand Dufau, second teacher of the boys since 1815, these demonstrations were “the focal point of instruction and that everything was done with a view to this sole objective.”8 The reporter remarked: “It is easy to see that . . . three or four students have been looked after above all others and that they have been trained as best as possible to shine during the public examinations,”9 —which says much about the

   blindness in the century of louis braille validity of such demonstrations, and this, it must be acknowledged, from the institute’s beginnings.10 With the same concern for publicizing his establishment and the methods used there, in 1817, Guillié published Essay on the Instruction of the Blind [Essai sur l’ instruction des aveugles], which would be twice republished, in 1819 and 1820, and translated into English and German. Like the public demonstrations, the concerts given by the institute’s orchestra were excellent advertising for the establishment. Indeed Guillié, who was himself a good musician, brought musical instruction to a very high level. The institute’s orchestra, led by Galliod’s former student JeanHippolyte Isman, who still had “a bit of sight” that enabled him to decipher partitions, was renowned. In her 1861 letter to Guadet, Cardeilhac, who was also an excellent musician, flattered herself with having “given an extraordinary boost to music,”11 particularly by introducing lessons in piano and harmony to the institute. On that subject, she cited the example of Sophie Osmont, whom we mentioned earlier with respect to Mademoiselle Mars’s creation of the role of Valérie at the Théâtre Français. After having been Cardeilhac’s student, young Sophie had welcomed a small music class for blind girls into her home. The former teacher also congratulated herself on some of her students’ achievements in vocal music. As for manual work, still accorded great importance by the 1815 regulations (“the aim of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth is to educate blind children and to teach them a useful trade”12), the institute presented various products made by the students at the Industrial Products Exhibition held at the Louvre from August 25 to September 20, 1819. The jury awarded it an honorable mention “for various examples of rope making, weaving, basketry, and printing done by the blind as well as for knitting and bobbin work.”13 Afterward, the institute would regularly participate in the Industrial Products Exhibition, where it received bronze medals on several occasions. There was, however, a less flattering aspect of life at the institute under the directorship of Guillié, with which we would like to close this short chapter of its history: that of the care given to students in an establishment where the director was also the chief physician and of the medical experiments Guillié himself conducted on four of his young boarders at the ophthalmological clinic he opened there soon after he settled at the rue Saint-Victor.

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    In his reports of 1818 and 1820 “on the state of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth,” Guillié prided himself on the upkeep of the infirmary and on the quality of the care given students. But on this subject as well, the report of May 1821 reveals some damning facts: three days after his arrival at the establishment, the new director, Pignier, who was also a doctor, continued the visit he had begun upon taking up his duties. He was surprised “by the foul odor emanating from an isolated, dark hovel.”14 He naturally asked after its cause and was told that “a student in a state verging on idiocy, named Poupé, was confined to that pigsty, from which he dragged himself about the house when driven by hunger.”15 Having ordered that the student “be removed from the stench in which he had been rotting, according to the entire household, for two months,”16 Pignier had him treated. The child, who “seemed [so] incapable of learning”17 that the administration wished to expel him from the establishment, was nonetheless kept at the infirmary, because Pignier judged him unfit to travel. And with reason, for he died a few days later.18 Another student, Chazot, who was “overcome with severe consumption,” and who “despite his illness, had never been put in the infirmary and had continued, to everyone’s great detriment, to live in the dormitory,”19 met the same fate shortly thereafter. Even more scandalous, in our view—but not in that of contemporaries, since Guillié had officially published the results in a medical journal he had just founded, the Ophthamological Library, or Collection of Observations on Diseases of the Eye [La Bibliothèque ophtalmologique ou Recueil d’observations sur les maladies des yeux]—are the experiments on contagious ophthalmia he conducted in December 1819 and January 1820 on four of his students. At that time, Guillié, who had undergone no training in ophthalmology during the course of his medical studies, gave public consultations and courses on diseases of the eye at the institute’s clinic. Indeed, he had published a work on cataracts and gutta serena with Croullebois in 1818 and could pride himself on the title of “Doctor-Oculist of Their Royal Highnesses Madame the Duchess of Angoulême, Monsignor the Duke of Bourbon, and Madame the Duchess of Orléans.” Before his experiments on the blind youth, he had collected and published in his journal an “Observation on [a Case of] Contagious Ophthalmoblennorrhea” that had arisen between April 21 and June 21,

   blindness in the century of louis braille 1819, aboard a slave ship, Le Rôdeur. From the nature of its transmission, Guillié concluded this form of ophthalmia was contagious. On the subject, he also cited “the opthalmia that ha[d] been reigning for two months in the Hospital for Sick Children” and that had struck “the majority of individuals of all ages and constitutions who had frequented the rooms where the children [afflicted] with ophthalmia were held.”20 To substantiate his hypothesis and to convince his colleagues, who for the most part were persuaded as to the epidemic but not the contagious character of some forms of ophthalmia, Guillié decided—in collaboration with Guersant, doctor-director of the Hospital for Sick Children—to sample “from the children who had reached the secondary stage of contagious ophthalmia, the mucus that flowed in abundance from their eyelids”21 and to introduce it under the lids of four congenitally blind children. In his account, he remarked: “for an experiment that exposes those who submit to it to the danger of losing their vision, it would be inhuman to use subjects endowed with the faculty of sight when sufferers of amaurosis with intact eyelids can provide the same results.”22 We will not go into detail about the course of this experiment, which we have described elsewhere;23 we will say only that it was the cause of great suffering in the unlucky children who underwent it to no avail. Still, the experiment leads us to pose two questions: the first concerns Guillié’s insensitivity to the sufferings of the poor child victims of his libido sciendi—not to mention his thirst for fame. The coldness with which he describes his experiment’s progress can be explained, in our opinion, in two ways: on the one hand, quite simply by his harshness of character, which we already noted in his brutal treatment of recalcitrant students; on the other, his indifference may also derive from his ideas, steeped in sensualism, of the effect of blindness on the “morals” of the blind. Like his “excellent friend, the Abbé Sicard,”24 who considered “the deaf-mute in his natural state . . . a sort of ambulant machine with an organization, in terms of its effects, inferior to that of animals,”25 Guillié thought that “the privation of sight not only t[ook] from the blind the sensations that organ gives the clear-sighted, but also [that] it ha[d] an impact on all their thoughts, which it modifie[d] and denature[d].”26 According to him, for the blind man in the state of nature “the moral world d[id] not exist;”27 he was less sensitive, less capable of emotion than other men. It is not absurd

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    to think that Guillié might have considered infrahuman the children he chose for his experiment—the eldest of whom, François P., showed signs of “idiocy” and the youngest of whom (between ten and eleven) had not yet had time to benefit from the “humanizing” effects of the education dispensed at the institute. Under these conditions, why would they be more worthy of compassion than the animals Guillié also used as “guinea pigs”—thought at the time to be insensible to pain? It is even plausible that Guillié’s theories concerning the “morals” of the blind, in combination with conservative notions of childhood—the assimilation of the young child to an animal trained by lashings28 —explain the brutality of the sanctions inflicted on the institute’s children under his directorship. The fact that this type of experiment, of a purely medical nature, could be conducted with impunity in an educational facility obliges us to pose a second question that repeatedly arises after the nationalization of the establishment by the revolutionary assemblies: that of the institute’s status. If, in spite of Guillié’s departure in 1816, his contemporaries, and his minister in charge in particular, considered the establishment more of a charitable hospice than a school, they could easily accept the fact that the clinical observations and therapeutic trials of other hospices and hospitals taking in the sick or disabled poor free of charge be carried out on the children kept there at the state’s expense. In this regard, it is significant that this experiment was not among the charges against Guillié mentioned in the report of May 1821. Assistance or education? The question of the modalities of the state’s care for the blind youth had yet to be settled. Under the directorship of Pignier, the Royal Institute would become the site of major experiments and innovations in the study of reading and writing. By giving the blind full access to the benefits of education, these new methods would help move the debate forward.

Alexandre-René Pignier, “Second Founder of the Institute” On February 20, 1821, Alexandre-René Pignier, “the second founder of the institute,”29 took over from Guillié, who was obliged to step down to avoid dismissal. Guillié, so harsh toward others, had weaknesses of his

   blindness in the century of louis braille own: he had conducted an affair with Zélie Cardeilhac, who followed him in his disgrace. As soon as he arrived at the rue Saint-Victor, Pignier decided, with the administrator’s consent, to receive the institute’s founder, who had returned from Russia in 1817. Haüy, whom Guillié—an old friend of the Abbé Sicard—had always refused to invite,30 was then seventy-six years old. On July 19, 1821, the day of Saint Vincent de Paul (patron of the establishment), Haüy was welcomed, for the first time since his return, to the school he had founded thirty-six years earlier. By deliberately receiving the former revolutionary, cofounder of the Theophilanthropic cult under the Directory, Pignier, a member of the Congregation and of the Society of Good Works—where he rubbed shoulders with Count Alexandre de Noailles, the administrator of the Institute for Blind Youth and soon the Quinze-Vingts—was consciously framing his arrival at the helm of the establishment as an appeasement. The symbolic gesture, by which the bonds between the institute and its founder were renewed, was also good politics, for which Noailles congratulated Pignier in a letter dated July 27: “To my mind, the festival of Saint Vincent de Paul was admirable. It was very shrewd of you to invite Mr. Haüy. The old man presents no obstacle to you. It is immensely important to direct the feelings of the Blind Youth to their true source and to wipe the slate clean of Guillié’s usurpations and boasts.”31 A month later, on August 22, the “father of the blind” was again invited to the institute, where a public concert was given in his honor: “There, he again heard the songs with which, thirty years earlier, his students had thanked heaven for the blessings for which he had been their intermediary. There, the old man’s face was inundated with tears amid the outbursts of this young family in the presence of the father of the blind.”32 Unfortunately, the sick and feeble old man would not long enjoy this homecoming: he passed away on March 19, 1822, at the home of his brother, the Abbé Haüy, who had lodgings at the Jardin du Roi.33 At his funeral, held the next day at the church of Saint-Médard, his former students performed a requiem mass composed by one of them, probably Galliod, according to Henri.34 His enemy of thirty years, the celebrated Abbé Sicard, followed him to the grave shortly thereafter, for he died the following May 10 and was buried, like Haüy, at the Père Lachaise cemetery. In any event, as soon as he took over, the new director faced a difficult task. He had the help of a new teacher, Madame Landresse, herself assisted by her daughter. The reports that Letronne, member of the French

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    Institute and inspector general of the University, and Binet, inspector general of studies at the Royal Polytechnic School, gave the administration in May 1821 on the state of literary instruction and the teaching of mathematics at the time of Guillié’s departure were distressing indeed. Letronne denounced the public demonstrations in particular, which, according to him, “only discouraged veritable zeal, emboldened charlatanism, and sacrificed true success to vain and ridiculous embellishments.”35 The state of “industrial” education seemed hardly better than that of general instruction: apparently, the examples of rope making, trimmings, chair-caning, knitted elastics, netting, and basketry presented at the Exhibition of 1819 were not made by the blind youth but purchased from external manufacturers—some of whom provided the inspectors with proof. In fact, only musical and religious instruction—the subject of a report by the Abbé Borderie, Vicar-General of the Archbishopric of Paris—were in a satisfactory state. As for the health of the students, who were examined individually by doctors from outside the establishment, Récamier, of the Hôtel-Dieu, and Cayol, of the Central Bureau of Hospices (both colleagues of Pignier in the Society of Good Works), it was quite precarious: “The first thing that struck us was the pale complexion and cachectic appearance of most of them. Several had a manifest tendency toward scrofula; some even had engorged glands. Many, especially among the girls, had digestive pain, a fairly rare type of indisposition in adolescents, which prompted us to look for causes in the surroundings.”36 We should of course take “surroundings” to mean the neighborhood and the building, whose insalubrity was denounced by the two doctors— as had been in times past the dirtiness and exiguity of the site occupied by the blind youth at the Quinze-Vingts. The new doctor had his work cut out for him. His religious engagements compelled him to consider the task entrusted him a mission—a conviction shared by at least one of the administrators, Noailles, who wrote to him at the beginning of his mandate: My dear friend, I know you are in complete possession of the house that Providence has committed to your solicitude. Nothing more stands in the way of your operations’ success. I am delighted.37

   blindness in the century of louis braille Pignier’s detractors would reproach him for the austerity and quasimonastic customs that reigned at the institute under his directorship—and it is true that in his letter of April 1821, Noailles proposed the immediate organization of “a sort of mission at Easter time, to bring all these people back into the fold.”38 At least corporal punishment was abolished and student dignity respected. The new director showed himself to be very concerned with improving the lot of the older students employed as tutors, to which Louis Braille would attest in his 1851 Remarks and Critical Observations on the Work of Mr. Guadet: “From that time on, instruction turned on these young teachers who bore the imprecise title of tutors. . . . The director appreciated and encouraged their zeal and their devotion to progress and educational improvement.”39 In fact, as we indicated earlier, it was only in 1833 that Pignier obtained an amendment to the regulations of 1815 concerning the number of tutors, their status, and their total annual salary. Instruction remained “tripartite”: general, industrial, and musical. But musical instruction took a new direction: Pignier developed organ teaching. “A former doctor for the Saint-Sulpice seminary and the small community of clerics of that parish,” as he later recalled in his Historical Essay on the Institute for Blind Youth, he found himself “in contact with a great number of ecclesiastics,”40 which allowed him to place his students as organists in religious parishes and congregations, especially that of the Foreign Missions on the rue du Bac, where the congregation held its meetings on alternate Sundays.41 In his report to the administration dated May 31, 1833, Pignier could list thirteen students “placed in Paris and elsewhere.” A note dated January 1835 in the margin of this report’s manuscript specifies that “nineteen organists have now been placed.”42 Regardless of the support he enjoyed, he must have overcome many prejudices to get that far. Meanwhile, there remained the orchestra, and concerts—followed by visits to the establishment—replaced public demonstrations. In his Remarks and Observations on Guadet’s work, Braille takes pleasure in recalling that “Paganini encouraged [the] blind musicians with his applause and [that] the newspapers of the time made flattering and justified analyses of the institute’s concerts.”43 To bring musical teaching to a truly professional level, a class of music theory, and later a class of harmony and of composition, were officially created.

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    Lessons in tuning were added to the teaching of orchestral instruments, organ, and piano. In his Historical Essay, Pignier recalled that Galliod had taught piano tuning to the girls in the days when the institute was at the Quinze-Vingts, and that “at various times, the blind had tuned [instruments].”44 At the rue Saint-Victor, several students successfully took up this type of work and trained their young schoolmates. To officially recognize this instruction, a class in tuning was inaugurated in 1836. A student who had entered the institute in 1817 and had become a tutor in 1821, Claude Montal, who hailed from La Palisse in the Allier, became famous in this domain. Having left the institute in 1830 to become a tuner and then a piano maker, he created his own business and was so successful that in 1853, after a difficult start, he could pride himself on the title of “licensed purveyor to Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of the French.”45 And so it was that Pignier gave musical teaching a decisive boost for the students’ future. Nor was industrial teaching neglected for all that. New apprenticeships were introduced, and in a letter to Pignier dated April 4, 1824, Noailles gave an account of a “workshop project for the blind” that he had submitted the evening before to the Prefect of Paris.46 Alas, it was not until the next directorship that the project would come to fruition. Still, in November of the same year, the Committee of Economic Arts of the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry gave a prize totaling one thousand francs to the institute as an “industrial school for the blind.” The reporter—Joseph-Marie de Gérando, to be precise— took the opportunity to draw the Minister of the Interior’s attention “to the important advantages that might be gained by the Royal Institute for Blind Youth’s influence were it converted into a sort of normal school by summoning two students from each department, chosen from the blind poor of both sexes, so that [they] might, in turn, train others in their respective departments.”47 Here, once again, we find the concern expressed by some of the Constituent Assembly reporters at the time of the nationalization of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and that of the Blind Children in 1791. In 1827, the institute again presented the products of the blind youth at the French Industrial Products Exhibition. It won a bronze medal there in 1827 and in 1834, and a bronze rappel in 1839.

   blindness in the century of louis braille Pignier also concentrated all of his efforts, beginning with the first years of his directorship, on the acquisition of a new site for the institute. In his report of March 7, 1825, to the establishment’s administrators, he was already writing: You are aware, Gentlemen, that part of our residence must be torn down to facilitate the operations of the wine market. As it stands right now, it is not big enough; moreover, it is humid, unhealthy, and detrimental to the health of the children, as stated in the doctors’ report given in that [the report] dated May 19, 1821. We need, then, another larger and better-ventilated home, more easily accessible, where the boys and girls can be completely separated and where employees can live in a separate part of the building, having no communication with the students but for their service to the establishment.48

In 1828, the Report of Doctor-Consultants and of the Surgeon of the Institute supported this demand: “We believe . . . that the Royal Institute for Blind Youth should not long remain in the building it occupies lest the health and even the life of those who inhabit it be severely compromised, and we think this establishment should be situated in a vast, healthy, and well-ventilated place.”49 Despite new medical opinions as to “the habitual bad state of health . . . of the majority of the institute’s children,”50 and despite the deaths of fifty-five of them between 1821 and 1838,51 Pignier had to return to the attack for more than ten years before, in 1838, after all sorts of incidents, the Chamber finally approved the budget necessary for the purchase of land and the construction of a new building on the Boulevard des Invalides. Defended by Pierre-Antoine-Philippe-Joseph Meilheurat, deputy of Moulins, and Alphonse de Lamartine, deputy of Mâcon, the bill was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on May 14 and by the Chamber of Peers on July 2. The first stone was laid on June 22, 1839. But Pignier, after many years of conflict with his second teacher, the liberal, Pierre-Armand Dufau—who succeeded him at the head of the establishment—was retired on May 7, 1840. He was no longer there at the time of the move to the Boulevard des Invalides. When he was obliged to retire, however, his directorship’s track record was positive: he had consistently tried to improve the functioning of the institute in spite of recurrent financial difficulties due to insufficient government subsidies. This “zealously ardent”52 Ultramontanist, “éminence

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    grise of Minister Villèle,”53 who might, in that respect, be considered a reactionary, was a progressive for his students and his establishment. Beyond the accomplishments we have just cited—new professional prospects for the blind (in addition to the success of the organ class and the introduction of new “industrial” apprenticeships, we should mention that several students obtained primary and secondary teaching certificates between 1830 and 1840), the purchase of a plot of land, and the construction of a new building for the establishment—Pignier contributed to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth’s influence abroad by developing sustained relationships with similar establishments in Europe and the United States. “A former student . . . , Emile Tranchery, was thus brought by Mr. Howe to work, as a teacher, toward the formation of the Institute for the Blind in Boston.”54 But above all, perhaps, we must credit him with having understood, as soon as he arrived at the establishment, the interest of a punctiform writing system invented for the blind by a philanthropist, Charles Barbier de La Serre, who had proposed it in vain to Pignier’s predecessor.

From the “Night Writing” of Charles Barbier de La Serre to the Method of Louis Braille Charles Barbier de la Serre, the Inventor of Writing in Dots for the Blind When he proposed that Pignier adopt his method at the institute, Nicolas-Marie-Charles Barbier de La Serre was fifty-four years old. A former artillery officer who had emigrated to North America during the Revolution and returned to France in the first years of the nineteenth century, he had long been interested in writing, “which of all the inventions [honoring] the human mind [is that] which has the most contributed to the development of its progress.”55 His interest in cryptography and rapid writing systems—doubtless linked to his military past—were matched by a reflection on exotic writing, perhaps born of his frequentation of Amerindians and fed by readings, Jean Chardin’s Travels into Persia and the East Indies [Voyage en Perse et aux Indes orientales] and Father José de Acosta’s

   blindness in the century of louis braille Natural and Moral History of the Indies in particular56 —which he cited in one of his works. As much as they were rooted in an ancient tradition born of Humanism, Barbier’s speculations on writing were no less a reflection of the preoccupations of his contemporaries, prompted by the universalist and philanthropic project of Enlightenment. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as in the preceding century, there was a fascination with perfecting a universal script or language and deciphering ancient and exotic writing systems. During its eight years of existence, the class of Moral and Political Sciences at the National Institute—dominated by the Ideologues—studied several memoirs on “pasigraphy as writing system and as language.”57 Barbier’s objectives were more modest and more pragmatic, which did not prevent him from paying homage, in his second book, to Joseph de Maimieux, member of the Academy of Sciences of Haarlem and inventor of a pasigraphy. In 1808, Barbier published a Table of Expediography [Tableau d’Expédiographie], followed in 1809 by a manual for teaching oneself an accelerated writing system of his own invention, which he called “French Expeditive,” to distinguish it from the “three methods . . . most generally taught in the capital: tachygraphy . . . , stenography, and . . . okigraphy [okigraphie].”58 This work, Principles of French Expeditive to Write with the Rapidity of Speech [Principes d’expéditive française pour écrire aussi vite que la parole], was followed by Principles of Cut-Writing to Substitute for the Pen and Pencil and to Make Several Copies at Once without Tracing Characters [Principes d’ écriture coupée pour suppléer la plume et le crayon et exécuter plusieurs copies à la fois san tracer de caractères]. Whereas expeditive French—abridged writing for the use of military men, students, and any person regularly called upon to take notes— made use of a whole array of complex signs and required a fairly long apprenticeship, cut-writing amounted to a few simple signs that, combined according to an alphabetic grid learned by heart, represented the letters and sounds of language. The order of the letters in the grid was arbitrary, which made it “a table of combinations suitable for the secrecy of diplomatic correspondence.”59 To trace the signs of this writing, a “small, blade, sharp on one side and thick on the other, that can be replaced, if needed, by a pocket knife,”60 took the place of pen or pencil. This system allowed

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration   

figure 1. Charles Barbier, Essai sur divers procédés d’expéditive française, contenant douze écritures différentes, avec une planche pour chaque procédé (Paris: Chez les principaux libraires, 1815). Plate VII: punctiform writing.

for multiplying copies of the same message by cutting through several sheets of superimposed sturdy paper. It is clear that such a procedure would be reserved for particular circumstances, armies in the countryside, for instance. There was nothing philanthropic in it as of yet. In 1815, Barbier published a third work, Essay on Various Methods of French Expeditive, Containing Twelve Different Writing Systems and an Illustration of Each One [Essai sur divers procédés d’expéditive française, contenant douze écritures différentes, avec une planche pour chaque procédé]. As the title of this brochure announced, Barbier, who had pursued his research into rapid writing, had come up with more and more methods. He divided them into three categories: easy writing, combination writing, and accelerated writing. If the methods belonging to the last two categories met the same objectives as before—secret correspondence and rapid notes—the “easy writing” methods were conceived with a purely philanthropic goal in mind: to give people “who do not know how to read, or who, knowing how to read, do not know how to write, and whom . . . circumstances keep from learning by ordinary methods . . . the

   blindness in the century of louis braille means of . . . putting ideas to paper with techniques simple enough that they can be understood and put into practice at the same time.”61 All these methods were based, as was cut-writing, on combinations of simple signs representing letters and sounds in accordance with a predefined table that the student had to learn by heart. One of them is a punctiform system, perceptible to both the finger and the eye, in which the sounds and letters are represented by the combination of twelve points divided into two columns of six. For each sign (letter or sound), the number of points in the left column indicates the line on which it can be found in the table; the number of points in the right column indicates its position in the line. Barbier tested his method of punctiform writing in 1810 with six children from the schools of the Saint-Sulpice parish. Certificates signed by the Abbé Depierre, parish priest, the Abbé Tardy, docteur-ès-lettres, and Brother Leufroy, director of the Brothers of Gros-Caillou, and Brother Bénézet—who practiced in the same establishment—testify to the success of this experiment and underscore the significance of the method for children, the elderly, and the blind “who do not have the means or who have lost all hope of learning to read and write with ordinary methods.”62 In his Essay of 1815, Barbier clearly evoked its significance for “those blind since birth [who,] forever deprived of the ability to read our books or writing, also experience great difficulty in correctly drawing the shapes of our letters.”63 But to be sure of the advantages this writing, “sensible to the touch,” seemed to offer the blind, it would be necessary to test it “in establishments devoted to their instruction.”64 We do not know when, but Barbier proposed to Guillié that he try out his punctiform writing, which he still called “night writing,” with the blind of the Royal Institute. It would appear that this trial did take place but that Guillié then refused to adopt the method—which became a bitter memory for its inventor, as these few lines written to Pignier in April 1821 attest: “The extreme simplicity of the procedure [perhaps] concealed its advantages. Only persons of true merit appreciate small things for their utility, [for] they offer few opportunities to shine at public ceremonies. This, I think, was your predecessor’s primary objective, and this powerful means of inciting young people to compete had become for him the sole instrument of his personal vanity.”65

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    Having been unable to impose his method on the Institute for Blind Youth of Paris, Barbier had already applied it, with success, to a few of the blind at the Quinze-Vingts, as demonstrated by a letter to Monsignor de Quélen of May 28, 1821.66 He also sent the Institute for Blind Youth in Berlin a manual on night writing and various instruments of his own invention designed to facilitate its use.67 Previously, in June 1819, he had submitted one of his devices, the “French expeditor” [“expéditeur français”], for examination by the Academy of Sciences, whose reporters, De Prony, Molard, and Bréguet, had recommended that he make it “simpler and less costly.”68 Finally, in 1821, immediately after he took over the direction of the establishment, Pignier welcomed Barbier’s method and gave an account of it in his report to the administration of May 19, 1821: “Mr. Barbier has conveyed to me a quite ingenious writing method for the blind that they can use to correspond with each other. I have hastened to test this method; time will tell what advantages it may bring us. . . . Mr. Barbier is also to deposit some samples relating to his process in our library.”69 When Pignier agreed to introduce the Barbier system to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, nearly forty years after the founding of the establishment, the methods of learning to read and to write were fundamentally the same as they had been in Haüy’s day. Students learned to read with books printed in linear relief and to write and calculate using typographic characters cast face-up, which they placed on a composing stick; they learned to read cursive writing on tablets engraved with hollow letters and wrote using a quill with an un-slit nib and a hand-guide. In practice, these methods turned out to be imperfect. Indeed, linear relief was not well adapted to tactile psychology, and learning to write cursive proved unrealistic for the congenitally blind, irrespective of the modifications made to Haüy’s hand-guide by Pougens and later, Heilmann—that Protestant member of the Quinze-Vingts “persecuted” by Cardinal Prince Cröy’s administration, whom we discussed above. Lastly, once they had finished school, former students, lacking books in relief and all the materials available at the institute, forgot how to read and write—if they had ever learned to write. This is what emerges from the testimony of one Pierre-François-Victor Foucault, the inventor, in 1842, of a writing machine enabling the blind to correspond with the clear-sighted:

   blindness in the century of louis braille Deprived of sight more or less since birth, it was at the Institute for Blind Youth that I received the little education I have. I learned to read with the characters in relief used at that establishment, but this science was for me, as for my brothers in misfortune, largely of no use, because as soon as we are sent back into the world, we have no more books. It is thus impossible for us to practice, and no sooner have a few years passed, than our fingertips can no longer make out the characters used to instruct us, for they are too small, and touch quickly looses its sensitivity. If only we had learned to write, we would be able to correspond with our parents and friends without the help of others. We do not possess even this advantage. Of the sciences taught to the blind, writing is perhaps the one where the least progress has been made. The blind quickly learn to read, but very few of them manage to write. . . . Those who wrote before losing their sight . . . have almost nothing to learn; a board where each line is indicated by a metal thread suffices. They then write as best they can.70

In his desire to impress, Guillié probably did not want to admit to all that. It would have meant acknowledging the share of deception public demonstrations—the thrust of the institute’s teaching under his directorship—inevitably entailed. Fortunately for the blind, Pignier, motivated by other principles, was ready to try out anything that might contribute to the students’ welfare. It did not occur to him—nor to Barbier, for that matter—to replace all the methods used in the establishment with night writing, but to teach it “as an accessory and secondary part”71 of the instruction given the blind youth. Once they had left the institute, students might still be able to write and read. What’s more—and this was Barbier’s profound ambition—thanks to his method, they, in turn, would be able to teach “those unfortunates on the outside, deprived of all . . . education.”72 In this way, wrote the philanthropist to Pignier, “the Royal Institute will become the central school where teachers are trained to spread instruction to blind people on the outside.”73 Encouraged by the reception of Pignier and the institute’s administration, Barbier endeavored to simplify the instruments needed for night writing. He quickly turned from the “French expeditor” to a simple and inexpensive device, as had been advised by the reporters of the Academy of Sciences in 1820. The device consisted of a small board “lined in the middle by a staff of six parallel lines . . . carved into the wood at intervals less than one line apart;”74 a tin strip, “pierced along its entire length with vertical openings two lines [wide], at most, by one inch high,”75 which

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    were separated from each other by solid spaces, and a blunt punch “of a thickness equal to the opening of the lines cut into the ruler.”76 Later, the board would be made larger to become a tablet including several staffs, and the tin strip would be transformed into a grid for writing. In keeping with his philanthropic principles, the inventor had his “night writing tools” made by a “carpenter [suffering] from total blindness who had been obliged to give up his profession several years previously.”77 If we are we are to take him at his word, several other objects were “imagined by the blind.”78 They were indeed carried away by enthusiasm for Barbier’s method, which finally gave them a means of taking notes, consigning their thoughts to paper, rereading what they had written, and corresponding with each other. Punctiform writing, which was easier to learn and to memorize than ordinary writing, since it substituted an infinite number of possible forms with a finite number of combinations, was much better suited to the requirements of touch, whose powers of discernment are quite inferior to those of the retina. Confident in his success, Barbier, who essentially dreamed thenceforth of making his method a process of “universal writing for all languages,”79 presented it as early as 1823 to the different authorities legitimating inventions: —The Exhibition of the Products of French Industry —The Society for the Encouragement of National Industry—to whom he offered “two printed works and a collection of instruments for night writing made by a blind man.”80 —The Royal Academy of Sciences, whose reporters, from Lacépède to Ampère, observed, quite judiciously, that “ordinary writing is the art of speaking to the eyes. That discovered by Mr. Charles Barbier is the art of speaking to the touch.”81

The method having already been published and awarded by the jury of the Exhibition of Industry, the Academy’s rules forbade the commissioners, despite their favorable opinion, from proposing that this body issue an opinion. While Barbier endeavored to gain recognition for his system, the Blind Youth slowly discovered its disadvantages: it was sonography, not an alphabet. It did not allow for respecting orthography, which was inappropriate for schoolchildren; nor did it enable them to perform calculations and note music—an essential professional outlet for the institute’s

   blindness in the century of louis braille students. Barbier did envisage finding a solution to this drawback and, in 1822, proposed to Pignier that “he discuss it with [the] teacher of this subject,” before speaking to “Mr. Galliau [sic], whose ideas . . . might also be of great use.”82 Finally, night writing was based on a combination of twelve points, which was too much to permit synthetic tactile reading: the cell of dots representing a character was larger than the optimal zone of a finger’s sensitivity and, in consequence, required an exploratory vertical movement as well as the horizontal movement of reading. As Pierre Henri has written: “There was a lot of reflection, debate, and invention in and around 1825 among the most intelligent students, who labored in the old buildings of the rue Saint-Victor to obliterate the consequences of blindness.”83 Among those who struggled “to perfect sonography or to find something better”84 was the young Louis Braille, who had entered the institute in February 1819. If he was willing to compress night writing’s characters, which, it was said, “took up too much space,”85 Barbier refused to consider objections to the nonorthographic character of his method. On this subject, Henri speaks of “rather aristocratic prejudices as to spelling’s uselessness for those of humble birth.”86 Though the remark is not totally unfounded, we believe that the deeper reason for Barbier’s determination to defend his “pronunciation alphabet” should be sought elsewhere. For him, orthography—the result of an alteration of the primitive simplicity of languages and writing systems—was not merely an obstacle to learning a written language for all those who had not attended school; it clashed with the realization of the universal mode of communication of which he dreamed, along with a number of his contemporaries. “The blind,” he wrote Pignier in 1824, “are quite right to do without it. In this way, they find themselves rid of the multitude of difficulties that punctuate study of language without our being able to represent them. They, in contrast, without studying, without effort, will write out those of all languages [emphasis ours] whose sounds are in their alphabet.”87 Indeed, the same year, the inventor of night writing sent the Academy of Sciences an Essay on Chinese and Persian Noctography [Essai de noctographie chinoise et persane] that, it seems to us, aptly demonstrates the universalist utopia inspiring his work. Around the same time, another philanthropist, Jean-François Sudre, perfected his “universal musical

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    language,” Solrésol, of which he presented a rough outline to the Academy of Beaux-Arts of Paris in 1827, and which he, too, thought to broaden for the blind’s use.88 While Barbier defended sonography, Louis Braille perfected a system of his own. Louis Braille, “the Johannes Gutenberg of the Blind” Much has already been written, in France and elsewhere, about Louis Braille, “the Johannes Gutenberg of the blind,”89 and his writing system of raised dots. In French, the masterwork is that of Henri, to which we have already referred, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, inventeur de l’alphabet des aveugles, published in 1952 on the centenary of the death of the inventor and his burial in the Pantheon. There is still work to be done from the perspective of the research currently being done in Great Britain by Christine MacLeod90 on Braille’s heroization—we might even say his cult status for blind people around the world. Such a study goes beyond the purpose and chronological limits of this book. We should nonetheless note that apart from his own writings, which are quite few, to tell the truth, the texts on which we rely to sum up Braille’s life and works91 mark the beginnings of this heroization of a man his contemporaries already called “the benefactor of the blind” before later generations made him “one of the glories of France.”92 The first of these documents is a brief biographical notice drafted by Pignier shortly after Braille’s death. It attests to the deep affection the former director of the institute had for his former student, become tutor in 1828 and teacher in 1833, following the reform resulting from the Thiers’s visit. The second document is a notice of the same nature, written by Hippolyte Coltat, one of Braille’s former students who had become his colleague and friend, on the occasion of the unveiling of a bust of the inventor at the Institute for Blind Youth on May 25, 1853. These two texts are in the genre of eulogy and must therefore be used with circumspection. Unfortunately, we have no other document that would permit us to get a perhaps more objective idea of Braille’s personality. Other than these two texts dedicated to his memory, we will avail ourselves, to explain the genesis of his system, of the work of Joseph Guadet, head of teaching at

   blindness in the century of louis braille the institute from 1840 to 1871—who considered the invention of writing in raised dots to be “without a doubt the most important [discovery] made since Haüy, possibly on a par with that of writing in relief.”93 Braille, the youngest of a family of four children, was born on January 4, 1809, in Coupvray, in Seine-et-Marne, in the arrondissement of Meaux. His father, Simon-René Braille, then forty-four years old, was a saddler; his mother, Monique Baron, five years younger than her husband, had no profession. Simon-René Braille was the owner of his home, his workshop, and several buildings used for rural purposes. He possessed three hectares of land and vineyards in the commune’s territory.94 At this time, the Braille family, while not rich, was not indigent. At three years old, wanting to mimic his father’s work, little Louis wounded his eye with a pruning knife he had gotten ahold of to cut a strip of leather. The inflammation and then infection having spread to the other eye, the child completely lost his sight. Despite his blindness, his parents sent him when he was quite young to the village school, where, writes Pignier, “he was noticed for his gentleness and his intelligence.”95 At home, his father also gave him little tasks— notably, the confection of fringes for harnesses—which contributed to the development of his manual dexterity. Next, perhaps on the advice of the Abbé Palluy, Coupvray’s local priest, as well as the teacher Antoine Bécheret, the young boy’s parents requested a place for him at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth. Their request was favorably received, and Louis, admitted to the institute by a decision of the Minister of the Interior on January 15, 1819, began school the following February 15.96 He had just turned ten. He was a blond child with a thin face whose fragile health was to tragically suffer the effects of life in the dilapidated and humid buildings of the old Saint-Firmin seminary. Pignier assures us that young Braille, whom he met only two years later, rapidly revealed natural abilities in all areas, “but especially in the sciences,”97 and that he won numerous prizes every year. This fact is also indirectly attested to by the account Montigny left of his visit to the institute on the day of the awarding of prizes for the year 1825. “Everyone had reason to be happy,” reported the author of Un Provincial à Paris,

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    yet one student, Louis Braye [sic], of the department of Seine-et-Marne—alone received five first prizes, namely: one for amplification,98 one for general grammar, one for geography, one for history, one for mathematics. The books that made up the awards he had earned, which he assiduously piled up behind himself on the bench he occupied, soon formed a pyramid whose summit stood higher than the head of the laureate.99

Gifted in science and letters, Braille was equally so when it came to handiwork and music. Coltat points, in particular, to his facility for the piano (he also played the violin remarkably well) and his talent for the organ, where, he writes, “his execution, . . . precise, brilliant, and casual . . . well represented the demeanor of his entire person.”100 When, in 1821, the new director introduced Barbier’s sonography to the institute, Braille was twelve years old. After having tried out the new system, the young boy “with the sagacity that characterized him,” Pignier comments, “indicated several improvements to Mr. Barbier and resolved a few difficulties having to do with this writing, little problems to which Mr. Barbier had long sought a solution.”101 We know Barbier’s reaction to the observations on the disadvantages of his method. Braille was not discouraged for all that and pursued his thoughts and his trials, trusting his intuition and the critiques and suggestions of his comrades. Pignier affirms that in 1825, the adolescent had already conceived the broad outlines of his method, “which he decided upon definitively after much testing and reflection and which he then communicated to his comrades, in order to assure himself of the rightness of his method through the use and practice of others.”102 Finally, Pignier continues, Braille drafted an exposition of this method of writing with dots that the author of the present notice remembers having written under his dictation. The first edition was printed in relief in 1829 and displayed at the Products of Industry Exhibition in 1834, along with a book written in [raised] dots and another work printed in the same manner, for characters had been cast especially for this method. The second edition, also in relief, was printed in 1837, with the changes wrought on music, and was exhibited at the Products of Industry in 1839.103

In these few lines, we read of Braille’s patient research, conducted, we should add, outside class hours and during his vacations in Coupvray: his trials and errors, his exchanges with his comrades, the outcome of his efforts, and finally, the success of his method, but also, indirectly, of the

   blindness in the century of louis braille modesty of the young man who never sought to valorize his methods on his own account with the authorities who legitimated inventions. Certainly, as Pignier reports, his method was presented at the Industrial Products Exhibition, but we know that it was displayed alongside other objects presented by the institute104 and that in 1837, as in 1834, it was the establishment that was rewarded for the ensemble of its creations, not Braille himself as the inventor of a new writing system. Pignier, however, who was quite conscious of the importance and the novelty of the method, encouraged its use not only within the institute but also without, by distributing it to foreign establishments. We may ask ourselves if Braille’s not having staked a claim to the recognition of his invention stemmed from his personal modesty, his youth, his subordinate position within the institute, or the internalization of the religious values of humility and self-effacement for the benefit of the community that had necessarily been inculcated in him by the establishment’s pious director. We recall, on this subject, the criticisms made of Pignier by his successors, who reproached him for having wanted to introduce “a spirit and customs more analogous . . . to those of a seminary than those of a secondary school”105 to the institute. Whatever the case, Barbier’s sonography was definitively supplanted by the alphabet in raised dots of Louis Braille, who was barely twenty years old when his method was published. This did not prevent the young man, whose intellectual probity matched his humility, from acknowledging his debt to his elder—even while clearly explaining the reasons that had led him to conceive of a new system. Here is what he wrote as a foreword to the first edition of his Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plainsong by Means of Dots for Use by the Blind and Arranged by Them [Procédé pour écrire les paroles, la musique, et le plain-chant au moyen de points, à l’usage des aveugles et disposé pour eux], printed in linear relief at the institute in 1829: The ease with which the ingenious method of writing with dots invented by Mr. Barbier especially for the blind can be learned and put into practice would have been a more than sufficient reason for us to dispense with publishing another method if we had not felt the need for a writing system in which signs take up less space than they do in that of this inventor, were numerous enough to represent all the commonly used characters of ordinary writing, and could be applied

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    to writing music and plainsong. With the method explained here, we have set out to avoid these failings and to obtain the requisite advantages: two of our signs take up exactly as much space as a single one of Mr. Barbier’s; we have more signs than we need to represent simple and accentuated letters, punctuation marks, numbers, and algebraic signs; and finally, we have applied this writing method to music and to plainsong. At the end of this work can be found a sort of stenographic system for which twelve signs suffice to write all the words in the French language. Three of these signs take up as much space as of one of Mr. Barbier’s. If we have signaled the advantages of our method over this inventor’s, we must also say, to his credit, that it is his system that gave us the first idea for our own.106

Everything Louis Braille’s method owed to Charles Barbier’s could not be better or more concisely put, nor could its advantages be better expressed. Yet this first version of the Braille system was still imperfect, because certain signs—numbers, punctuation, mathematical symbols—were combinations of dots and dashes, and dashes are not so distinct from two dots occupying the same position for the difference to be easily perceived by touch. Beginning in 1830, the Braille method—taught to the students by the inventor himself, appointed tutor in 1828—was used in classes for note-taking and for writing homework. Signs including lines, whose use turned out to be impractical, were abandoned rather quickly. Braille thus worked to improve his method, and if, as Henri supposed, the definitive alphabet and the essentials of a new musicography were “certainly decided upon as early as 1834,”107 it was only in 1837—as we already saw—that the second edition of the Method was published. This new version, as Henri also wrote, “fixed the alphabet, numerals, orthographic signs; it provided the blind with a stenographic system; it filled their scholastic and literary needs [and] gave them coherent musical notation.”108 We will borrow Guadet’s exposition of Braille’s writing system, published the first time in 1844 in the Annales de l’ éducation des sourds-muets et des aveugles,109 and again in 1856 in L’Instituteur des aveugles:110 Louis Braille’s writing system depends entirely on ten signs that we will call, with him, fundamental signs. These signs are very simple: the most complicated uses only four dots. They are written on two horizontal lines and go from a to j in-

   blindness in the century of louis braille clusively. . . . All the other [signs] are formed by the addition to the fundamental signs of one or two dots placed above those signs, that is to say, on a third horizontal line, such that the most complicated character in Braille writing is never more than three dots high and two wide. In this way, a dot placed on the third line under the left side of each fundamental sign gives a new series of ten signs, from k to t. A third series is formed by two dots placed under each fundamental sign. Finally, a fourth series consists of a single dot placed under the right side of the fundamental signs, for a total of forty signs. Six supplementary signs give us ì, ô, œ, the apostrophe, the dash, and the number sign. . . .  The fundamental signs also serve to represent the ten numerals, but then, they are preceded by another sign [marker] that indicates that they are no longer meant as alphabetic characters, but rather as numerical signs. . . . Moreover, Braille writing also allows for abbreviations. And . . . it can . . . be used stenographically: several signs that are rarely used in writing express groups of letters, or sounds, at the same time as they express a letter.111 . . . Mr. Braille’s writing system has also been applied . . . to music: the seven notes are represented by the last seven fundamental signs, and each of these notes can be written in seven different octaves simply by preceding these notes with a sign for each octave. . . . In this system, it is no longer a question of key, which is . . . a great advantage. What’s more, measure, accidentals, values, silences, nuances, articulations, everything that the pen of the sighted person can express, can also be expressed by the blind person’s punch.112

As with his writing system, the material Braille used derived from the material perfected by Barbier: a grooved tablet, a grill with rectangular openings corresponding to three lines instead of six—since, as we saw, his method relied on a combination of six points instead of twelve—and a blunt punch. It should be said that Braille, in contrast to the Barbier system, is written from right to left so that it can be read from left to right when the sheet of paper is turned over. In the second edition of his Method, Braille presented the Lord’s Prayer printed in dots in six languages (Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and English) with, for each one, the text in linear relief. This was the beginning of the application of his system to languages other than French, and it was with this in mind that Pignier sent a copy of the Method to several foreign institutions: “to Philadelphia . . . , to Glasgow, to Edinburgh, to Brussels and other cities in Belgium, to Spain, especially Madrid, to Pesth in Hungary . . . , to Copenhagen, to Norway, and”—continued Pignier— “if memory serves us well, to Naples, to Milan, etc.”113

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration   

figure 2.  Table showing how to generate the five series of the definitive Braille system. All the other signs are obtained by combining the signs of the first line with those of the first column. The big dots represent the characters in relief; here, the little ones only serve to indicate the relative position of the big ones in each group of six. (1) Signs used in music and mathematics. Illustration from Pierre Henri, La vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille (Paris: PUF-GIAA, 1952) p. 54.

By 1837, Braille, who was twenty-eight, had for some years been experiencing the effects of the tuberculosis that would get the better of him fifteen years later. The young man, whose correspondence and conversation “at times” offered “the impression of the sad images that presented themselves his thoughts,”114 nevertheless continued his work on writing. He thought about how to resolve the problem of correspondence between the blind and the sighted and managed to perfect a method of punched

   blindness in the century of louis braille dot writing that reproduced the shape of ordinary letters and numbers, legible to the blind and the sighted alike. To write in this way, which allowed them to easily reread their own writing, the blind employed a device consisting of a horizontally lined slate, a grill with very narrow openings, and a punch. They punched the paper placed between the grill and the slate, combining the dots in accordance with a numbered table learned by heart that allowed them to reproduce the form of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks in an [always] identical fashion. In truth, only the grill, which Braille invented, differed from the material blind people used for their conventional writing. Braille published this method in 1839, in a small work entitled New Method for Representing in Dots the Very Form of Letters, Geographical Maps, Geometrical Figures, Musical Notes, etc., for Use by the Blind [Nouveau procédé pour représenter par des points la forme même des lettres, les cartes de géographie, les figures de géométrie, les caractères de musique, etc., à l’usage des aveugles].115 Pierre-François-Victor Foucault, who continued to frequent the blind from the institute where he had been a student from 1806 to 1818, understood, as Coltat recalled, “the full extent of the uses [this invention] might have for the blind [and . . . ] applied his special gift for mechanical things toward the development of a machine that allowed for the elimination of the regulatory grill, a necessary cause of slowness.”116 The collaboration between Braille and Foucault would give birth, in 1842, to the first writing machine enabling the blind to correspond with the sighted.117 The inestimable benefits Braille’s inventions brought to the blind aroused the enthusiasm of his “brothers in misfortune,” as these lines by Coltat attest: “If we were not inhibited by the memory of the modesty that characterized the creator of [these] fortunate discoveries, would we not proclaim him the Johannes Gutenberg of the blind?”118 Braille’s inventions also won him the esteem and admiration of some pedagogues considered authorities in the field of special education at the time, such as the Abbé Charles Carton, founder and director of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind in Bruges and of the first specialized journal on the education of the blind and of deaf-mutes, Le Sourd-Muet et l’aveugle. Indeed, he wrote a letter to Braille, probably concerning the invention of decapoint, which he concluded with these words: “Please accept, Sir, the expression of my admiration for your talents and your genius.”119

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    Despite the enthusiasm of the blind and the admiration of certain sighted pedagogues, the use of writing in raised dots underwent an eclipse following the forced retirement of Pignier in 1840. While Pignier had begun to print books in Braille characters, his successor, the Bordelais Pierre-Armand Dufau, recruited by Guillié in 1815, endeavored to return to writing with ordinary letters. He even had the establishment’s printworks cast new characters in imitation of those used at the institutes of Edinburgh and Philadelphia.120 While the students still had the right to use punctiform writing to take notes, no more books were printed in that manner—with the exception of musical partitions, where the notes were printed in Braille and the text, should there be any, in linear relief. However, overcoming his fear—shared by other clear-sighted pedagogues at the time121—of isolating the blind from “the world of the sighted” by adopting an alphabet reserved for their use, Dufau finally admitted the superiority of the Braille method to all others: “As a result of the exaggerated importance generally attached to using only characters the sighted could read, until recently, this manner of printing produced but trials of little value. But in the end, experience enlightened people’s minds in this regard,”122 he wrote in 1850, not without a certain hypocrisy, in the second edition of a work on the blind—the first version of which, published in 1837, had barely mentioned Braille and his invention. Definitively adopted by the Paris Institute, where, in 1854, thanks to the liberalities of the emperor of Brazil, as many punches were carved as were necessary to produce all the different characters,123 writing in raised dots made its debut in 1852 at the Asylum for the Blind in Lausanne, the first foreign institute to adopt the method. Alas, at the beginning of that same year, on January 6, vanquished by the illness that had been sapping his strength for more than twenty years and had obliged him to slowly cease his activities, Braille died at the institute, surrounded by his brother and friends and comforted by the house almoner. He left his students, his former director, and his colleagues—in particular, Coltat, his biographer, and Gabriel Gauthier, his best friend124 —with the memory of a modest, gentle, faithful, quickwitted man of penetrating intelligence whose lively sensibility was masked by an excessive reserve, doubtless a mixture of propriety and timidity. He was also a relentless worker, a talented musician, and an excellent teacher, as Coltat recalled: “He fulfilled his duties with such charm and sagacity

   blindness in the century of louis braille that, for his students, the duty to attend class was transformed into a veritable pleasure.”125 Thus ended a life spent in an institution—brightened, it is true, by regular visits to his native village and by a few voyages to which Pignier alluded in his Notice and which are attested to by a letter Braille wrote from Chamalières to his former director.126 A young man passed away, a man long compelled by his health “to a diet and precautions that seemed inappropriate for his age,”127 and obliged by force of circumstance to express his affections only through friendships, for which, according to Coltat, “he would have sacrificed everything, his time, health, and fortune.”128 A man of solid faith—doubtless the foundation of his reciprocal attachment with Pignier, who became a sort of second father. On this subject, Pignier recalled that in 1831, Simon-René Braille, before his death, had had his older son write to Pignier “to commend to him his youngest son . . . and to beseech him to never abandon him. “It was” Pignier remarked, “like a sacred legacy bequeathed to the institute’s director, one this last had accepted in advance.”129 This austere, quiet existence, marked by disability and illness, could have remained sterile; but illuminated by intelligence, courage, an inclination for persistent research, and the desire to come to the aid of his fellow men, it was, on the contrary, of a rare fecundity. Louis Braille, by the end of his short life, left the blind around the world the means of having full access to written culture—be it literary, scientific, or musical—and thus to the citizenship of which Valentin Haüy had dreamed. It would not be until the Universal Congress for the Improvement of the Lot of the Blind and of Deaf-Mutes, which met in Paris on the occasion of the 1878 World’s Fair, that “the widespread use of the unmodified Braille system”130 would be decided by a strong majority on the evening of Friday, September 27. “A capital decision,” wrote Henri, “upon which all partisans of the universalization of the original order of sign classifications would later rely.”131 Alone among the countries with languages of European origin, the United States would not adopt the original Braille system until 1917. It would fall to the twentieth century, under the aegis of UNESCO, to extend the use of Braille to African dialects and Oriental languages and thereby make it the universal writing system dreamed of by Charles Barbier de La Serre. But like all so-called universal writings

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth Under the Restoration    systems and languages invented in the nineteenth century, Braille would remain the exclusive privilege of a small group—in this case, educated blind people—whose community, though still few in number at the end of the nineteenth century, was increasingly aware of its needs and rights. The existence and awareness of this community are attested to by the ceremony organized on May 20, 1887, at Coupvray for the inauguration of a monument to the inventor, built with donations of subscribers from countries around the world. In 1853, an identical event at the institute had only brought together the blind youth from the student community and the teachers and personnel of the establishment. In 1887, to honor a native son, there assembled at Coupvray not only the mayor and the inhabitants of the village, Emile Martin, director of the National Institute for Blind Youth, accompanied by a delegation of its teachers and students, Alphonse Péphau, director of the National Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts and the Louis Braille School,132 surrounded by hospice boarders and the teachers and students of the school, but also “many blind people from Paris and the provinces and numerous typhlophiles.”133 Following Martin’s speech, “the director of the Valentin Haüy [Maurice de la Sizeranne], in the name of the press of the blind, the editorial staff of special publications, and the Valentin Haüy Conference, and in the name of French and foreign [emphasis ours] blind people and typhlophiles who, in great number, had asked him to act as the interpreter of their sentiments at the foot of the Braille monument, briefly fulfilled his mission.”134 And so began the universalization of the cult of Louis Braille, federator of the community of blind people the world over, in the manner of the writing system that would soon bear his name. To Alexandre-René Pignier, that eminent director who, for his service to the blind, might rightly be called “the second founder of the institute,”135 falls the honor of having been sufficiently humble to believe in the genius of a child and sufficiently wise to understand that when it comes to compensatory techniques for blindness, the blind are inevitably the most clear-sighted.

Conclusion

At the end of this traversal of several centuries in an attempt to locate the origins of the various attitudes toward the blind today—attitudes ranging from rejection to flight inspired by ignorance and fear to a real desire for communication and social integration—we cannot help but think that it would have taken several people to provide a satisfactory answer to the question that inspired our research: “Why is that today, in a ‘disenchanted’ world, blind people still face irrational behavior that partially determines their place in our society?” But was that not already Diderot’s opinion, when he wrote in 1749 that “to train and question one born blind would be an occupation worthy of the combined talents of Newton, Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz”? For our part, we are convinced of the necessary multidisciplinarity of any research concerning disability and disabled people. From the present study of representations of blindness and institutions for the blind from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century and of the means of communication perfected for their use during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we will here recall the broad outlines. In the Middle Ages, when a certain number of representations of the blind were put into place and when the first institutions intended to help them were founded, blindness was still perceived as a sign—positive or negative according to the social origins of the person afflicted by it—from King John of Bohemia, Count of Luxembourg, who died in the battle of Crécy, to the poor fellow obliged to beg for his bread from door to

   Conclusion door or at the entrance of churches and monasteries. For want of effective medical treatments, people afflicted with eye diseases and, a fortiori, blind people placed great hope in the intervention of miracle-working saints and went on pilgrimages in large numbers. As a result, hagiographic literature abounded in stories of cures, which, for the historian of blindness (and of disability in general) are a precious source of information. Finally, in theatrical literature, the blind person was presented in the guise of a beggar suspected of every vice: laziness, vanity, hypocrisy, drunkenness, a passion for gambling, and debauchery (when he was not suspected of being a “fake blind man”), and his clumsiness and the “good” tricks played on him by his guide were a source of mirth. In fact, the blind beggar suffered simultaneously from negative representations of poverty, “the antithesis of all values,” and of infirmity, routinely perceived as the visible mark of a sin or of an invisible moral defect. Still, other, more charitable behaviors coexisted alongside this suspicion and derision, and beginning in the eighteenth century (perhaps even earlier), the blind were the only people with disabilities to benefit from institutions specially created with them in mind. In particular, at an uncertain date that fell somewhere after the failure of the seventh crusade (after 1254), Saint Louis founded the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, destined to receive a brotherhood of three hundred “blind poor from the city of Paris.” The blind lived there under a common rule, after having given the hospice their persons and their property, of which they retained the usufruct. They took part in running this house, which thus lived under a fairly “democratic” rule. Their only obligations were prayer—on behalf of their benefactors—and alms-seeking: the collection of money that had to be deposited in its entirety in the community’s treasury and the collection of bread, which was divided between the hospice and the alms-seeker. By making alms-seeking the community members’ principle activity, the statutes of the Quinze-Vingts guaranteed an association between blindness and mendicancy that was already well ingrained in the practices and mentalities of the time. If we have to characterize this long period of our history wrongly called the Middle Ages, we can say that, for blind people, it was a period of alterity and of charity. We felt it was important to go back to this remote time in the history of the blind to better understand the radical changes

Conclusion    that subsequently took place, but also to understand to what extent the representations and institutions then established may have checked this evolution. It was thus that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while attitudes toward idleness and mendicancy were becoming more and more oppressive, the blind of the Quinze-Vingts maintained an official status as nonworking individuals, and alms-seeking remained their principal occupation. Even so, in his book on assistance for the poor published in 1526, Juan-Luis Vivès voiced the idea of putting the blind admitted to the hospices to work. His book offers the first detailed and reasoned list of intellectual, artistic, and manual work accessible to the blind at a given point in time. Moreover, when he claims to submit the blind—and other indigents—to the law imposed by the Lord on the entire human race, Vivès is, to our knowledge, the first theoretician who refuses to treat them differently from the rest of humanity. His ideas, though, had no immediate application, since people had reservations about compelling the disabled people to work. Around the same time, Erasmus, Cardan, and Messie echoed the idea of using tablets engraved with the letters of the alphabet to teach the blind to read. Here, too, the information would have no immediate consequences for blind people as a whole. Cardan himself declared, after having explained this learning technique, “It is admirable but of little use.” It is true that blind people from well-to-do milieus or clerics could pay for a secretary, and that there was no question, at the time, of teaching the blind poor to write. Blind people from comfortable milieus continued, as in the past, to have access to written culture through oral means. In the seventeenth century, we found two examples of men born blind (from bourgeois milieus) who became great readers and prolific authors and whose relationship to the written was accomplished only in this way. These two individuals, Jean de Saint-Samson and François Malaval, who attest to the emergence of the educated and autonomous blind subject, were also great mystics, and their blindness was perceived—by their contemporaries and themselves—as one of the principal conditions for their spiritual illumination. These two testifiers to the emergence of the modern blind subject were thus relegated more than ever to the domain of rigorous alterity: that of God’s chosen, kept apart so as to be his heralds.

   Conclusion But when the second of these mystical authors, the Marsiglian, Malaval, had taken his last breath, on May 15, 1719, in the arms of Monsignor de Belzunce at ninety-two years old, the time was ripe for a dramatic change in the representation of blindness and attitudes toward the blind. The problem of the man born blind who recovers his sight, posed by Molyneux to Locke in 1693—and published by the latter the following year in the second edition of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding—would place the blind at the center of debates concerning the status of the sensible in the elaboration of cognitive processes. In his 1749 Letter on the Blind for the Benefit of Those Who See, Diderot went beyond the theoretical problem of the man born blind who recovers his sight to examine the “world of the blind.” With him, the blind person was no longer a mere object of observation but the subject of a conversation between equals with the philosopher. This attitude of comprehensive observation of the blind, which especially brought attention to the benefits of sensorial compensation; the passion for pedagogy in enlightened consciences; and finally, the birth of a new sensibility, philanthropy, which invited people to look at the poor and disabled people “as our fellow creatures and our brothers” rather than as figures of the Other—and to come to their aid—led to the first experiment with the collective education of blind children from the indigent class, undertaken as of 1785 by Valentin Haüy with the help of the Philanthropic Society. Before attempting this experiment, Haüy had nonetheless verified the validity of his pedagogical project by talking with a blind Viennese musician on a concert tour in Paris: Maria-Theresia von Paradis, who herself used different systems enabling her to overcome her blindness—through touch in particular. From the blind subject of well-to-do families, privately educated by a tutor, we arrived at collective teaching open to victims of blindness from all walks of life and essentially based on the benefits of tactile pedagogy. A few years earlier (in 1780), the move of the hospice of the QuinzeVingts from the site on the rue Saint-Honoré (where it had been since its founding) to the former barracks of the Black Musketeers on the rue de Charenton had enabled a certain number of reforms, most notably the suppression of alms-seeking. By the time Haüy proposed to socially integrate the blind by giving them access to culture, employment, and dignity through education, the Quinze-Vingts had lost their status as “privileged

Conclusion    mendicants” five years earlier. The traditional image of the Quinze-Vingts mendicant began to give way to the spectacle of the “Blind Youth,” which Haüy first presented to learned assemblies (in 1784 and 1785) and then to the court (in 1786) before mounting “public demonstrations” meant to shape public opinion of the intellectual and artistic abilities of the blind and their aptitude for practicing a certain number of manual trades of which they were previously thought incapable. If they were no longer mendicants, the Quinze-Vingts blind were as “inactive” as ever, since the money they earned from alms-seeking was replaced by the payment of fixed allocations. They therefore helped to perpetuate the image of the blind person “useless to himself and to society” that Haüy and the philanthropists sought to combat. On the eve of the Revolution—while philanthropy and Enlightenment philosophy had helped move the blind from the domain of alterity to that of identity— two representations of blind people coexisted, as well as two conceptions of the assistance likely to be given to the blind poor. If, in this regard, philanthropy had replaced charity, it remained to be seen whether the educational solution, which allowed the blind to enter the circuit of socioeconomic exchanges, was preferable to that of assistance. The history of the blind during the revolutionary period is marked by the nationalization in two phases, September 28, 1791, and 10 Thermidor Year III (July 29, 1795) of the establishment Haüy founded in 1795. Resources from private donations having dried up, the revolutionary assemblies— where there sat a certain number of philanthropists—decided to take over. The assistance legislation adopted by the Directory in Year V placed the Quinze-Vingts under the direct supervision and budget of the Ministry of the Interior. At the end of the revolutionary decade, the indigent blind received by these two establishments were thus in the custody of the state, which from then on would never fail them, in spite of economic crisis and the incomprehension of the consular and then imperial governments with respect to Haüy’s work. But the nationalization of the Institute for Blind Youth—first united with that of the Deaf and Dumb, founded thirty years earlier by the Abbé de l’Epée and also nationalized—was accompanied by a certain number of exigencies. The regulations of February 1792 concerning “the establishment of the deaf-mutes and the congenitally blind” and then the Law

   Conclusion of 10 Thermidor Year III “concerning the organization of the establishment founded for blind workers” insisted on the economic and moralizing goals of the establishment, and the teachers were reminded that before leaving, “each student [had to] be able to earn his keep through a useful trade, without living at the expense of his family, or society.” Under the Convention, the question also was posed as to whether the Institute of Blind Workers should be placed under the supervision of the Committee of Public Instruction or that of Public Assistance. Though the project of pedagogical instruction whose goal had been the blind’s “happiness” was becoming a program of normalization, through education and work, of the blind from the laboring classes, the hesitations concerning the Committee on which the establishment should depend reveal the dilemma confronting the revolutionary government: was the education of the blind poor a matter of public assistance or of public instruction? For economic and political reasons—the catastrophic financial situation of the institute, Haüy’s political engagements during the Terror and his important role in the Theophilanthropic church—the consular government came down in favor of the first solution and decided—as the Directory had already envisaged—to unite the establishment of blind workers with the Quinze-Vingts. This decision was accompanied by a project to create manufactories within the hospice walls, where not only Haüy’s students, but also hospice members’ children under twelve years of age (the date at which they began apprenticeships), and a certain number of blind people from the old foundation would work. Teaching of the blind youth and sighted children was reduced to elementary instruction: reading, writing, arithmetic, and morality: more than sufficient, it was thought, for indigent children. This was a far cry from the project of education into citizenship implemented by Haüy fifteen years earlier. Still, the Consulate thus succeeded in fulfilling the mercantilist plan elaborated nearly three centuries earlier by the humanist theoreticians of charitable assistance: “not even the blind will be allowed to remain idle.” While his work appeared compromised in his native country, Haüy, retired from his establishment, was called in 1806 to found an institute for the blind in Saint Petersburg. It was in this way that the collective education of the blind poor, born in France of the encounter of Haüy and a young blind musician, an ambassador of

Conclusion    Viennese Aufklärung, Maria-Theresia von Paradis, began to spread across all of Europe. Meanwhile, the same year as its founder’s departure abroad, the Institute of Blind Youth in Paris had a new lease on life thanks to the failure of the productivist utopia implemented at the Quinze-Vingts five years earlier. It was under the Restoration, in 1816, that an event of the utmost importance took place—the invention by the young Louis Braille of a writing system of raised dots that would allow for the complete renewal of methods for teaching the blind to read and to write. This new method—a result of the adaptation and then total transformation of a coded writing system elaborated by the philanthropist Charles Barbier de La Serre—was born jointly from the reflections of its inventor, his multiple tests, and his discussions with his friends and was also submitted to the critique and suggestions of his schoolmates. It fully met the imperatives of tactile psychology and could be adapted to multiple uses: alphabetic writing, mathematical notation, and musical notation. The new mode of written communication would at once be a means of embracing universal culture and a federative element for the emerging community of educated blind people. It would allow them to attain that intellectual emancipation and citizenship to which Valentin Haüy, by imperfect means, had shown the way. Henceforth in the position of forming a pressure group, of creating a press and special publications in which they expressed their aspirations and exposed their point of view of society and the world surrounding them, these blind citizens would contribute, little by little, through actions and words, to the transformation of age-old representations of blindness that prejudiced the social integration of blind people as a whole. It is significant in this regard that in his first work written to inform the sighted about “the world of the blind,” Pierre Villey devoted an entire chapter to the Braille system, the key to their liberation. It is not, though, with a text by one of the great pioneers of “the blind’s cause,” Maurice de la Sizeranne, Villey, or Pierre Henri, that we will conclude this study, but rather with that of a Togolese child, Loukou Koukou Louss, our contemporary. He admirably conveys the hope to which education can give rise, today as yesterday, in the minds and hearts of the blind poor formerly doomed to mendicancy and the contempt of

   Conclusion their fellow citizens. This homage by an African junior high school student, who is around the same age as Louis Braille was when he began to invent his system, allows us to better understand the unceasing veneration of the blind around the world for the inventor of the alphabet in raised dots: To tell the truth, just as the Nile is a gift for Egypt that makes the land fertile, now as in the past, Braille is for me an incomparable treasure, indisputable from all points of view . . .  When I had not yet discovered Braille, I went begging, like other blind people, in the public squares of my village. Like them, I was plunged in the darkness of misery, of that extreme poverty that is the lack of instruction and culture . . .  It was at eleven years old that I had the good fortune of discovering Braille. I clung with all my might to this light. And I realized that I was neither “the most imbecilic” nor “the last of mankind’s children,” despite my parents’ poverty. Now, in all humility, I can affirm that I am intelligent. Before, I didn’t know it . . .  I think that Braille is “an indispensable instrument of hope” for the blind around the world, even for the poorest. It tells us a happy future is possible, thanks to it, starting today.1

Notes

preface 1.  When suffrage was based on poll taxes [translator’s note]. introduction 1. Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, trans. Peter Putnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1953), 40. [Translator’s note: Throughout this book, I have endeavored to use available English translations wherever possible for well-known texts or texts first published in a language other than French, but these translations have been slightly altered when necessary, as is the case here.] 2.  Pierre Henri, Les Aveugles et la société (Paris: PUF, 1958), 7–15. 3.  “Acuity is the measure of the retina’s discriminating power, the capacity to perceive details.” Pierre Griffon, “Déficiences visuelles: pour une meilleure intégration,” Flash-Informations handicaps 17 (Paris: CTNERHI, 1995): note 17. 4.  “The visual field is the amount of space perceived by the immobile eye.” Griffon, “Déficiences visuelles,” note 18. 5.  According to Suzanne Hugonnier-Clayette and editors, Les handicaps visuels (Villeurbanne: Simep Editions, 1986), 10–11. 6.  “Visual Handicaps,” in Réduire les handicaps (Paris: INSERM-La Documentation française, 1984), 183. 7.  Pierre Villey, L’Aveugle dans le monde des voyants. Essai de sociologie (Paris: Flammarion, 1927), 6. 8.  Pierre Villey, Le Monde des aveugles. Essai de psychologie (1914; Paris: GIAALibrairie José Corti, 1984), 3. 9. Henri, Les Aveugles et la société, 32. 10. Ibid., 2. 11. Ibid., 32. 12.  Villey, L’Aveugle dans le monde des voyants, 6. 13. Henri, Les Aveugles et la société, 39. 14.  Jacques Le Goff, L’Imaginaire médiéval. Essais (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), xiii.

   Notes 15. Denis Diderot, Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who See, in Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works, trans. David Adams and Margaret Jourdain (Manchester, UK: Clinamen Press, 1999), 177–78. 16.  Valentin Haüy, Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles (1786; Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 1985), 6. 17.  Valentin Haüy, Troisième note du citoyen Haüy, auteur de la “Manière d’instruire les aveugles ou court exposé de la naissance des progrès et de l’état actuel de l’Institut national des aveugles-travailleurs au 19 brumaire an IX de la République française, entremêlée de quelques observations relatives a cet établissement” (Paris: Imprimerie des Aveugles-Travailleurs, 1800), 9–10. 18.  Loi relative à l’organisation d’un établissement institué pour les Aveugles-travailleurs, 18 Thermidor, Year III of the Republic, articles I and IV. chapter 1 1.  Jacques Le Goff, “Pour un autre Moyen Age,” in Un Autre Moyen Age (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), 16. 2.  Wace, Le Roman de Rou, vol. 1 (1160), ed. A.-J. Holden (Paris: Picard, 1970). Cited in Brigitte Gauthier, “La Cécité et l’aveugle au Moyen Age, IXe–XVe siècles” (doctoral diss., Université de Lyon II, 1984), 240–43. 3. Michel Mollat, Les pauvres au Moyen Age (Paris: Hachette, Editions Complexes, 1978), 67. 4. Ibid., 122. 5. Léon Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation jusqu’à leur translation au Faubourg Saint-Antoine (XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France, 1887), 128. 6.  Clair means clear in French, and the first two names are masculine and feminine variants of each other. Lucy (etymologically derived from the word for light), sounds like lucidity, and the saint’s martyrdom involved the loss of her eyes [translator’s note]. 7.  Jean Dufournet, Le Garçon et l’aveugle, part 1: “Etudes” (Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1982), 45. 8. Ibid., part 2: Translation of Le Garçon et l’aveugle, 87: 11–13. 9. Ibid., 96: 259–61, 265. 10. Ibid., part 3: “Dossier II,” Les Trois aveugles de Compiègne (translation), 105. 11. Ibid., 107. 12. Ibid., 108. 13.  This is the case, for instance, of a comedy-sideshow staged for the first time in Paris on December 4, 1782, and precisely entitled Les Trois aveugles [The Three Blind Men].

Notes    14. Dufournet, Le Garçon et l’aveugle, part 1: “Etudes,” 45. 15.  Jean-Louis Goglin, Les Misérables dans l’occident médiéval (Paris: Seuil, 1976), 117. 16. Mollat, Les pauvres au Moyen Age, 92. 17. Goglin, Les Misérables dans l’occident médiéval, 139. 18. Conrad, cantor of the church of Zurich in the thirteenth century, ed. Edmond Faral, cited in Pierre Villey, L’Aveugle dans le monde des voyants. Essai de sociologie (Paris: Flammarion, 1927), 89. 19.  Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, ed. Colette Beaune (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1990), 221. 20.  A tabret [bedon] is a type of percussion instrument [translator’s note]. 21.  This is Gladys Swain’s interpretation of the scene in her article, “Une logique de l’inclusion: les infirmes du signe,” Esprit 5 (1982): 61–75. “What better sign of the distance and difference felt than this uninhibited laughter at the grotesque misfortune of the Other? . . . We are dealing with disgraced individuals with whom there is to be no subjective identification and who can therefore openly be made fools” (65). 22. In this respect, and concerning the scene described by the bourgeois of Paris, it is probably no accident that the animal chosen for this burlesque joust was a pig. According to Michel Pastoureau, in the Middle Ages, the pig, because of its greed and impurity, was a diabolical animal—which made it one of the symbols of gluttony and lust—but also because of its dark color (the medieval pig was naturally black or brown) and its feeble visual acuity. Pastoureau also stresses that “from time immemorial, the pig has frightened men, because it presents them with an image of themselves that they would prefer to ignore.” Michel Pastoureau, Jacques Verroust, and Raymond Buren, Le Cochon. Histoire, symbolique et cuisine du Porc (Paris: Sang de la Terre, 1998), 41–43. There are, it seems to us, too many correspondences between the symbolism of the pig and that of the blind man for the choice of this animal in the joust to have been purely fortuitous. 23.  With regard to the culture hawked by the jongleurs and its condemnation by clerics, Michel Rouche observes that by denouncing its “dishonesty,” clerics “refused to see that laughter and games [were] the necessary conditions for social education. The cultivation of hilarity enabled the acceptance of others and the release of aggression. . . . The buffoon, through his deforming mirror, instructed everyone without seeming to do so.” Rouche, Histoire générale de l’éducation en France 1 (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie de France, 1981), 470. 24. Mollat, Les pauvres au Moyen Age, 353. 25.  We here consider lepers and victims of “Saint Anthony’s Fire” not as disabled but as sick, whatever the disabling consequences of leprosy and the holy fire may have been.

   Notes 26.  According to Léon Le Grand, the expression was used in fourteenth-century records to designate a hospice for blind people. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 290. 27. Mollat, Les pauvres au Moyen Age, 122. 28. Ibid. 29. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 301. 30. Guillaume de Saint-Pathus, Vie de Saint-Louis, ed. H.-F. Delaborde (Paris: Picard, 1899), 79–80. Cited in Gauthier, “La Cécité et l’aveugle au Moyen Age,” 196. Jean de Joinville, who witnessed this behavior, also reports the care the king personally took to serve the poor invited daily to his table: “And it happened many times that the king served them and placed their food in front of them, and cut the food in front of them, and when they left, gave them deniers from his own hand. . . . In addition, he had next to him at lunch and dinner elderly and crippled men, and had them served the same food that he ate.” Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, ed. and trans. Jacques Monfrain (Paris: Dunod, 1995), 359. 31.  According to Joinville, “And he had built a home for the blind near Paris, to house the poor blind people of the city of Paris.” Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, 359–61. While on the subject, we should put an end to a legend according to which Saint Louis founded “the hospice of the Quinze-Vingts to feed and lodge 300 knights he’d brought back from overseas whose eyes had been gouged out by the Sarassins” (according to Corrozet’s 1532 edition of La Fleur des antiquités de Paris, fol. 40, cited in Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 11). Although convincingly and definitively refuted by Le Grand from the first pages of his book on the Quinze-Vingts (11–18), this legendary tale continued to be spread here and there by misinformed authors and lecturers. 32. Or “three hundred” according to the medieval system of numbering by twenties. In letters patent of the month of March 1269, Saint Louis expressed his will and command “that in the home and congregation of the said Blind, we perpetually maintain a number of three hundred poor people . . . and that when one person is missing from this number, a replacement will be sought.” Jean-HenriRomain Prompsault (Abbé), ed., Les Quinze-Vingts. Notes et documents (Paris: Victor Sarlit, Libraire and Carpentras, Imprimerie de E. Rolland, 1863), 15. According to Jean Goglin, three hundred was at the time a number beyond which those responsible could no longer manage a community. Goglin, Les Misérables dans l’occident médiéval, 37. 33. On confraternities of the day, see Catherine Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, XIIIe–XV e siècles (Paris: Albin Michel, 1994). 34.  According to Le Grand, it would seem that the founding charter of the Quinze-Vingts was lost quite early on, since “none of the ancient inventories make

Notes    mention of it, and the hospice cartulary, which dates from the first third of the fourteenth century, contains not the charter but an act of 1270, in which Saint Louis limits himself to confirming earlier provisions.” Le Grand, Les QuinzeVingts depuis leur fondation, 13. 35.  As Joinville also recalled, “He had them make a chapel to hear the divine service” (Vie de Saint Louis, 361). 36.  Buildings and, especially, perpetual loans, coming in particular from the burghurs of Paris. 37. Mollat, Les pauvres au Moyen Age, 122. 38.  Règlement donné aux Quinze-Vingts par Michel de Brache, aumônier du roi Jean (1351–1355), n 6446 and 844—copies from the seventeenth century, in Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, Annexe II, 312–13. 39.  “Beggar’s pouch” [translator’s note]. 40.  Règlement donné aux Quinze-Vingts, in Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 314. 41. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 49–50; and Gauthier, Gauthier, “La Cécité et l’aveugle au Moyen Age,” 208–9. 42. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 266. 43. Rutebeuf was quite critical of all the religious congregations with which Saint Louis had surrounded the city of Paris and of beggars in particular. 44. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 301. 45.  According to Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 49–50. 46. Gauthier, “La Cécité et l’aveugle au Moyen Age,” 197. 47.  With the ordinance of December 1254. 48. Henri-Jacques Stiker, Corps infirmes et sociétés, 2nd ed. (Paris: Dunod, 1997), 93. 49. Mollat, Les pauvres au Moyen Age, 353. chapter 2 1. Michel Mollat, Les pauvres au Moyen Age (Paris: Hachette, Editions Complexes, 1978), 349. 2.  Bronislaw Geremek, La Potence ou la pitié. L’Europe et les pauvres au Moyen Age à nos jours, trans. Joanna Arnold-Moricet (Paris: Gallimard, 1987), 162. 3.  “Règlement pour l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts avec l’arrêt d’enregistrement à la cour de parlement . . . prononcé le VIe jour de septembre MDXXII,” in Dom Michel Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris, rev. ed., ed. D. Guy-Alexis Lobineau V (Paris: G. Desprez, 1725), 5: 748–55. 4.  Jean-Henri-Romain Prompsault (Abbé), ed., Les Quinze-Vingts. Notes et documents (Paris: Victor Sarlit, Libraire and Carpentras, Imprimerie de E. Rol-

   Notes land, 1863), 37. Prompsault was the chaplain of the Quinze-Vingts from 1829 to 1855. 5.  “Règlement pour l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts,” in Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris, 5: 154. 6.  “Serment des Quinze-Vingts,” in Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris, 5: 756–57. 7.  Bronislaw Geremek, Inutiles au monde. Truands et misérables dans l’Europe moderne (1350–1600). (Paris: Gallimard/Juilliard, 1980), 170. 8. It was 152 in the Rule of Michel de Brache. 9.  “Règlement pour l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts . . . September 6, 1522,” in Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris, 5: 754. 10. Léon Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation jusqu’à leur translation au Faubourg Saint-Antoine (XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France, 1887), 330. 11. Ibid., 332–33. 12. Ibid., 335. 13.  Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts, 49. 14. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 270. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., 271. 17.  Juan-Luis Vivès, De l’Assistance aux pauvres, trans. from the Latin . . . (Brussels: Editions Valéro et fils, 1943), 199. The original edition was De Subventione pauperum (Bruges, 1526). 18. Geremek, La Potence ou la pitié, 240. 19.  Vivès, Assistance aux pauvres, 199. 20. Ibid., 200. 21. Ibid., 206–7. 22.  Pierre Villey, L’Aveugle dans le monde des voyants. Essai de sociologie (Paris: Flammarion, 1927), 255. On Nicasius van Voerdun, or Verdun, also called de Woerda or Vordanus (later cited by Diderot in his Letter on the Blind under the name of “Nicaise de Méchlin”), see the biographical note published by Frédérick Vanhoorne in the journal VOIR barré 20 (May 2000): 22–24. 23.  Villey, L’Aveugle dans le monde des voyants, 256; and Frédérick Vanhoorne, “Petrus de Ponte, known as Pontanus,” a biographical notice in VOIR barré 20 (May 2000): 30–31. 24.  Vivès, Assistance aux pauvres, 207. 25. Erasmus, De Recta Latini Graecique Sermonis Pronuntiatione (Lyon, 1531), 45–46. 26. Under the title Les Diverses leçons de Pierre Messie gentilhomme de Séville. Contenans variables et mémorables histoires, trans. Claude Gruget (Paris: Estienne Groulleau, 1552).

Notes    27. Ibid., 177. 28. Ibid. 29.  Les Livres de Hiérome Cardanus médecin milanois, intitulés de la subtitilé et subtiles inventions, ensemble les causes occultes et raisons d’icelles, trans. Richard Le Blanc (Paris: G. Le Noir, 1556), 416b. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 287. 33.  Vivès, Assistance aux pauvres, 214. 34. Entitled “De la nature de l’homme.” 35.  Les Livres de Hiérome Cardanus, 324b. 36. Ibid. 37. Leonardo da Vinci, Le Paragone ou parallèle des arts, in Traité de la peinture, ed. and trans. André Chastel (Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault, 1987), 89. 38.  Les Diverses leçons de Pierre Messie. . . . De nouveau reveuës, corrigées et augmentées de la V. Partie, et de trois Dialogues, touchant la nature du Soleil, de la Terre, et des Météores (Paris: Claude Michard, 1580), 538. (This text is not by Mexia, who died in 1552, but by his continuers.) 39. Da Vinci, Le Paragone ou parallèle des arts, 89. 40.  The book came out in Burgos, Alcalà, and Antwerp simultaneously in 1554, but this edition may have been preceded by a printing in Antwerp in 1553. 41. In 1594, 1598, 1601, 1615, and 1616. On the different editions of this work, see Bronislaw Geremek, Les fils de Caïn (Paris: Flammarion, 1991), 189. 42.  La vie de Lazarillo de Tormès. La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, ed. Marcel Bataillon, trans. Bernard Sèse (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1994), 99. 43.  The novel, supposedly autobiographical, is indeed written in the first person. 44.  La vie de Lazarillo de Tormes, 99. 45. Marcel Bataillon, introduction to La vie de Lazarillo de Tormes, 22. 46. Ibid., 35. 47. Ibid., 97. 48.  This kind of interpretation, strongly favored by Maurice Molho in his introduction to the Pléiade edition of La Vie de Lazare, is categorically contested by Marcel Bataillon in his own presentation of the work. See Molho, introduction to La vie de Lazare, ses fortunes et ses adversités in Romans picaresques espagnols, Bibliothèque de la Pléaide (Paris: Gallimard, NRF, 1969), xi–xl; and Bataillon, introduction to La vie de Lazarillo de Tormès, 51. 49.  Peter Bruegel’s The Parable of the Blind (tempera on canvas, 86 x 156 cm) is signed and dated 1568. It is housed in the Museo Nazionale of Naples. 50. H. Seldmayr, “Pieter Bruegel: Der Sturz der Blinden. Paradigma einer Strukturanalyse,” Hefte des kunsthistorischen Seminars der Universität München 2

   Notes (Munich, 1957): 1–48, cited in Roger H. Marijnissen, Bruegel. Tout l’oeuvre peint et dessiné (Paris: Albin Michel, 1988), 365. 51. G. Hulin de Loo, notice in the exhibit catalog Bruges 1902 (Gand, 1902). 52. Marijnissen, Bruegel, “Formation et sources,” 40. 53.  Symbolized by the little church, whose steeple soars up into the sky. 54.  Whose preachers are symbolized by the unfortunate blind men who take a tumble in the foreground, pulling down the blind men who come after them in their fall. 55. Marijnissen, Bruegel, 368. 56.  This realism is such that Tony-Michel Torrilhon, in his dissertation entitled “La Pathologie chez Bruegel,” was able to diagnose the ocular pathologies of four out of the six blind people depicted. Tony-Michel Torrilhon, “La Pathologie chez Breugel” (doctoral diss., Paris Faculté de Médecine, 1958). Cataloged at the BIUM as n 58, call number 90–973. 57.  Jean-Pierre Vernant, La Mort dans les yeux (Paris: Hachette, 1985) 80. 58. Ibid., 82. chapter 3 1.  Edit du Roy portant établissement de l’Hôpital Général . . . donné à Paris au mois d’avril 1656 . . . , article IX, in Recueil d’édits, déclarations, arrests et ordonnances, etc. concernant l’Hôpital Général, les Enfans-Trouvez, le Saint-Esprit, et autres maison y unies (Paris: Thibault, Imprimeur du Roy, 1745), 6. 2.  Règlement que le Roy veut être observé pour l’Hôpital Général de Paris. Donné à Paris le vingt-septième jour d’avril, 1656, article IX, in Edit du Roy, 29. 3.  Edit du Roy, article IX, 6. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Léon Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation jusqu’à leur translation au Faubourg Saint-Antoine (XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France, 1887), 138–39. 7. Ibid., 139. 8. Ibid., note 1. 9.  Jean-Henri-Romain Prompsault (Abbé), ed., Les Quinze-Vingts. Notes et documents (Paris: Victor Sarlit, Libraire and Carpentras, Imprimerie de E. Rolland, 1863), 59. 10.  King’s letter of May 4, 1657, cited in Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts. 11. Le Grand specifies that “one can find, in the count of the poor done by the Hôpital Général around this time (1656), thirty-seven blind people, twenty-two men and fifteen women.” Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 308.

Notes    This is very little if we consider the six hundred poor people figuring on the register of the establishment’s proceedings as early as 1657. 12. Head of the Salpêtrière administration. 13.  Rapport fait le 15 août 1688 à l’intendant de l’Ile-de-France par M. Pajot de la Chapelle, doyen de la direction de la Salpêtrière, in Boilisle, Correspondance des contrôleurs généraux des finances avec les intendants des Provinces, 1 (Paris, 1874), cited in Robert Poujol, “La naissance de l’Hôpital Général d’après des documents inédits (Papiers Minachon, Assistance Publique de Paris),” L’Hôpital de Paris, special issue (February 1982): 24. 14.  Francesco Lana de Terzi (Father), Prodromo overo saggio di alcune invenzioni nuove, premesso all’Arte Maestra Opera (Brescia: 1670). 15.  Philosopher, mathematician, natural scientist, and linguist, Father Kircher, smitten by hermeticism, developed a passion for finding a universal language and writing system. On this subject, see Jean-Claude Margolin, “Pouvoir occulte du langage et écritures secrètes aux seizième et dix-septième siècles: Trithème, Vigenère, Kircher,” in Klaniczay-Emlëkköniv (Budapest: Balassi Kiado, 1994), 305–33. 16. Excerpt from a[n originally French] translation of Lana-Terzi’s Essays on New Inventions as they appear in chapter 2 of M.C*** [Coste d’Arnobat], Essai sur de prétendues découvertes nouvelles, dont la plupart sont âgées de plusieurs siècles (Paris: C.F. Patris, Year XI-1808), 88. 17. Ibid., 88–89. 18.  Bishop of Salisbury and a correspondent of Locke and Leibniz who made a 1685 voyage to France, Switzerland, and Italy, a narrative of which went through several editions (including a French translation) between the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. 19. Elizabeth Esther von Waldkirch was born in Geneva in 1660 to an old, rich family of Schaffhouse ennobled in the fifteenth century by Emperor Frederick III. That the reformed branch of the family to which Elizabeth was born included several printers probably had an effect on the means her father used to teach her to read and write. 20. Gilbert Burnet, Some Letters Containing an Account of What Seemed Most Remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, etc. (Rotterdam: A. Acher, 1686), 117. First edition of the French translation, 1687, 234 (second edition, 1688 and third, 1718). 21. Lana, cited in d’Arnobat, Essai sur de prétendues découvertes nouvelles, 89. 22. Ibid., 91. 23. Ibid., 93. 24.  Pierre Henri, La vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952), 40. 25. Michaud, Biographie Universelle ancienne et moderne 23: 113–14. 26. Charles Perrault, Les hommes illustres qui ont paru en France pendant ce siècle avec leurs portraits au naturel (Paris: A. Dezollier, 1696–1700), 27–28.

   Notes 27.  Blaise-François de Pagan was born in Avignon on March 3, 1604. 28.  Published in 1645, republished in 1689, and translated into Dutch in 1738. Pagan went on to publish Théorèmes géométriques (Paris: 1651; expanded edition, 1654); Théorie des plantes (Paris, 1657); and Tables astronomiques (Paris, 1658). 29.  Pagan, Les Fortifications du Comte de Pagan, ed. M. Hébert (Paris: Nicolas Langlois, 1689), 15. 30. Ibid., 2. 31. Ibid., 3. 32.  Father Jean le Jeune (1592–1672), “one of the glories of Oratian preaching,” had become blind at forty-four years old, but blindness did not put an end to his missionary activity. Like the Count de Pagan, he used a secretary, who also served as a guide on his missions, in the person of the Oratian, Michel le Fèvre. Father Le Jeune, who was admired by his contemporaries for his gentleness and his resignation in the face of adversity, had a real influence on the spiritual life of his times, but his sermons, collected in ten volumes under the title Le Missionnaire de l’Oratoire, also had a great influence on the court of the succeeding century, most notably on Saint Benedict Labre, who read them at the house of his uncle, a priest. See the Dictionnaire de spiritualité 9 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1976), 561; and Nicole Lemaître, “Un prédicateur et son public. Les sermons du Père Lejeune et le Limousin, 1653–1672,” RHMC 30 (January–March 1983): 33–65. 33. Donatien de Saint-Nicolas (Reverend Father), La vie, les maximes et parties des œuvres du très excellent contemplatif, le vénérable Frère Jean de Saint-Samson, aveugle dès le berceau et religieux laïc de l’ordre de Carmes Réformez (Paris, 1651); 2nd edition, Paris: 1656. 34. Marie-Louise Gondal has put together a critical edition of the Pratique facile: François Malaval, La belle ténèbre. Pratique facile pour élever l’âme à la contemplation, followed by La Plainte de Philothée, excerpt from the Poésies spirituelles, ed. Marie-Louise Gondal (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 1993), 302–20. 35. Gondal, Poésies spirituelles, 18. 36. Dassy (Abbé), Malaval, aveugle de Marseille de 1627 à 1719 (Marseille: l’Institution des Jeunes Aveugles, l’Institution des Sourds-Muets, 1869). The author was perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts of Marseille. 37.  Jean de Saint-Samson, Le Véritable Esprit du Carmel, chap. 8, p. 23. 38.  Sernin-Marie de Saint-André (Reverend Father), discalced Carmelite, Vie du vénérable Frère de Saint-Samson, religieux carme de la Réforme de Touraine (Paris: Librairie Poussièlgue Frères, 1881), 10; citing the manuscript of Father Joseph de Jésus of the convent of the Grand Carmelites at Rennes, 25, Collection of the Grands Carmes 18, Archdiocese of Ile-et-Vilaine. Father Joseph had lived closely with Brother Saint-Samson. 39.  Saint-Nicolas, La vie, les maximes et parties, chap.1, 4.

Notes    40.  Stéphane-Marie Morgain, Pierre de Bérulle et les Carmélites de France (Paris: Le Cerf, 1995), 69. 41.  To this day, it is up to each bishop, in taking into account the precise case of each candidate to the priesthood who is afflicted by a serious disability (blindness, to be specific), to judge then and there if he can call that candidate to Orders. 42.  Saint-Nicolas, La vie, les maximes et parties, “Adresse à Mgr messire Henry de Bourg-Neuf, Chevalier, Marquis de Cucé . . . , Conseiller du Roy . . . et son Premier Président au Parlement de Bretagne,” unpaginated. 43. Ibid. 44. Of which the following treatises have been published to date: L’Aiguillon, les flammes, les flèches et le miroir de l’amour de Dieu, propres à éprendre l’âme de Dieu en Dieu lui-même, a didactic treatise published in 1629 at the request of Antoine Revol; L’Epithalame, a prose poem paraphrasing the Song of Songs; La pratique essentielle de l’amour; Exercices de l’amour suprême de l’épouse envers son époux; Exercice de l’amour simple; and Résumé de la vraie liberté. 45. Henri Blommestijn, “Introduction générale,” in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 1, by Jean de Saint-Simon (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum and Paris: FAC-éditions, 1992), 16. 46. Ibid., 17. 47.  Without counting the constant references to the Bible, the current editors of his work have been able to detect the presence of more than sixty-six authors: Church Fathers, profane authors from Antiquity, and medieval mystics from Northern and Mediterranean Europe, which amounts to thousands of pages listened to and, to a great extent, memorized. 48.  This legend was studied in depth by Michel de Certeau, La Fable Mystique 1: XVIe–XVIIe siècles (Paris: Gallimard, 1982), chap. 7, “L’Illettré éclairé.” 49. On the anthropology of the gaze elaborated by mystical thought at the beginning of modern times and, in particular, on that “elsewhere of the gaze” referred to by mystical writers, see Carl Havelange, “L’oeil de Dieu,” chap. 7 of De l’œil et du monde. Une histoire du regard au seuil de la modernité (Paris: Fayard, 1998), 195–231. 50.  “Monsignor Sir Henry de Bourg-Neuf, Knight and Marquis de Cucé, Baron d’Orgers . . . First President of the Parliament of Brittany,” was one of those laymen who did not hesitate to have occasional recourse to the spiritual clairvoyance of our blind monk. 51.  Saint-Nicolas, La vie, les maximes et parties, “Adresse,” unpaginated. 52.  “Approbation des Docteurs de la Faculté de Paris,” August 9, 1650, in SaintNicolas, La vie, les maximes et parties, unpaginated. 53.  Saint-Nicolas, La vie, les maximes et parties, chap. 1, 3. 54.  Jérôme de la Mère de Dieu, Father, OCDS, Le Vénérable Frère Jean de Saint-Samson. Sa vie et sa doctrine (Saint-Maximien: Editions de la Vie Spirituelle, 1925), 25, citing Saint-Nicolas, La vie, les maximes et parties.

   Notes 55.  L’Aiguillon, les flammes, les flèches. 56. De Certeau, La Fable Mystique 1, 294. 57. Ibid., 323. 58.  As we saw earlier, Saint-Samson had not been blind since birth, but this error does not change Father Ranciat’s reasoning, since Saint-Samson had become blind at a sufficiently young age that his intellectual education had been accomplished without sight. 59.  Jérôme de la Mère de Dieu, Le Vénérable Frère Jean de Saint-Samson 24–25, citing Father Florent Ranciat, Doctor in Theology of the Order of Saint Dominic, one of the doctors in charge of approving the edition of the Œuvres spirituelles et mystiques du divin contemplatif F. Jean de Saint-Samson, 2 vols. (Rennes: P. Coupard, 1658–59). 60. Ibid. 61.  Saint-Nicolas, La vie, les maximes et parties, chap. 1, 3. 62. Ibid., “Preface.” 63. Ibid., “Adresse,” unpaginated. 64. Ibid., “Preface.” 65.  Stéphane Michaud, foreword to Du Visible à l’invisible. Pour Max Milner, ed. Stéphane Michaud (Paris: José Corti, 1988), 1: 13. 66. Epiphane Louÿs (1614–1682), Premonstratensian monk, Regular Abbot of Estival in Lorraine, and author of Conférences mystiques sur le recueuillement de l’âme, published in 1678. 67. Malaval, La belle ténèbre, 41. 68. Dassy, Malaval, aveugle de Marseille, 5. 69. Malaval, Lettre de Monsieur Malaval à Monsieur l’Abbé de Foresta-Colongue, Prévost de l’Eglise Cathédrale, Vicaire général et Official de Monseigneur l’Evêque de Marseille (Marseille: Jean and Pierre Penot, 1695), 17–18. 70.  Saint-Nicolas, La vie, les maximes et parties, “Adresse.” 71. Gondal, Poésies spirituelles, 10–11. 72. Dassy, Malaval, aveugle de Marseille, 10. 73. Despite the efforts of erudite men, such as Jean de la Roque, who remained in touch with Malaval’s contemporaries, the majority of the latter’s papers and his library, bequeathed to the Reverend Fathers Feuillants of Marseille, were never handed over to those who wished to publish his correspondence. 74. Malaval was a Dominican Tertiary and had asked to be buried in Marseille’s Dominican Church. 75. Dassy, Malaval, aveugle de Marseille, 29, citing a circular printed on May 17, 1719, and attributed to Father Sicard, at the time Provincial of the Domincans of Provence. 76.  “I hope, Sir, to bless God for all eternity for this salutary privation, which brought me the three greatest gifts after that of Faith: the knowledge of God through Science, which is not without a certain grace [onction], disdain for the

Notes    world, and the passing of opportunities,” wrote Malaval in his Lettre à Monsieur de Foresta-Colongue, 22. 77. Malaval, La Vie de Saint Phillipe Bénizi (Marseille: Claude Garcin). Saint Phillip Bénizi was the fifth general and the propagator of the Servite Order (the “Servants of Mary,” one of the mendicant orders, founded in 1233 near Florence). 78. On July 10, 1697, two years after its publication. News of the condemnation did not reach Marseille until 1702. 79. Gondal, Poésies spirituelles, 18–19. 80. On this point, see, once again, chap. 7 of Havelange, especially what the author has written about Theresa of Avila: “Theresa, within her own context, achieved an extraordinary experience of the self that should hold an important place in the history of the slow elaboration of the contemporary subject.” Havelange, De l’œil et du monde, 228. Jacques Maître, in his book Mystique et Féminité, also associates the “mystical” and “the rise of the subject”: “The development of mysticism contributed notably to the rise of the subject . . . not only because its discourse recounts subjective lived experience in the first person, but also because theological thought was obliged to take this dimension of experience more into account . . . precisely in the context of processes that historically marked the rise of the subject in our culture.” Maître, Mystique et féminité. Essai de psychanalyse sociohistorique (Paris: Le Cerf, 1997), 114. 81.  Victor Hugo, L’Homme qui rit (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1982), 1: 357. 82. Rembrandt’s interest in blindness and the place reserved for blind people in the ensemble of his work have been the subject of many studies. We can cite in particular the article by Karen Jones Hellerstedt, “A Traditional Motif in Rembrandt’s Etchings: The Hurdy-Gurdy Player,” Oud Holland 95 (1981); and Julius S. Held, Rembrandt’s Aristotle and Other Rembrandt Studies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), which touches upon the blindness that may have afflicted Rembrandt’s father, Harmen Gerrits van Rijn, at the end of his life. 83.  Jacques Thuillier, Georges de la Tour (Paris: Flammarion, 1992), 73. 84.  Pascal Quignard, Georges de la Tour (Paris: Flohic Editions, 1991), 73. 85.  Burnet, Some Letters, 117. 86. Locke had been led there in his capacity as political adviser to Lord Ashley, head of the Whig Party, who had died in 1688. 87.  A Letter Concerning Toleration, written in 1685 in Holland upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, published anonymously the same year; Two Tracts on Civil Government, considered the charter of English democracy and published anonymously in 1689–90; An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published under the author’s name, also in 1689–90. 88. In 1689–90, 1695, and 1700.

   Notes chapter 4 1. Yves Michaud, Locke (Paris: Bordas, 1986), 80. 2.  For Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding, see the electronic text of the second edition: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/locke/john/l81u/B1.2.html, published by eBooks@Adelaide. Consulted March 5, 2007. 3.  Who raised innatism to the level of a principle according to which we only see all things in God, veritable “center of ideas.” 4.  Whose wife, we will say in passing, had become blind as a result of an attack of apoplexy in 1678, two months after their marriage. 5. Locke, Essay on Human Understanding, http://etext.library.adelaide.edu. au/l/locke/john/l81u/B2.9.html (Book 2, chap. 9) 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8.  Jacques-Louis Binet and Jacques Roger, Un autre Buffon (Paris: Hermann, 1977), 119. 9.  Francine Markovits, Mérian, Diderot et l’aveugle, in Jean-Bernard Mérian, Sur le problème de Molyneux. Suivi de Mérian, Diderot, et l’Aveugle (Paris: Flammarion, 1984), 195. 10. Ibid., 250–51. 11. Gottfried-Wilhelm Leibniz, Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain, ed. Jacques Brunschwig (Paris: GF-Flammarion, 1990), 19. English translation by Alfred Gideon Langley (London: Macmillan & Co., 1896), 9. 12. Molyneux died in Dublin on October 11, 1698. 13. No. 55 (July 13–18, 1709). 14.  Published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 35.2, no. 402 (1728): 447–50. 15.  The newly operated blind man distinguished neither distance nor form nor size and did not recognize the colors that he had confusedly distinguished before the surgical intervention. 16.  Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Œuvres philosophiques (London: Jean Nourse, 1751), 189–90. 17. Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon, “Du sens de la vue,” in Histoire Naturelle de l’homme 3. Cited extensively by Binet and Roger, Un autre Buffon, 119–36. 18. Of which he became perpetual secretary in 1797. 19.  Paul Vernière, introduction to “Lettre sur les aveugles à l’usage de ceux qui voient,” in Denis Diderot, Œuvres philosophiques, ed. Paul Vernière (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1964), 75. 20. Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), 65. 21.  After Grant and Cheselden, other oculists, such as Joseph Hilmer, Jean Janin, and Jacques Daviel, performed the same sort of experiments and observations.

Notes    22. In 1735, William Cheselden accomplished, for the first time, the opening of an artificial pupil, and between 1745 and 1753, Jacques David perfected surgery for cataracts through the extraction of the crystalline. 23. Leibniz, Nouveaux essais, 107. 24. Ibid., 82. 25.  Arthur M. Wilson, Diderot (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972), 96. 26. Denis Diderot, Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who See, in Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works, trans. David Adams and Margaret Jourdain (Manchester, UK: Clinamen Press, 1999), 149–50. 27.  Vernière, “Lettre sur les aveugles,” 67. 28. Diderot, Letter on the Blind, 177–78. 29.  Along with purulent ophthalmia in newborns, smallpox was then one of the most common causes of childhood blindness, as it still would be in the nineteenth century, despite official efforts, from 1801 on, to popularize the vaccine. 30.  Anon., “Memoirs of the Life and Character of Dr. Nicholas Saunderson,” in Nicholas Saunderson, The Elements of Algebra, in ten books . . . to which are prefixed I. The life and character of the author. II. His Palpable arithmetic decyphered, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 1740–41), i–xix. De Joncourt’s French translation of the Elements of Algebra and its appended memoirs was published in Amsterdam in 1756. 31.  An armillary sphere is an assemblage of circles modeling the apparent movement of the stars and at the center of which is a globe representing the earth. 32.  Anon., “Memoirs of the Life and Character of Dr. Nicholas Saunderson,” xiii. 33.  Wilson, Diderot, 97. 34. Diderot, Letter on the Blind, 153 [slightly altered by present translator]. 35. Diderot, “Addition to the Preceding Letter,” in Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works, trans. David Adams and Margaret Jourdain (Manchester, UK: Clinamen Press, 1999), 73. 36. Diderot, Letter on the Blind, 171. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., 154. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. [slightly altered by present translator] 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 156. 44. Ibid., 159. 45. Elisabeth de Fontenay, Diderot ou le matérialisme enchanté (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1984), 153. The French involves a pun on the etymology of capital as connoting both the head and something of chief importance [translator’s note]. 46. Diderot, Letter on the Blind, 156.

   Notes 47. Ibid., 172. 48. Ibid., 174. 49. De Fontenay, Diderot ou le matérialisme enchanté, 160. 50. Diderot, Letter on the Blind, 175. 51. In his Philosophical Thoughts. 52. On this issue, see the recent edition of the Letter by Marian Hobson and Simon Harvey: Diderot, Lettre sur les aveugles à l’usage de ceux qui voient. Lettre sur les sourds et muets à l’usage de ceux qui entendent et qui parlent (Paris: GarnierFlammarion, 2000). 53. Diderot, Letter on the Blind, 186. 54. Ibid., 187. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., 185. 58.  Fontenay, Diderot ou le matérialisme enchanté, 160. 59.  Wilson, Diderot, 103–4. 60.  Joseph Delort, Histoire de la détention des philosophes, cited in Wilson, Diderot, 106. 61. Ibid., 106. 62. Cited in Georges Bernier, Hérault de Séchelles (Paris: Julliard, 1955), 18. 63.  Fontenay, Diderot ou le matérialisme enchanté, 159. 64.  Buffon, “Du sens de la vue,” in Binet and Roger, Un autre Buffon, 128, note a. 65.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, Grace Roosevelt’s updating of a 1911 translation by Barbara Foxley, can be found at http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/pedagogies/rousseau/contents2.html. The quote here comes from book 2, paragraph 442. 66.  This evokes a passage from the Tableau de Paris entitled “Fog,” in which Louis-Sébastien Mercier tells of “a year in which the fog was so dense that we decided to rent the quinze-vingts by the hour to guide us through town in broad daylight.” See Mercier, Tableau de Paris, book 5, chap. 364 (Amsterdam, 1783), 11–12. (We note in passing the use of quinze-vingts as a generic term for blind people.) 67. Rousseau, Emile. 68. If it is not always a question of tutorage stricto sensu, it is in any case a matter of private teaching, conducted at the student’s domicile or at the domicile of private teachers. 69. Roger Chartier, Marie-Madeleine Compère, and Dominique Julia, L’Education en France du XVIe au XVIIIe siècles (Paris: SEDES-CDU, 1976), 178. 70.  Encyclopedia Britannica, 2nd edition, vol. 2 (1778), 1188–204.

Notes    71.  The Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola, and violin (K. 617) and Adagio in C for glass harmonica (K. 356). See Howard Chandler Robbins Landon, 1791. Mozart’s Last Year (New York: Schirmer Books, 1988), 40, 218, note 25, 220, note 7; and Alexander Mell, “Kirchgässner,” Encyclopädisches Handbuch des Blindenwesens (Vienna and Leipzig, 1900), 407. 72.  That may be surprising in the case of Blacklock, whose publications were chronologically quite close to the first pedagogical experiments of Valentin Haüy, but it would seem that neither the latter nor the academicians responsible in 1785 for examining the validity of his method knew of the articles by the blind Scotsman, to which they never alluded. 73. Diderot, “Addition,” 193. 74.  She especially reproached him for deeming the blind insensitive. 75. Diderot, “Addition.” 76. Ibid., 195. 77. Ibid. 78. Ibid., 196. 79. Ibid., 196–97. 80. Ibid., 197. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid. 83.  The Praults were a celebrated dynasty of Parisian printer-booksellers of the day. 84. Diderot, “Addition,” 198, with present translator’s amendations. 85. Diderot, “Addition,” 198. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid., 194. 88. Ibid., 194. 89. Ibid., 193. 90. Ibid., 193. 91. Ibid., 195. 92. Ibid. 93.  Something Rousseau had also judiciously observed in the section of Emile devoted to the training of touch: “Half a foot from a wall the air, which is refracted and does not circulate freely, produces a different effect on your face. Stand still in one place and turn this way and that; a slight draught will tell you if there is a door open. . . . Yet here we use neither hand nor stick. How much ocular information may be gleaned from touch, without ever touching anything!” Rousseau, Emile, paragraph 443. 94. Diderot, “Addition,” 195. 95. Ibid., 196. 96. Ibid., 195.

   Notes 97. Ibid., 198. 98.  See Wilson, Diderot, 444. 99. Our two principal sources for the biography of Maria Theresia von Paradis are the article devoted to her in Alexander Mell, Encyklopädisches Handbuch des Blindenwesens (Vienna and Leipzig: A. Pichlers Witve & Sohn, 1899), 576–78; and Marlene Jantsche, “Das Leben der Maria Theresia Paradis und seine Bedeutung für die Blindenbildung,” Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift 47 (1955): 979–82. 100.  The terms gutta serena and amaurosis referred at the time to different types of blindness without any apparent objective sign and whose cause was little known or unknown. 101.  Von Kempelen later became interested in the mechanisms of speech and invented a talking machine, with the hope that it would be of benefit to deafmutes trained to speak as well as to people who had pronunciation defects. See the introduction to Wolfgang von Kempelen, Mechanismus der Menschlichen Sprache nebst der Beschreibung seiner sprechenden Maschine (Vienna: J. V. Degen, 1791), translated the same year into French by the same publisher as Le Mécanisme de la parole suivi de la description d’une machine parlante, pp. v–vi. 102. Doctor of philosophy and theology at the University of Ingolstadt, and medical doctor at the University of Vienna, Mesmer himself was a good musician: he sang tenor, played the piano and violin, and owned a very fine glass harmonica, an instrument whose modern form was determined by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. He was a friend of the Mozarts, both father and son, of Haydn, and of Gluck. A Freemason, Mesmer was a member of the True Harmony (“Zur wahren Eintracht”) lodge, with which Mozart was quite involved and where Josef Haydn would be initiated in 1785. It was Mesmer who commissioned young Mozart’s first opera, Bastien et Bastienne, in order to stage it in his open-air theater. See Jacques Henry, Mozart, Frère Maçon. La symbolique maçonnique dans l’œuvre de Mozart (Aix-en-Provence: Alinéa, 1991); and Howard Chandler Robbins Landon, Mozart. The Golden Years, 1781–1791 (n.p.: Thames and Hudson, 1991). 103. It was in 1775 that Mesmer undertook his therapeutic experiments with magnetic treatments. These treatments, moreover, often took place to the sound of a glass harmonica, an instrument also used in certain Masonic ceremonies. 104.  According to Stefan Zweig, La Guérison par l’esprit (Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1991), 23–109. 105. Mesmer arrived in Paris in February 1778. Robert Darnton reminds us of the situation a few years later in his work on mesmerism and the Revolution: “In 1783–4 Mesmerism occupied more space in French papers such as the daily Journal de Paris and the Mémoires secrets than any other topic. . . . Debated in the academies, salons, and cafes. It was . . . patronized by the Queen, ridiculed several times on stage, burlesqued in popular songs, doggerels, and cartoons, practiced in a network of Mason-like secret societies, and published in a flood of pamphlets and

Notes    books.” Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968), 44–46. 106.  The capital of the Palatinate—despite the departure of the Prince Elector for Bavaria, which he inherited in 1778—was still home, at the time, to an intense cultural and musical life. Its orchestra, in particular, enjoyed a European reputation. See Brigitte Massin, Mozart, le bonheur de l’Europe (Paris: Plon, 1991), 82–83. 107.  The Concert Spirituel, founded by Anne Danican Philidor with royal privilege and inaugurated at the Tuileries Palace on March 18, 1725, was France’s first series of public paying concerts (by subscription) given by a permanent group (orchestra and choir). Its performances took place in the Salle des Suisses on the Quinzaine of Easter and on religious festival days when the opera was not playing. Its repertory included vocal and instrumental pieces, both religious and profane. Visiting foreign virtuosos played alongside national artists. In 1784, the Concert Spirituel was under the direction of Joseph Legros, a former singer. See Martha Rioux and Jean-Yves Patte, Le Concert Spirituel 1725–1790. L’invention du public (Paris: Naxos and Marco Polo, 1996). 108.  “A Miss Paradis, blind since the age of two, gave a harpsichord concert yesterday at the Concert Spirituel, a new and singularly interesting spectacle. This virtuosa is not pretty in the least; she appears to be between 25 and 30 years old. She showed herself to be a great musician: she gives a precise performance and has quite a brilliant touch. She was much applauded, and after having finished, she made an appearance in the loge and again drew the public’s eyes and applause.” Louis Petit de Bachaumont, and those who took up his task upon his death in 1771, Mathieu François Pidansat de Mairobert and Mouffle d’Angerville, Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la République des lettres en France depuis MDCCLXII jusqu’à nos jours 25 (London: J. Adamsohn, 1784): 204. “Thursday’s concert consisted entirely of new pieces. . . . Two new virtuosos created a great sensation, Mademoiselle Paradis and Mr. Gervais. The first, blind since the age of two, played a concerto on the harpsichord. One must have heard it to have an idea of the touch, precision, volubility, and clarity of her playing. Until now, it was believed that the harpsichord was an instrument that could make no impression in a hall as vast as that of the Concert. Mademoiselle Paradis is the first to take advantage of it to the point that not a note of her concerto was lost, and everyone was surprised by the nuances of forte and piano that the instrument seemed incapable of producing. She was enthusiastically applauded, and the applause intensified when, after her Concerto, she appeared in a loge. This young woman, as interesting in and of herself as for her talent, hails from Vienna, in Austria. She is the student of Mr. Koželuck.” Journal de Paris 75 (April 4, 1784): 421. 109. Mammès Claude Pahin de Champlain de la Blancherie was the founder, in 1778–80, of a literary society, the Correspondance des Arts, whose goal was

   Notes to bring together scientists, writers, and artists. After 1779, the society published a periodical, the Nouvelles de la République des lettres et des arts (News from the Republic of Letters and Arts). 110. It would seem, if we are to believe the concert announcements published later in the Journal de Paris, that Mademoiselle Paradis stayed at the Hôtel de la Paix on the rue de Richelieu, not at the Hôtel de Paris. 111.  “Variétés. Aux auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 115 (April 24, 1784): 504–5. 112. Ibid., 505. 113. In contrast to Mademoiselle de Salignac, who learned her pieces using tactile notation. 114.  “Variétés. Aux auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 115 (April 24, 1784): 504–5. 115.  The announcements of Mademoiselle Paradis’s concerts in Paris in 1784 can be found in the Journal de Paris. The first was announced on March 31 for the following day. The last was announced on October 2 for the same day: “Today, the second, Concert by Mademoiselle Paradis, in the Salle du Musée, rue Dauphine. . . .” Journal de Paris 276 (October 2, 1784): 1167. 116.  Son of George III (King of Great Britain and Ireland but also Elector of Hanover, hence tied to the Holy Roman Empire). 117.  Sister of Marie-Antoinette and Joseph II. 118. On these collective effusions through which the eighteenth-century public communed in the voluptuous pleasures of tears and created a spectacle of its own sensibility and virtue, see Anne Vincent-Buffault, Histoire des larmes, XVIIIe– XIXe (Paris: Editions Rivages, 1986), and in particular, chapters 3 and 4 of part 1: “To cry together at a performance allowed . . . for the assurance and mutual witnessing of the goodness of the human heart, its capacity to live with its fellow creatures. It was a sort of pleasant philosophical experience” (76). 119.  She opened a music school in her home that was soon frequented by young girls and ladies of Viennese “polite society” and where she sometimes held concerts that featured her students. 120. In particular, a Singspiel, Der Schulkandidat, finished in 1792, and a fairy opera, Rinaldo and Alcina, staged in Prague in 1797. 121.  Deutsches Monument, composed in 1794. 122. Diderot, “Addition,” 199. 123.  Rechenkunst für Sehende und Blinde. 124.  Algebra für Sehende und Blinde. 125. Nicolaï tells us here that Weissenburg “wrote French and German and had excellent spelling in both languages.” This remark suggests that Weissenburg was a good reader, because blind people who do not read—or who read only a little—

Notes    have bad spelling. He had probably learned to read these two languages before having become completely blind. 126. Christoph Friedrich Nicolaï, “Un premier éducateur d’aveugle,” note read to the Berlin Academy of Sciences on December 13, 1806 (excerpted from the Blindenfreund, March and April 1896). Cited in Le Valentin Haüy 8 (1896): 111–13. 127. Robert Heller, “Educating the Blind in the Age of Enlightenment: Growing Points of a Social Service,” Medical History 23 (1979): 396. 128.  “Man bedauert uns, das wir nicht sehen, / Freudin, sehen wir wirklich nicht?” Weissenburg, cited in Adolf Kistner, “Christian Niesen, der este Blindenlehrer und sein Schüler Johann Ludwig Weissenburg in Mannheim,” Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter 12 (1921): 205. 129.  Valentin Haüy, “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du Journal,” Le Journal de Paris 274 (September 18, 1784): 1159. Signed “Haüy, Interpreter to the King.” 130.  Valentin Haüy, Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles (1786; reprint, Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 1985), 61. 131. Ibid., 115, note 11. chapter 5 1.  Ferdinand Buisson, “Bibliographie,” Dictionnaire de pédagogie et d’instruction primaire 1, part 1, 196–202, cited in Roger Chartier, Marie-Madeleine Compère, and Dominique Julia, L’Education en France du XVIe au XVIIIe siècles (Paris: SEDES-CDU, 1976), 208. 2. Louis-René de Caradeuc de La Chalotais, Essai d’éducation nationale ou Plan d’études pour la jeunesse, 1763, cited in A. Sicard, Les Etudes classiques avant la Révolution (Paris: 1887), 522; in Chartier, Compère, and Julia, L’Education en France, 39. 3. Cited in Jean-Pierre Gutton, La Société et les pauvres en Europe (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974), 168. 4.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloïse, in Œuvres complètes 2. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), 566–67; cited in Chartier, Compère, and Julia, L’Education en France, 39. 5. Cited in A. de Charmasse, Etat de l’instruction primaire dans l’ancien diocèse d’Autun pendant les XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Autun: 1878), in Chartier, Compère, and Julia, L’Education en France. 6. Cited in Maurice Gontard, L’Enseignement primaire en France de la Révolution à la loi Guizot (1789–1833). Annales de l’Université de Lyon (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959), 57. 7. Condorcet, Rapport et projet de décret sur l’organisation de l’instruction publique. Presented to the National Legislative Assembly of April 20 and 21, 1792, p. 2.

   Notes 8.  Voltaire, “Vertu,” Dictionnaire philosophique, 1764, cited in Robert Mauzi, L’Idée du bonheur dans la littérature et la pensée françaises au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Albin Michel, 1994), 605. 9.  As Robert Mauzi stresses, “The century was unanimous when it came to the definition of virtue. It consisted in placing more importance on the happiness of others than on one’s own.” Mauzi, L’Idée du bonheur, 591. 10. Diderot, Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron (1778–1782) in Œuvres complètes 3 (Assezat-Tourneux, 1875–1877), 210. Cited in Mauzi, L’Idée du bonheur, 591. 11. Catherine Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” Le Temps des philanthropes. La Philanthropie parisienne des Lumières à la monarchie de Juillet 1 (Paris: Editions du CTHS., 1993), 33. 12.  “Précis sur la Société Philanthropique,” Calendrier philanthropique (1787), xxix–xxxvii, cited in Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” 69. 13. Ibid. The brotherhood in question is no longer a brotherhood in Jesus Christ as “sons of the same Father,” as the Gospels teach, but a brotherhood in “humanity.” 14.  This is the very expression used by La Blancherie to speak of the blindness of Mademoiselle Paradis in his chronicle of April 24, 1784. 15.  Valentin Haüy, Essai su l’éducation des aveugles (1786; reprint, Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 1985), 7–8; and Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy, auteur de la “Manière d’instruire les aveugles ou court exposé de la naissance des progrès et de l’état actuel de l’Institut national des aveugles-travailleurs au 19 brumaire an IX de la République française” [November 10, 1800] entremêlée de quelques observations relatives à cet établissement (Paris: Imprimerie des AveuglesTravailleurs, 1800), p. 9. Archives de l’Institut de France, Box 4 A2, supplementary documents. 16.  Savalette de Langes, who took an interest in all accessible forms of occultism, was a mesmerist. In 1786, he would be one of the most influential members of the French Society of Universal Harmony (according to Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France [Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968], 73–74). 17.  According to Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” 56, 65, 67. 18.  “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 354 (December 20, 1783): 1457. 19. Ibid., 1456. 20. Ibid. 21.  The Abbé de L’Epée (born in Versailles in 1712), banned by Monsignor de Beaumont for his Jansenist opinions, undertook—probably in 1760—the education of two deaf-mute sisters from a poor family who had previously been cared for by their Christian father, Simon Vanin, who died September 19, 1759. Af-

Notes    ter having perfected a method based on the language of mimed and gesticulated signs, the Abbé opened a real school in his home on rue des Moulins near the Church of Saint-Roch, where children of indigent families were taken in for free and supported by the Abbé and his brother, architect to the king, and by the liberalities of other benefactors. Contrary to those who had preceded him on this path, the Abbé de l’Epée did not systematically try to make his pupils speak. To make his method known, after 1771 he began to show his students during public demonstrations that numerous visitors soon hastened to attend. Among them, Valentin Haüy, perhaps accompanied by his brother René-Just, vice regent at the Cardinal-Lemoine secondary school; but also illustrious people, including Emperor Joseph II, who first presented himself under the pseudonym “Count Falkenstein.” From 1774 to 1776, the school included thirty students who were boarded in private homes. The publication of the first book by the Abbé de l’Epée, Institution des sourds et muets par la voie des signes méthodiques. Ouvrage qui contient le projet d’une langue universelle, par l’entremise des signes naturels assujettis à une méthode (Paris: Nyon l’Aîné, 1776), was at once an exposition and a defense of his method, which had its detractors, especially among partisans of the manual alphabet and the oralist method, which Jacob Rodrigues Pereira had used with success for some thirty years. 22. De l’Epée, Institution des sourds et muets, part 2, letter 3: 49–50. 23. Indeed, “to be fully justified, beneficence must seem to compensate those it favors. Thus it is usually said that it is reserved not for misfortune alone, but for misfortune doubled by merit. This precaution was necessary to prevent pity from degenerating into an anarchic impulse. The imperatives of order always balanced the demand for happiness.” See Mauzi, L’Idée du bonheur, 609. 24.  Journal de Paris 354 (1783): 1457. 25. Ibid. 26. Louis-Philippe-Joseph, Duke of Chartres, would become Duke of Orleans in 1785. At the time, he was grandmaster of the Grand Orient of France. 27. Edme Régnier, “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du journal,” Journal de Paris 111 (February 20, 1784): 234. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Edme Régnier, born in Semur-en-Auxois in 1751, son and grandson of locksmiths, inventor of various arms and locks given awards by the Society of the Abbé Baudeau, had just obtained the certificate of “mechanician of the province of Burgundy and of Monsignor the Duke of Chartres” for the invention of a machine to spin and to twist iron cords into cables. The previous year, he had offered Louis XVI a meridian circle, complete with cannon, chimes, and music. On Régnier, see Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, L’Invention technique au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Albin Michel, 2000); and Alain Mercier, Le Portefeuille de Vaucanson. Chefs d’œuvre du dessin technique (Paris: Musée National des Techniques, 1991), 42–43.

   Notes 31. Letter from “Un de vos abonnés, Membre et Secrétaire actuel de la Société Philanthropique,” “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du Journal, “Journal de Paris 111 (April 20, 1784): 488. 32.  “Yesterday’s crowds to see the first performance of the Marriage of Figaro were prodigious, and should not have surprised anyone. A sequel to The Barber of Seville was sure to get the attention of theater-lovers, and special circumstances must have increased the interest this work would naturally spark, further fueling public curiosity.” “Spectacle. Théâtre Français,” Journal de Paris 119 (April 28, 1784): 520. 33.  “Because you are a great Man, you fancy yourself a great Genius! . . . Why truly, you gave yourself the Trouble to be born! While the obscurity in which I have been cast demanded more Abilities to gain a mere Subsistence than are requisite to govern Empires . . . ” Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Follies of a Day; or, the Marriage of Figaro. Trans. Thomas Holcroft (London: G. G. and J. J. Robinson, 1785), 5.3. Trans. of La Folle journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro, ed. Bernard Combeaud (Paris: Classiques Hachette, 1991), 5.3.8–9 and 12–15. 34.  At the time, any man whose revenues derived exclusively from his work could be considered poor. This was the case with Haüy, who was to spend his whole life reimbursing debts contracted for his philanthropic work. 35.  For more details on the life and the earlier history of Valentin Haüy, see the biography written by Pierre Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Valentin Haüy (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1984). 36. Louis XVI created this society with letters patent of January 23, 1779, Article 10: “The ‘Master-Writers’ [Maîtres-Ecrivains] will form among themselves a bureau consisting of the 24 Masters who will be responsible for the perfection of written characters; knowledge of ancient handwritings and their abbreviations, so as to facilitate their deciphering; calculations related to banking or financial commerce; verification of handwriting and signatures; French grammar as it pertains to spelling, and other subjects as they relate to the profession of Master-Writer.” The bureau was to consist of twenty-four “members,” twenty-four qualified teachers [agrégés], twenty-four “associate-writers and engravers,” and an indeterminate number of “correspondent-writers”—according to Henri Maistre, Valentin Haüy et ses fonctions d’interprète (Saint-Denis: 1901), 4–5. This was a resurrection of the corporation of master-writers created under Charles IX by letters patent of November 1570 for the same purposes—including a judicial one. Louis XV, with Article 28 of his letters patent of December 1727, had set up the community as an academy, but it did not hold its first meeting until February 25, 1762. Its composition was changed once again by letters patent of January 23, 1779. The Bureau of Academic Writing was presided over by the lieutenant-general of police, the prosecutor to the Crown, and a director assisted by a secretary who was changed every two years. It held assemblies on the first and third Wednesday of every month at

Notes    six in the evening. The professors’ lessons for all the Masters of Paris took place on the second and fourth Sundays of every month at eleven in the morning. See L.V. Thiery, Guide des amateurs et des étrangers voyageurs à Paris (Paris: Hardouin et Gattey, 1786), 1: 726–27. Haüy thus belonged to a corporation whose objectives, at once pedagogical and policing, emerged from the policy of control and normalization of the French language begun more than two centuries earlier by the monarchy—a policy whose cornerstone was obviously the Académie Française. In this respect, it is quite significant that Louis XV decided to make this corporation an academy. 37. Haüy, Vallain, and de Courcelle, Mémoires et éloges lus dans la séance publique du Bureau Académique d’Ecriture . . . le 8 novembre 1781 (Paris: Imprimerie Houry, 1781), 44. 38. Memoir addressed by Valentin Haüy to Amelot on June 3, 1783. National Archives 01 6097. Cited in Maistre, Valentin Haüy, 5–6. 39. Memoir addressed by Valentin Haüy to the prefect of the Seine on “new means, if they are not misused, to extend and perhaps perfect the functioning of the telegraph.” Handwritten documents of Valentin Haüy. INJA Archives. Cited in Maistre, Valentin Haüy, 4. 40. Daniel Roche, La France des Lumières (Paris: Fayard, 1993), 384. 41. Ibid. 42.  The expression is Gladys Swain’s: “Une logique de l’inclusion: les infirmes du signe,” Esprit 5 (1982): 61–75. 43.  Valentin Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy sur l’éducation des aveugles,” in Mémoires lus dans la séance publique du Bureau Académique d’Ecriture . . . le 18 novembre, 1784 (Paris: Imprimerie d’Houry, 1784), 42. 44.  These are the same terms used by the Abbé de l’Epée to justify the validity of his pedagogical enterprise. Abbé de L’Epée, La Véritable manière d’instruire les sourds et muets confirmée par une longue expérience (1784; reprint, Paris: Fayard, 1984), 9. 45.  Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, born April 11, 1715, in Berlanga in Spanish Extremadura, came from a Portuguese Marrano family, several members of which had fled to Bordeaux, where they were able to return to Judaism. He died in Paris on September 15, 1780, and was buried in the first legal Jewish cemetery, opened in Paris on March 7, 1780, thanks to his own interventions as an agent of the Portuguese Jewish nation in Paris. On the life and works of Pereira, the most recent studies are those of Renée Neher-Bernheim, “Un pionnier dans l’art de faire parler les sourds-muets: Jacob Rodriguès Péreire,” in Revue du dix-huitième siècle 13 (1981): 47–61; and Neher-Bernheim, “Un Savant juif engagé: Jacob Rodriguès Péreire (1715–1780),” in Revue des études juives 142, nos. 3–4 (July–December 1983): 373–451. Our great thanks to Emilio Salgueiro, who is currently preparing a book on Pereira, for having given us this last article.

   Notes 46.  “I have finally managed, sirs, to teach the deaf and dumb since birth how to articulate the words of a language, and what is even more difficult and more important, to make them able to understand the meaning of these words and to produce by themselves, both verbally and through writing, all their thoughts so that they will be as capable as other people of anything that does not depend on hearing.” Edouard Séguin cites this speech of Pereira to the Royal Academy of BellesLettres of Caen on November 22, 1746, in his Jacob-Rodriguès Péreire. Premier instituteur des Sourds et Muets en France (Paris: J.-B. Baillière, 1847), 37. 47. Cited by the Abbé—despite oppositional polemic—as the most remarkable example of the breadth of knowledge a deaf-mute could achieve. Aside from the book by the Abbé de l’Epée, Institution des sourds et muets, one can also read what Marie-Joseph de Gérando wrote on Saboureux de Fontenay in his De l’éducation des sourds-muets de naissance (Paris: 1827), 408–30, in which he cites a letter by Saboureux, dated December 26, 1764, from Versailles, where the latter explains how he had learned to read, write, and speak. 48. In part 1, “Avertissement,” of La Véritable manière, he speaks of “the concern with which religion and humanity inspire him for a really misfortunate class of men such as ourselves.” 49.  There were, however, some children from wealthy families among the Abbé’s students: “We have noble and rich children among our deaf and dumb, as well as those from the dregs of society.” Abbé de l’Epée, Institution des sourds et muets, 1: 184. 50. Ibid., 1: 184–85. 51.  “The natural language of the deaf and dumb is sign language: they have no other as long as they are not taught, and it is nature itself and their different needs that guide them in the use of this language.” De l’Epée, La Véritable manière, 102. In this concern for educating and evangelizing poor deaf-mutes in the language familiar to them, we detect the influence of the Abbé’s Jansenist convictions. The interest in things connected to language’s essence also relates to the preoccupations of the Port-Royal grammarians. 52.  “Sign language is more expressive than any other, because it is natural and the others are not. If it is reduced to a method, it will be capable of creating a universal language for mankind.” Institution des sourds et muets, 2: 32–33. On the question of the utopia of a gesticulated language as universal language, see James R. Knowlson, “The Idea of Gesture as a Universal Language in the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries,” Journal of the History of Ideas 26 (1965): 495–508. 53.  The interest sparked by the Abbé de l’Epée’s work had already been sanctioned by a decision of the King’s Council of State on November 21, 1778, whose object was to grant the school the status of a public establishment. Yet despite another decision of March 25, 1785, providing for the situation of the establishment

Notes    in the buildings of the Celestines of Paris, it was not until 1791 that the school was actually taken over by the state. 54. In a letter dated September 18, 1784, published in the Journal de Paris of September 30, Haüy wrote: “It is to the letter written you by Monsieur de la Blancherie last April 24, sirs, and to that written by Monsieur Diderot and printed in 1749 that I owe the idea of an educational plan for the blind.” Journal de Paris 274 (September 30, 1784): 1158. 55. In Haüy’s “Précis historique de la naissance, des progrès, et de l’état actuel de l’Institution des Enfans Aveugles” [“Historical Summary of the Birth, Progress, and Actual State of the Institution of Blind Youth”] published as an appendix to his Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles (1786; reprint, Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 1985). 56. In Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy. 57. Unpublished letter from Valentin Haüy to his son on May 28, 1820, cited in Maxime du Camp, Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, et sa vie (Paris: Hachette, 1874), 5: 491–99. 58.  The fair in question was Saint Ovid’s, held at the time on the Place Louis XV during the months of August and September. 59.  Almanach forain, ou les Différens spectacles des boulevards et des foires de Paris (Paris: Valleyre l’aîné, 1773). 60.  Jean-Claude Margolin, “Des lunettes et des hommes ou la Satire des malvoyants au XVIe siècle,” Annales E.S.C. 30, nos. 2–4 (March–June, 1975): 375–93. On this subject, one can also refer to Margolin, “Vers une séméiologie historique des lunettes à nez,” Lunettes et lorgnettes, ed. Pierre Marly, Jean-Claude Margolin, and Paul Biérent (n.p.: Hoëbeke, 1988), 17–81. The two texts are accompanied by numerous illustrations, among which can be found, in the second, a French engraving of the seventeenth century: Eyeglasses for the Quinze-Vingts, with obvious burlesque intentions but which is also interesting because it gives an idea of the neighborhood of the Quinze-Vingts and the dress of blind people at that time. 61.  For example, The Three Blind Men (Les Trois Aveugles), a comedy-sideshow in one act, presented for the first time at the Théâtre des Variétés Amusantes in Paris on December 4, 1782. 62.  This was the case for the sideshow printed by Gilles Langlois in 1756: The Dumb, Blind, Deaf, and One-Armed (Le Muet, Aveugle, Sourd, et Manchot). 63. Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” xxiv–xxv. 64.  “Historical Summary,” in Haüy, Essai. 65. Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy, 9–10. 66. On the spectacle of monstrosity and the evolution of sensibilities around it in the eighteenth century, we suggest two articles by Jean-Jacques Courtine: “Curiosités humaines, curiosités populaires. Le spectacle de la monstruosité au XVIIIe siècle,” Curiosité et Libido sciendi de la Renaissance aux Lumières, ed. Nicole

   Notes Jacques-Chaquin and Sophie Houdard (ENS. Editions, 1998), 499–515; and “Le Théâtre des monstres. Les Spectacles tératologiques au XVIIIe siècle,” Les Cahiers de la Comédie-Française 33 (January 2000): 51–59. 67.  This expression was used by the Abbé de l’Epée in a text that is worth citing at length: “Parents think themselves dishonored, so to speak, when they have a deaf and dumb child. They think they have been entirely fair by providing for his food and upkeep; but they remove him forever from the eyes of the world by confining him to the secrecy of a cloister or to the obscurity of some unknown pension. Today things have changed face. Several deaf-mutes have shown themselves in the light of day. The demonstrations they must perform have been announced by programs that have roused the public’s attention. Persons of every condition have flocked to see them. The demonstrators have been kissed, applauded, showered with praise, crowned with laurels. . . . This new type of actor was shown with as much confidence and pleasure as the precaution that had until then been taken to make him disappear.” De l’Epée, Institution des sourds et muets, 4–5. Reading this in parallel with Haüy’s text on the display at the Saint Ovid’s Fair allows us to measure the extent of the revolution that was taking place for the “disabled of the sign,” but it also reveals the ambiguity of public drills in which the Abbé’s students participated. As much as they followed a then habitual practice of students in secondary school rhetoric classes, these presentations took an odd shape as a result of “this new type of actor” ’s disability. We may wonder if the motives that brought a throng “of people of every condition” to the rue des Moulins were much purer than those that inspired visitors to the fair to rush en masse to the spectacle organized by “Sire Valindin.” Moreover, who is to say if the same people did not attend the two demonstrations successively? Saint-Roch Hill, where the Abbé de l’Epée’s school was located, was actually quite close to the Square Louis XV, site of the Saint Ovid’s Fair. In any case, that was probably what Haüy did, and the proximity and simultaneity of the two “spectacles” must have allowed him to compare them and to pass a judgment on the exhibit at the Saint Ovid’s Fair that most of his contemporaries would not yet share. 68.  Swain, “Une logique,” 63. 69. Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy, 10. 70. Haüy, “Précis historique.” 71. Ibid. 72. Ibid. 73.  Since La Blancherie’s letter to the Journal de Paris was only published on the 24th. 74. Haüy, “Précis historique.” 75.  “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 260 (September 16, 1784): 1101. Signed “Un de vos abonnés, membre et secrétaire actuel de la Maison Philanthropique.”

Notes    76. Ibid. 77. Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy,” 39. 78. Ibid. If we compare Haüy’s manner of speaking of the poor in this text of 1784 with the way the Abbé de l’Epée’s Institution des sourds et des muets, published in 1776, spoke of pupils from indigent families, we see that in eight years there had been an evolution in vocabulary that probably signifies an evolution in mentalities. Where the Abbé used the expression “the dregs of society,” Haüy speaks of “the class of the least fortunate, though perhaps the most hardworking.” It is true that Haüy himself—contrary to Charles-Michel de l’Epée—came from the laboring class, which may explain his choice of words. 79. Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy,” 40. 80. Ibid. 81.  “Bienfaisance. Aux auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 274 (September 30, 1784): 1159. 82. Haüy, Mémoires lus dans la séance publique, frontispiece. 83. Haüy, Seconde note du Citoyen Haüy, Auteur de la manière d’instruire les aveugles, en réponse à ceux qui le supposent animé d’une basse jalousie contre les talens qu’il n’a cessé d’admirer et de préconiser (Paris: Imprimerie de l’Institut National des Aveugles-Travailleurs, n.d.), 4. 84. Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy,” 42. 85.  “Lettre première de M. L’Abbé***, instituteur des sourds et des muets, à M. L’Abbé***, son intime ami, en 1771,” Institution des sourds et des muets, 2: 26–27. 86. De l’Epée, La Véritable manière, 19. 87.  Journal de Paris 274 (September 30, 1784): 1159. In a later text, Haüy would speak of “their touch, which was now found a substitute for vision.” Haüy, Essai, 18. Vicariance cannot be spoken of more clearly. 88. Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy,” 39. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. The assimilation of blindness to the “continuous solitude” necessary for literary creation was to make the bard and blind poet a favorite figure of preRomantic and Romantic writers (e.g., Madame de Staël, André Chénier, PierreSimon Ballanche, Honoré de Balzac), who addressed the origins of literature and the “conditions essential to talent.” See William R. Paulson, Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the Blind in France (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1987), and in particular, chapter 5, “From Chateaubriand to Balzac: Literature and the Loss of Sight.” 91.  “I first of all dedicated the pecuniary fruit of twenty years of sleepless nights; I even contracted debts, in order to lay the foundations of the establishment of Blind Workers.” Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy, 10. 92.  Journal de Paris 274 (September 30, 1784): 1159. 93. Haüy, Essai.

   Notes 94. Ibid. 95.  “A book that he had recently used was opened for him at random. (It was an excerpt from the life of the famous Saunderson . . . ).” Journal de Paris 328 (November 23, 1784): 1374. 96. Ibid. 97. Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy, 9–10. 98. Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy,” 43–46. 99.  “Historical Summary,” in Haüy, Essai. 100.  “Bienfaisance. Aux auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 363 (December 28, 1784). 101.  France. Académie Royal des Sciences, Procès-Verbaux 104, 33–38. The commissioners named by the academy were, respectively, Jean-Nicolas Corvisar Desmarets (physician), Pierre Demours (Physician-in-Ordinary and Oculist to the King), Félix Vicq d’Azir (doctor and anatomist, founder in 1776 of the Royal Society of Medicine), and the Duke de la Rochefoucault (Louis-Alexandre de La Roche Guyon de la Rochefoucault d’Enville, admitted the same year, 1785, to the Philanthropic Society). 102. De la Salle, “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 37 (February 6, 1785): 154–55. 103. Ibid., 155. 104.  “Extrait des Registres de l’Académie Royale des Sciences” from February 16, 1785, published as a thirteen-page appendix to Haüy, Essai, 10–11. 105. Haüy, Essai, 11–12. 106.  This is why Valentin Haüy was admitted on January 14, 1785, to the Philanthropic Society, to which the Abbé de l’Epée had been admitted eight months earlier, on May 28, 1784. Tableau des membres de la maison philantropique [sic] (n.p., n.d.), 26. 107.  “Extrait des Registres de l’Académie Royales des Sciences,” 12. 108.  Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, “Fondation,” Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné 8 (1757), 74; cited in Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” 4. 109.  The Spiritual Concert had left the Salon of the Hundred Swiss Guards to install itself, on April 16, 1784, in the former Hall of Machines. 110.  “Bienfaisance,” Journal de Paris 47 (February 16, 1785): 197. 111.  “Bienfaisance,” Journal de Paris 50 (February 19, 1785): 209 112. Ibid. 113. Ibid. 114.  “Bienfaisance,”Journal de Paris 52 (February 21, 1785): 217. 115.  Mémoires secrets 28 (1785): 153. 116.  This would always be the case when Haüy’s students appeared in public. 117. Ibid. 118. Ibid., 156.

Notes    119.  Journal de Paris 1785, numbers 73 (March 14); 82 (March 23); 83 (March 24); and 204 (July 23). The Nouvelles de la république des lettres et des arts of 1785 also reported the different presentations of Haüy’s students at the Salon de la Correspondance. 120.  “Bienfaisance. Lettre du Secrétaire de la Société Philanthropique aux Auteurs du journal,” Journal de Paris 61 (March 2, 1785): 252. In 1785, Hildebrand, a master metal turner of Swiss origin, who presented himself as a “turner by profession and mechanician by practice,” was also in competition with Pierre Diot to install a spinning machine for the deaf and blind at the beggars’ prison of Saint-Denis (A.N. F12 993), cited by Liliane-Hilaire Pérez, L’Invention technique au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Albin Michel, 2000), 71–72, 148. In his Essai of 1786, Haüy described the operation of an “ingenious machine invented by Sire Hildebrand, a mechanic.” One blind person “turns a principal wheel, which gives to several smaller wheels a motion which each spinner can stop, quicken, or retard, at his pleasure, without disturbing the general order” (Essai, 117, note 21). In his Notice historique sur l’établissement des Jeunes Aveugles, printed in relief at the Quinze-Vingts in 1828, Jean-François Galliod, “former student of the late Monsieur Haüy, inventor of the procedures used in educating the blind,” specifies that “shortly afterward, this mechanism was overhauled and replaced by foot-operated wheels.” Jean-François Galliod, Notice historique sur l’établissement des jeunes aveugles (Paris: Quinze-Vingts, 1828), unpaginated. 121.  A very close friend of the Count de Vergennes [Louis XVI’s foreign minister], Louis-Charles-Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil was then Secretary of State and a minister of state. His desire to improve the lot of marginalized populations caused him to take numerous steps—with mixed results—on behalf of the sick and the poor. See Antoine Boulant and Arnaud de Maurepas, Les Ministres et les ministères du siècle des Lumières 1715–1789. Etude et dictionnaire (Paris: Editions Christian/JAS, 1996), 275. As we saw earlier, he was, along with Vergennes, one of the first ministers of state to take an interest in Haüy’s educational plan. 122.  Mémoires secrets 30 (1785): 126. 123.  The school Haüy ran, along with his interpreter’s practice, were situated at the offices of the Academic Bureau of Writing on rue Coquillière until everything moved to 18 rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in 1786. 124.  “Bienfaisance,” Journal de Paris 7 (January 7, 1786): 27. 125.  France. Musée Valentin Haüy. Inventory number A-02–3004; File number: VH12/T4. 126.  Antoine-René de Voyer d’Argenson, whose prestigious book collection became the basis for the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal. 127.  “Bienfaisance. Lettre du Secrétaire de la Société Philanthropique aux Auteurs du journal,” Journal de Paris 36 (February 5, 1787): 252. In his Notice historique, Galliod recounts that “Monsieur Haüy, when he saw the success of the

   Notes blind in printing their books, thought that it would be possible for them to print for the sighted. To this end, he called upon Monsieur Clousier, Printer to the King and member of the Philanthropic Society, who took pleasure in lending typographic characters and running the printing house” (Galliod, Notice historique, n.p.). A “Certificate from Messieurs the Printers” of December 16, 1786—signed Vincent, former printer of Monsieur Clousier, Printer to the King, and Saillant, former bookseller—appended to Haüy’s Essai, testifies to the competence of “the Blind Youth . . . in the different components of [their] art.” 128. Haüy, Essai, 6. 129. In his Notice historique, Galliod wrote that the office that ran the establishment on rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, an “office composed of members from the Society, . . . decided at its first meeting that the blind who spun on a machine of Monsieur Hildebrand’s invention would be incorporated into Monsieur Haüy’s school” and that “Monsieur Hildebrand gave his consent and had his machine transported to the establishment” (Galliod, Notice historique, n.p.). 130.  Appendixes to Haüy, Essai: “Modèles des différents ouvrages d’imprimerie, qui peuvent être exécutés facilement par les enfans-aveugles. No. IX. Modèle d’avis de Changement de Domicile.” [“Samples of different printing work that can be easily executed by blind children. Number 9. Sample of a Notification of a Change of Address.”] According to Galliod, the premises where the two schools were brought together as one, placed under Haüy’s direction, were rented by the Philanthropic Society. 131. De l’Epée, Institution des sourds et muets, 1: 184–85. 132.  A notice at the beginning of the book specifies that certain sections and the “appendixes” of the book were printed by the blind “using ordinary typographical characters,” and that, for the remainder—that is, for the essay proper— they had used “typographical characters invented for their own use.” Since it was for sighted readers, the work had been printed in “black.” Haüy had come up with the idea of adding an ink-coated tympanum to the cylindrical press we spoke of earlier, “by means of which, the blind may, at their pleasure, tinge with black, copies of an edition perfectly the same as those which they print on white paper for their own private use” (“Avertissement,” in Haüy, Essai, 56). 133.  “Programme des exercices,” in Haüy, Essai. In his Notice historique, Galliod wrote that “the cylindrical press Haüy discusses in his Essai was operated by two students during the Versailles demonstrations” and that Le Sueur prepared the printing plate for the sighted while another student, Huard, prepared the plate for the blind. 134.  Mémoires secrets 33 (1786): 308. 135.  “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 1 (January 1, 1787): 31. Signed “Un philanthrope qui était présent aux exercices du 26.”

Notes    136.  “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 8 (January 8, 1787): 31. 137. In his letter to his son dated May 28, 1787, cited by Maxime du Camp, Haüy says that “H.M. the late Louis XVI . . . had me and my first twenty-four students conveyed to Versailles, kept us there fifteen days, and twice saw the display of their means of ingenuity: the first time alone, the second, surrounded by his entire court, before whose eyes the benevolent monarch even deigned to help me show them to advantage.” Du Camp, Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, 5: 493. 138.  A letter dated January 27, 1787, addressed to the Journal de Paris by the secretary of the Philanthropic Society to account for the society’s activities during the previous eight months reveals that the stay of the blind youth at Versailles “will have been worth about 11,271 livres, 15 sous, 6 deniers . . . once the promised sums have been remitted. “Bienfaisance,” Journal de Paris 36 (February 5, 1787). 139.  “Bienfaisance. Aux Auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 8 (January 8, 1787): 31. 140. Gleize, Jean-François, Règlement de vie, ou comment doivent se gouverner ceux qui sont affligés de la foiblesse de la vue, avec les moyens de s’en préserver (Orléans: Jacob l’Ainé, 1787), 93. 141. Ibid. 142.  As to the meaning of these collective outpourings at the spectacle of others’ misfortunes, Anne Vincent-Buffault has hypothesized a “new relationship to the other governed by sensitive identification” (Buffault, Histoire des larmes, 43), which is similar to the “identity revolution” advanced by Gladys Swain (“Une logique,” 63). 143.  Règlement de vie, 95–96. Two years after Dr. Gleize, Louis-Sébastien Mercier bore witness to the cultivated public’s admiration for Haüy: “This group of poor wretches [the blind] owe much to the daily care of this able and beneficent teacher. Nothing is more touching than to see him in the midst of his students, to whom he seems to return a sense they lack by perfecting the others.” Mercier, “Aveugles,” in Tableau de Paris, book 12 (Amsterdam, 1789), 178–79. 144.  “From my letter of last May 14 until now, we have received a total of 24,594 livres [of which] 16,479 livres, 17 sous, 60 deniers are for the Blind Youth. Forty-six blind children received aid last year; sixty-two will receive in the course of this year.” “Bienfaisance,” Journal de Paris 36 (February 5, 1787): 158. 145.  This is from a fragment of a letter by Joachim-Henri Campe summarized and translated by a Mrs. Liessem from Cologne for Le Valentin Haüy 3 (March 1905): 21–22. 146. On June 29, 1787, at the Saint-Eustache Church (whose priest, we note in passing, was a member of the Philanthropic Society), there was a “festival as touching as it was majestic”: the confirmation and first communion of the Blind Youth, administered by “Monsignor the Archbishop of Paris.” At the end of the

   Notes ceremony, the women took up a collection for the benefit of the blind aided by the Philanthropic Society. According to the secretary of the society, the emotion provoked by this grand occasion was so intense that all the spectators, and there were quite a few of them, involuntarily found themselves with tears in their eyes.” “Bienfaisance. Lettre du Secrétaire de la Sociéte Philanthropique aux Auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 246 (August 26, 1787): 1072. In his Notice historique, Galliod says that after the ceremony, the Archbishop of Paris “permitted blind girls to sing in churches” and that “ever since, the blind have enjoyed this privilege.” Galliod, Notice historique, n.p. 147.  “Bienfaisance. Lettre du Secrétaire de la Sociéte Philanthropique aux Auteurs du Journal,” Journal de Paris 36 (February 5, 1787): 158. 148. Galliod, Notice historique, n.p. 149.  “Yes, we have the satisfaction of marrying our students when they complete their education,” Haüy wrote in 1800 in his Troisième note, “because the blind have as much and even more need than others of a confidant for their sorrows. Well! Who is more worthy of this ministry than a spouse? . . . The nature of our establishment is such that we teach young students on one side of a vast house, while on the other, we oversee workers. We make it our duty to continue to care for their interesting households, and often, we admire the order and neatness of a father and mother who are both blind while we wait for their young child, still at the breast, to cast his eyes on the authors of his days.” Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy, 14. 150. Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy,” 39. chapter 6 1.  Without counting the ten blind children raised in the infirmary. 2.  Because of the modest revenues of the hospice. 3.  The number three hundred can be broken down as follows: 165 blind brothers, 50 blind sisters, 10 blind children, 23 sighted brothers and 52 sighted sisters. Jean-Henri-Romain Prompsault (Abbé), ed., Les Quinze-Vingts. Notes et documents (Paris: Victor Sarlit, Libraire and Carpentras, Imprimerie de E. Rolland, 1863), 65. 4. Léon Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation jusqu’à leur translation au Faubourg Saint-Antoine (XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France, 1887), 140. 5. Ibid., 278. 6.  Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts, 54. 7. Ibid. Previously, the schoolmaster, who was one of the Quinze-Vingts priests, “had been employed to teach all the house’s children, of both sexes.”

Notes    8.  Archives XV–XX, 5877, fol. 188 (1714), cited in Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 83. 9. Decree of July 20, 1746, Archives XV–XX, 6461, cited in Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation. 10. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 85. 11.  Jean-François Georgel, Abbé, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des événements de la fin du dix-huitième siècle depuis 1760 jusqu’en 1806–1810 1, 485, cited in Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 85. 12.  Through this ordinance, Louis XVI had reduced his military in order to diminish their financial burden on his house. 13. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 88. 14. On this subject, Le Grand reminds us that the amount paid workers up until 1779 had risen to nearly 2.5 million livres, not counting the honoraria of the architect, inspector, designer, and storekeeper and the bonuses given the house’s officers when the work first began. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 86. 15.  Perpetually in debt, the cardinal was accused (rightly or wrongly) of having been bribed by the buyers, and the “Quinze-Vingts Affair,” in which the Duke de Chartres was also implicated, was the talk of the town for some time. 16. On this subject, Le Grand evokes the numerous authorizations the brothers received to go live in the provinces. The reason was as follows: these authorizations—which had to be renewed annually—multiplied at the end of the eighteenth century and gave rise in 1775 to a mostly well-founded chapter decision that recommended facilitating the mobility of all blind hospice members and not just the organists called upon to exercise their talent in various provincial cities. It should be emphasized that this arrangement took the hospital interests as much into account as the satisfaction of the blind, because in the latter’s absence, their rooms could be rented to outsiders. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 89, note 6, and 232. 17. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 89. 18. In any event, the treasury, considerably in debt at the time, seems to have been the primary beneficiary of this operation. 19.  Since there was insufficient space in the Musketeers’ chapel, the office of the Hôtel-Dieu authorized that the collected remains be deposed in the Quinze-Vingts cemetery and in a section of the church at the Clamart cemetery. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 88–89. 20.  There was, at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine site, as before in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, a place used as a prison for the recalcitrant and for delinquents (the principal crimes of which certain boarders were guilty were drunkenness, verbal and sometimes physical violence, and gambling, but also more serious offenses

   Notes such as theft or rape). See the master’s thesis of Yasmina Bentounsi and Olivier Maisondieu, “Les Quinze-Vingts dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle” (master’s thesis, Paris X-Nanterre, 1978), 176–97. Beginning in 1780, mendicancy was added to these different crimes. 21. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 151. 22.  Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts, 72. 23. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 151. 24.  The always is exaggerated: as we saw earlier, the first serious critiques in this regard date from well after the founding of the hospice. 25.  Archives XV–XX, 5889, fol. 95, cited in Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 150. 26.  François-Bernard Gilles, Parallèle de Napoléon Bonaparte et du Cardinal de Rohan sur les œuvres qu’ils ont pratiquées dans l’établissement royal de l’Hospice des Quinze-Vingts (Paris: the author, 1816), 5. 27.  “Ordinance of the Grand Almoner of 28 March 1781,” Archives XV–XX, 5889, fol. 146V and 6570, cited in Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 91; and Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts, 72. 28.  Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts, 72. 29. Ibid., 73. 30. It should not be forgotten that the old regulations provided for a certain number of sighted brothers and sisters among the full community of three hundred members. 31.  Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts, 74. 32. Ibid., 76. 33. In spite of the momentary advantages of an annuity from the treasury, the sale of the enclosure on the rue Saint-Honoré deprived the blind community of a part of the capital it had accumulated over the course of centuries thanks to the gifts and legacies of its benefactors as well as the alms-seeking and inheritances of its brothers and sisters. Selling the property in exchange for an annuity from the public treasury was thus tantamount to selling the freedom of the Quinze-Vingts and irremediably placing the community under state control. 34.  The Quinze-Vingts nonetheless kept the revenues from various annuities, rural properties, and rental properties that were added to the annuity of 250,000 livres the treasury was to pay them. 35. In the first of these reports, presented in 1788 to the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Royal Academy of Surgery, Tenon wrote on this subject: “Regarding the blind, it would be possible to gather together all those who are curable at the Quinze-Vingts and to treat them there. The site and the buildings lend themselves to this. Infirmaries have already been opened there [the construction of a new building for the infirmary where elderly and infirm blind brothers and sisters and the sick had been received since 1782 had indeed been decided upon in 1787],

Notes    so it would only be a matter of having suitable people at their disposal, to assign them an able Parisian surgeon, trained in the study of anatomy, surgery, and even optics. . . . In giving sight back to many poor people, he would also give them back their arms and would relieve the hospitals, for the blind should not be accepted into hospitals for invalids as permanent residents unless they have a certificate from oculists attesting to their incurability.” Jacques Tenon, “First Report,” in Mémoires sur les hôpitaux de Paris (Paris: Ph.-D. Pierres, 1788), 15–16. 36. Le Grand notes that the first mention of the blind in the admissions registries for Bicêtre only dates from July 26, 1711, and that in 1726, a special section was reserved for them, a certain Jacques Martinot having been admitted on March 4, 1726, “to be with the blind.” Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 309. As for La Salpêtrière, an inventory of 1657 mentions “fifteen poor blind women,” among 628 people locked away. Cited in Nadine Simon, La Pitié-Salpêtrière (n.p.: Editions de l’Arbre à images, 1986), 57. 37.  Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts, 74. 38. Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 338–41. Pièces justificatives, X, “Règlement de l’école des Quinze-Vingts” (6485), September 1, 1784. 39.  The oath of admission, required at this time as it had been beforehand of members entering the community, contained a clause concerning their participation “in Masses, services, and prayers sung in church” and the obligation to “go to confession at least six times per year.” The regularity with which the brothers and sisters attended Sunday Mass was controlled by the distribution of attendance tokens: at the end of Mass, the names of those in attendance were entered on a register and absentees had to pay a fine. Finally, an ordinance of June 2, 1783, reminded the brothers and sisters once again of their obligation to follow processions under penalty of a month’s house arrest in their rooms. 40.  Jean-Pierre Gutton, La Société et les pauvres en Europe (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974), 173. 41. Created in 1767 by a decision of the council on October 21, closed by Turgot in 1775 through a circular of November 21 that announced their reduction to five houses reserved for dangerous individuals, the dépôts de mendicité were reopened by Necker (who simultaneously created an archetype at Soissons) before receiving a new set of regulations in 1785. chapter 7 1. Catherine Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” Le Temps des philanthropes. La Philanthropie parisienne des Lumières à la monarchie de Juillet (Paris: Editions du CTHS, 1993), 1: 286. 2.  “Cérémonie,” Journal de Paris 243 (August 1789): 1097. 3.  Jean-Charles Levacher de Charnois himself came on October 3 to “pay homage” with a speech to the representatives of the Commune of Paris. See Sigismond

   Notes Lacroix, ed., Actes de la Commune de Paris pendant la Révolution 1 (Paris: Cerf & Noblet, 1894–1909), 460–61. 4. Ibid., 508–9. 5. Ibid., 509. 6. In 1786, Monsignor de Cicé, then archbishop of Bordeaux, had favored the creation of a school in that city to educate deaf-mutes according to the method taught by the Abbé de l’Epée. Its direction had been entrusted to the Abbé RocheAmbroise Sicard, then forty-four years old, who had been introduced to methodical sign language by the Abbé de l’Epée himself. 7.  Ferdinand Berthier, L’Abbé de l’Epée. Sa vie, son apostolat, ses travaux. Sa lutte et ses succès . . . (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1852), 57. 8.  A deputy from the nobility, two from the Third Estate, three from the clergy—including Jean-Baptiste Massieu, deputy of the clergy of the bailiwick of Senlis and future reporter of the decree nationalizing the establishment of the congenitally blind in September 1791. (According to Maryse Bégazu-Deluy, L’Abbé de l’Epée, instituteur gratuit des sourds et muets, 1712–1789 [Paris: Seghers, 1990], 256.) 9. Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” 32. 10. Claude Fauché, Oraison funèbre de Charles-Michel de l’Epée . . . (Paris: J.-R. Lottin de Saint-Germain, 1790), 29. 11.  Journal de la Municipalité, cited in Bézagu-Deluy, L’Abbé de l’Epée, 258. 12.  Bézagu-Deluy, L’Abbé de l’Epée, 262. 13.  The competition took place at the Chancellery before a prestigious jury, most of whose members had been proposed by Bailly: the Abbé Barthélemy and Kéralio, members of the Academy of Inscriptions and Letters; La Harpe and Marmontel, of the Académie Française; Condorcet and Leroy, of the Academy of Sciences; Liancourt, member of the Committee for the Suppression of Mendicancy (of which he was elected president on April 26); La Fayette, commander of the National Guard; Champion de Villeneuve and Brousse-Desfaucherets, members of the Commune of Paris, and, of course, Bailly, mayor of the city, and Champion de Cicé, Keeper of the Seal. (According to Alexis Karacostas, “L’Institution nationale des sourds-muets de Paris de 1790 à 1800. Histoire d’un corps à corps” [doctoral thesis in medicine, University of Paris, 1981], 27.) 14. Letter from Champion de Cicé to Bailly of March 19, 1790, cited by Karacostas, “L’Institution nationale des sourds-muets,” 50. In 1778, a decision by the King’s Council of State (to which we already alluded) had ordered payment “from the share of the free goods that the Celestine monasteries in the diocese of Paris owned thanks to the liberality of their predecessors . . . the sums deemed necessary either for the subsistence and upkeep of the indigent deaf and dumb or for any preparatory expense of the said establishment.” “Arrêt du Conseil portant qu’il sera établi à Paris une maison pour les sourds et muets” (Versailles, November 21, 1778), in Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises 25, ed. Jourdan, Isam-

Notes    bert, and Decrussy (Paris: Belin-Leprieur, 1826), 459–60. On March 25, 1785, a second “Arrêt du Conseil relatif à l’emplacement et aux revenus de la maison d’éducation et enseignement des sourds et muets” [“Judgment Concerning the Location and Revenues of the Home for Educating and Teaching the Deaf and Dumb”] had ordained that “the necessary allotments and compensation be immediately furnished to welcome the establishment of the deaf and dumb of both sexes in those buildings at the convent of the Celestines destined for their use and to provide a permanent hospice there for their education. . . . Cited by Karacostas, “L’Institution nationale des sourds-muets,” 50. However, according to Luc-Vincent Thiéry, around 1786, the buildings of the Celestines still housed a “temporary hospice where Messieurs Le Dur and son used electricity to treat different illnesses.” Thiéry, Guide des amateurs et des étrangers voyageurs à Paris (Paris: Hardouin and Gattey, 1786–87), 1: 663. In fact, neither of the council’s judgments were acted upon during the lifetime of the Abbé de l’Epée, who continued to teach from his home on the rue des Moulins, apparently at his own expense and thanks to the support of various benefactors. In 1790, the buildings of the Celestines were partly transformed into barracks. 15. District of Saint-Jacques-l’Hôpital, “Assemblé générale. Messe des enfans aveugles, en action de grâce des vues du District pour étendre leur institution” (March 22, 1790). Extrait du procès-verbal constatant cette cérémonie étant au deuxième régistres [sic] des délibérations du District (Paris: Imprimerie du Postillon, n.d.), 1. 16.  The University, the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Royal Academy of Music. 17. District de Saint-Jacques-l’Hôpital, “Assemblée générale,” 4. 18.  Programme des exercices que soutiendront les enfans-aveugles, le Jeudi 25 mars 1790, à midi précis, en la Salle d’Assemblée de la Commune de la Ville de Paris (n.p., n.d.), 1. 19. District de Saint-Jacques-l’Hôpital, “Assemblée générale,” 2–3; Karacostas, “L’Institution nationale des sourds-muets,” 37, 56, note 1. 20. On this subject, see Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” 406–7. 21. In the name of its Committees on Mendicancy, on the Sale of National Property, on Finance, and on the Constitution. 22.  “Décret sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets de naissance” (July 21, 1791), in Procès-Verbaux et Rapports du Comité de mendicité de la Constituante 1790–1791, ed. Camille Bloch and Alexandre Tuetey (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1911), 744–45. 23.  Whose name one assembly member said should be “placed alongside those of the citizens most worthy of humanity and country,” a proposition adopted by the assembly that was the subject of the first article of the decree of July 21. See Pierre-Louis Prieur, “Rapport sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets

   Notes de naissance, fait au nom des Comités de l’extinction de la mendicité, d’aliénation des biens nationaux, des finances et de constitution,” in Académie Royal des Sciences, Procès-Verbaux, 744. 24.  Académie Royal des Sciences, Procès-Verbaux, 741. 25. Ibid., 739. This had not been a preoccupation of the Abbé de l’Epée, who, in his writings, mentioned it only in passing. 26.  Académie Royal des Sciences, Procès-Verbaux, 739. 27. Ibid., 742–43. On this subject, it should be emphasized that the two deputies charged by the assembly with reporting on the establishments for the deaf and dumb and for the congenitally blind were two of the four commissioners of the Committee on Mendicancy, and that, if they presented their reports in the name of the Committees on the Sale of National Property, of Finance, and of the Constitution (all charged by the Constituent Assembly with studying problems of public instruction), they were primarily acting in the name of the former, which was responsible for questions of public assistance. 28.  “Décret sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets,” article 4, no. 1. 29. Namely: a principal teacher, a second, two adjuncts, a bursar, a writing teacher, two tutors for the boys and two headmistresses for the girls. 30.  “Décret sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets,” article 4, no. 2. 31.  “Rapport sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets,” in Académie Royal des Sciences, Procès-Verbaux, 739. 32. Ibid., 742. 33.  “The deaf-mute, through his sense of sight alone, is capable of learning from anything conveyed through mimicking or signs,” whereas “the perfectibility of touch in blind people allows them to replace, so to speak, their eyes with their fingers.” Jean-Baptiste Massieu, “Rapport sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets de naissance, fait au nom des Comités de l’extinction de la mendicité, d’aliénation des biens nationaux, des finances et de constitution,” in Académie Royal des Sciences, Procès-Verbaux, 753. 34.  A man [Haüy] whose name deserves to be placed alongside that of Monsieur de l’Epée and Monsieur Sicard and whose virtues and talents will pass to posterity, has done for the blind what the latter did for the deaf . . . : he has instructed them first in knowledge that is indispensable for communication with one’s fellow man and with the Supreme Being . . . and, second, he has given them the means to escape indigence through work, through the knowledge of some of the fine arts, and especially through the resources of the mechanical arts.” Massieu, “Rapport sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets,” 753. 35.  Massieu, “Rapport sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets,” 755.

Notes    36. Ibid., 756. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39.  A half-scientific, half-political society that was a continuation of the Masonic lodge of the same name and to which both Haüy and Sicard belonged. 40.  “Compte rendu de la séance publique de la Société Nationale des Neuf Sœurs du 21 juillet 1791,” in Tribut de la Société nationale des Neuf Sœurs, ou Recueil des mémoires sur les sciences, belles-lettres et arts et d’autres pièces lues dans les séances de cette société (August 14, 1791) (Paris: L’Imprimerie des Neuf Sœurs), 142. Volume includes reports for July 14 through October 1791. 41. During the course of the session reported by the Tribut de la Société des Neufs Sœurs there was, in addition to the demonstration by the deaf-mute and the blind youth, that of “a young handless child [writing] with a pen held in his mouth, thus [making up] for what he lacked in order to dialogue with people not present or with the blind and the deaf.” “Compte rendu de la séance publique,” 142. Whether he attended this session or no, Massieu was clearly influenced by the success of the experiments with communication between the deaf and blind that Sicard had been conducting for some time and that he presented before the Society of the Nine Sisters on September 27, 1791, the eve of Massieu’s report to the National Assembly. Sicard, “Exposé succinct de quelques nouveaux procédés pour faciliter la communication de la pensée entre les sourds-muets et les aveugles-nés,” Tribut de la Société des Neufs Sœurs (October 14, 1791): 281. We note in passing that in this paper, Sicard claimed to be the first to have overcome the barrier erected by nature between the deaf and the blind, which was his way of eclipsing both the Abbé de l’Epée and Haüy at once. 42. Dominique Julia, Les Trois couleurs du tableau noir. La Révolution (Paris: Editions Belin, 1981), 223. 43.  “Rapport sur l’établissement des aveugles-nés,” Procès-Verbaux, 757. 44. National Assembly, “Décret du 28 septembre 1791 sur la réunion des aveugles et des sourds-muets, la dotation du nouvel établissement, le personnel et les traitements,” article 2, Archives Parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 31 (Paris, 1888): 532. “Première série” includes 1787–89. 45.  “Rapport sur l’établissement des aveugles-nés,” Procès-Verbaux, 757. 46.  “Rapport sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets de naissance,” Procès-Verbaux, 742. 47. Gladys Swain, “Une logique de l’inclusion: les infirmes du signe,” Esprit 5 (1982): 68. 48. Ibid. 49.  Prieur and Massieu expected, for example, that the Parisian institutes would train specialized teachers with a view to new foundations “all across France.” But no new national institute would be created for a long time. The convention saw

   Notes only saw to the nationalization of Bordeaux’s Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, which had been founded under the Ancien Régime. 50.  “Décret du 28 September 1791,” article 5, Archives parlementaires, 532. This article of the September 28 decree also contained a clause whose importance has been stressed by Pierre Henri: “The Blind Youth were preferably only to be given spots that their disability and talents permitted them to fill.” This arrangement gave a legal basis to the teaching of the blind by the blind and would be taken up by the convention in the “Law of 10 Thermidor Year III Concerning the Organization of an Establishment for Blind Workers,” which we will examine further on and which is still in effect. See Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Valentin Haüy (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1984), 89–90. 51.  “Décret du 28 septembre 1791,” article 5, Archives parlementaires, 532. 52.  Règlemens pour l’établissement des sourds-muets et des aveugles-nés fondé par les Décrets du 21 juillet et du 28 septembre 1791, title 2, article V (Paris: L’Imprimerie de l’Institution des Sourds-Muets, 1792), 5. 53. Ibid., article VI, 6. 54. Ibid., article VII, 7. 55. Letter by Haüy to an—unfortunately—unnamed recipient, January 28, 1792. Hédé-Haüy Archives. Typescript preserved at the BVH. 56.  Sicard was an unsworn priest, while Haüy became an important figure in the Arsenal section: he was secretary of the primary assembly in 1792, before becoming civil commissioner and then revolutionary commissioner of the section, one of the most active in Paris. The popular society of Sans-Culottes of both sexes, called the Social Harmony, to which Haüy and some of his students belonged, was founded there on July 17, 1793. See Raymonde Monnier, “Section de l’Arsenal” and “Valentin Haüy,” in Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, ed. Albert Soboul (Paris: PUF, 1989), 43, 536. 57.  For more details on the cohabitation at the Celestines, and especially on the role Haüy supposedly played in the arrest and then the keeping of Sicard behind bars on the eve of the September massacres—or rather on his release—refer to Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Valentin Haüy, 86–96; Karacostas, “L’Institution nationale des sourds-muets,” 62–82; A. L’Esprit, “Valentin Haüy. Instituteur des aveugles et théophilanthrope, son séjour dans nos quartiers,” La Cité, bulletin trimestriel de la Société Historique et Archéologique du IVe arrondissement 16 (1917); and, finally, Ferdinand Berthier, L’Abbé Sicard, célèbre instituteur des sourdsmuets . . . (Paris: Charles Douniol, 1873), chaps. 2–6. For our part, given the numerous uncertainties and contradictions surrounding the whole affair—from Sicard’s arrest and imprisonment from August 26 to September 4, 1792, until Haüy’s arrest and then Sicard’s exoneration in Prairial and then Fructidor of Year III, we find it impossible to decide in favor of one or the other protagonist. We can be certain only of their reciprocal hatred, which

Notes    is what makes us doubt both of their testimonies. As for the biographers of the two men, they have a tendency to take the side of their hero. Without irrefutable “proof,” of Haüy’s guilt or of Sicard’s bad faith, we will stick to the prudence such cases require, neither minimizing Haüy’s active participation in the Arsenal section nor the Jacobin convictions he consistently displayed through the end of the revolutionary period (and which cost him his career after the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire). Nor will we ignore that “ordinary duplicity” of Sicard, whom François Picard reminds us, in his work on the Ideologues, had a “checkered and not easily defined philosophical career.” On this subject, Picavet recounts that “after Thermidor, a book had been found among the papers of Couthon on whose first page he [Sicard] had written a compromising dedication [that] Lakanal tore up, thus saving Sicard, whom he then hired to teach ‘The Art of Speech’ at the Ecoles Normales.” See Picavet, Les Idéologues. Essais sur l’histoire des idées et des théories scientifiques, philosophiques et religieuses, etc., etc. en France depuis 1789 (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1891), 501, 504. 58.  “The essential goal of the two institutions being that of procuring for all students, in addition to a moral education, the means of finding, through industriousness, a way to do without outside help and live off the fruits of their labor, the teachers, masters, and bursar must never forget that it is toward this general usefulness that all their care and attention should be directed.” Règles pour l’établissement des sourds-muets et des aveugles-nés, title 3, article I, 8–9. 59.  “Rapport sur l’établissement de l’Institution des sourds-muets de naissance,” Procès-Verbaux, 740, 742. 60.  Règlemens pour l’établissement, title 2, article II, 4. 61. Ibid., article IX, 7. 62. Ibid., title 3, article I, 8–9. 63. Ibid., article XIX, 15. 64. Ibid., title 2, article III, 4–5. 65. Ibid., title 3, article XIII, 13–14. 66.  “You will see, Sir, the pleasure [emphasis ours] your students will take in these activities. Remember that you can not teach them unless you amuse them [emphasis ours].” Letter of the Abbé de l’Epée to the Abbé Sicard, December 20, 178?, cited in Berthier, L’Abbé Sicard, 212, note G. In recommending educating through play, the Abbé de l’Epée showed himself to be faithful to the principles of Locke and numerous other pedagogues of the eighteenth century, who were themselves heirs to Erasmian humanism. 67.  Règlemens pour l’établissement, title 3, article XVI, 14. 68. Ibid., 15. 69.  Valentin Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy sur l’éducation des aveugles,” in Mémoires lus dans la séance publique du Bureau Académique d’Ecriture . . . le 18 novembre, 1784 (Paris: Imprimerie d’Houry, 1784), 45.

   Notes 70.  Règlemens pour l’établissement, title 3, article XVIII, 15. 71.  To the difficulties due to the state of public finances was added the fact that the Quinze-Vingts, who were themselves going through a particularly troubled period with respect to their administrative functioning, refused to pay the Institute for Blind Youth the subsidy foreseen by the September 1791 decree. 72. Letter of Haüy, January 28, 1792. See note 55. 73.  “Institut des Aveugles Travailleurs,” item 233, “Enquête faite par le Comité des secours publics sur l’Etablissement des Aveugles Travailleurs (Novembre 14, 19, 1791), in L’Assistance publique à Paris pendant la Révolution, vol. 2, Les Ateliers de charité et de filature, 1791–an IV, ed. Alexandre Tuetey (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1897), 349. (Excerpt from the Procès-Verbaux du Comité des secours publics, A.N., AF *II 39, folio 11 v). 74.  For example, that of a German visitor, Gerhard-Anton von Halem, judge at the tribunal of Oldenburg, who visited the Institute for Blind Youth in 1790: “Yesterday, . . . we attended an examination that Mr. Haüy gives two times a week at his school for the blind. On terraced benches were seated about fourteen blind students, men and women of different ages, with green visors over their eyes. Haüy has exactly the style and countenance of a tooth puller [emphasis added]. His blind students do not content themselves with learning; they even become teachers of the sighted. The ‘blind professors,’ as they are called, come forward to deploy their savoir-faire. Two beautiful little boys were at hand. The blind gave them, in appearance [emphasis ours], lessons in reading, arithmetic, and geography. They have books with letters in relief. While the sighted boys read a passage from their book printed in ordinary characters, the blind followed with their hands and corrected them when they read badly. Occasionally, Mr. Haüy, to test the blind students, had the little boys skip a few pages and continue reading. . . . Then a blind student came forward to recite an ode, we were told, of his own composition [emphasis added]. Its subject was the condition of the blind and their happiness at the school. It is printed in the in-quarto volume that Haüy published on his institution.” Gérard-Antoine de Halem, Paris en 1790, ed. and trans. Arthur Chuquet (Paris: Léon Chailley, 1896), 280–81. 75.  While the students seemed capable of holding forth on the most lofty subjects and of answering the most difficult questions, in reality, they wrote through dictation solutions and arguments that the Abbé de l’Epée conveyed to them using signs: “Do not hope [wrote the Abbé to Sicard on November 25, 1785] that [your students] will ever write down their own ideas. Our language is not theirs; it is one of signs. Let it suffice that they are able to translate ours with theirs, as we ourselves translate foreign languages without thinking or expressing ourselves in those languages. Is it not fame enough for you to share in mine? And what need you in order to obtain it? That your students know, like mine, how to take dictation from signs.” Roche-Ambroise Sicard, Cours d’instruction d’un sourd-muet de

Notes    naissance. Et qui peut être utile à l’éducation de ceux qui entendent et qui parlent . . . , 2nd ed. (Paris: Le Clerc, Year XI-1803), 483–84. 76.  “Pétition à l’Assemblée législative en faveur des aveugles,” in Procès-Verbaux du Comité d’Instruction Publique de l’Assemblée législatives, ed. James Guillaume (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1889), appendix A, op. 314. In the margins of the petition is the following annotation: “Sent to the Committees of Public Welfare and Instruction to complete the report within three days on August 19, 1792, Fourth Year of Liberty.” 77.  Sicard, “Discours préliminaire,” in Cours d’instruction d’un sourd-muet de naissance . . . (Paris: Le Clerc, Year VIII), vi–ix, xi–xiv. 78.  Picavet, Les Idéologues, 504. 79.  Archives XV–XX, B 109–6715, Dossier Haüy. According to this document, the “classes of the clearsighted” were what brought in the most money after the printworks. This summary also informs us that in 1792, the number of blind students in the establishment totaled twenty-seven: eight tutors (six men and two women) and nineteen students (eleven boys and eight girls)—which is quite little for a “national” establishment but which was a lot with respect to the resources at Haüy’s disposal. 80.  Jean-François Galliod, Notice historique sur l’établissement des jeunes aveugles (Paris: Quinze-Vingts, 1828), unpaginated. During the sojourn at the Celestines, the printing house was competently run by Lesueur, which earned him the honor of becoming the institute’s bursar after the departure of the deaf-mutes. chapter 8 1.  The main purpose of the hospital of Saint Catherine, run by the nuns of the order of Saint Augustine, was “to lodge and feed poor women and girls,” to whom they offered hospitality “for three days or more.” Under the ancien régime, the “Catherinettes” were also responsible “for enshrouding and burying drowned persons or those who died in the streets of Paris and in prisons.” Luc-Vincent Thiéry, Guide des amateurs et des étrangers voyageurs à Paris (Paris: Hardouin and Gattey, 1786–87), 1: 495. 2.  Which appears in official texts beginning in 1793. 3.  “Report to the Committee of Public Assistance declaring that the Institute for Blind Workers must be considered a charitable establishment and receive allocations from the Commission.” 2 Floréal Year II, in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique à Paris pendant la Révolution, 2: 350–51, item 235 (original draft A.N. F15 2569). 4.  Attested to, for instance, by the “Petition of the National Institute for Blind Workers to the National Convention,” placed at the head of the Rapport et projet de décret sur l’organisation définitive de l’établissement fondé à Paris pour les aveugles travailleurs, presented to the National Convention on 25 Prairial Year III (June 14,

   Notes 1795) by Merlino, deputy from the department of Ain: “If there is a class of citizens on whom the scarcity of food and excessive cost of foodstuffs weighs even more heavily, it is those who, at once deprived of the resources of fortune and of one of the organs most necessary to the reparation of this privation, cannot find sufficient succor in the product of work too hindered by circumstances, however assiduous it may be. . . . Today this scourge is at its height. In vain have the unhappy victims of destiny sought in excessive work a means of wresting themselves from the horrors of starvation. Extenuated by food that is as poor as it is insufficient, in vain have need and courage commanded work: their arms can no longer move: two of them have just paid nature its tribute. Two more are on the eve of perhaps dying in hospitals; the rest languish at the institute where nothing but illness awaits them . . . Signed Gersin and Haüy.” 5.  The Declaration of the Rights of Man that preceded the Constitution of Year I (June 24, 1794) proclaimed the right of all to subsistence and instruction: Article 21: Public assistance is a sacred debt. Society owes a living to unfortunate citizens, either by procuring them work or by assuring those who cannot work a means of existence. Article 22: Instruction is everyone’s need. Society must with all its power favor the progress of public reason and make instruction within every citizen’s reach. Furthermore, as soon as the Institute for the Blind once again had its autonomy, Haüy, who fully adhered to the social program of the Montagnards, had an inset printed at the top of all his establishment’s official papers that read “National Institute for Blind Workers, at the Corner of the rue Denis and rue des Lombards,” under which was a box containing the following inscription from article 123 of the Constitution: “Society owes them succor, instruction, and work. The Republic honors their misfortune.” 6. Haüy to a member of the Commission of Public Assistance, “to clear himself of certain charges of which he was the object,” 25 Nivôse Year III, in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 358–59, item 241 (original draft A.N. F15 2569). 7.  Loi relative à l’organisation d’un établissement institué pour les aveugles travailleurs, 10 Thermidor Year III of the Republic, article 5. 8. Ibid., article 1. 9. Ibid., article 3. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., article 8. 12. Ibid., article 10. 13.  “Report to the Committee of Public Assistance,” in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 350–51.

Notes    14.  Pierre-Claude-François Daunou, Décret sur l’organisation de l’instruction publique, Le Moniteur, 18 Brumaire Year IV (October 25, 1795): 131, cited in James Guillaume, ed., Procès-Verbaux du Comité d’Instruction Publique de la Convention Nationale, 6, 158th session, Appendix, 811. 15. In article 4 of his Essai sur la constitution et les fonctions des assemblées provinciales (n.p., 1788), 2: 215–16, written four years before his report on public instruction, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, had, however, evoked “the teaching of blind and mute children,” which he placed in the remit of “public establishments” but under the heading “aid to be given to the poor.” In the text—which mentions the profit establishments for the blind and for deaf-mutes could make from the work of students—we find the outline of the various legislative measures successively taken by revolutionary assemblies with regard to such establishments. 16. Maurice Gontard, L’Enseignement primaire en France de la Révolution à la loi Guizot (1789–1833). Annales de l’Université de Lyon (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959), 154. 17.  10 Vendémiaire Year IV: “Allocations of the Ministry of the Interior: . . . Civil hospitals and charitable establishments and workshops . . . , extracted from Décret sur l’organisation du ministère, article 4, Législation charitable (1790–1842), ed. Baron Ad. de Watteville (Paris: Cotillon, 1863), 1: 39–40. 18.  “Report of the Commission of Public Assistance, proposing to make the national treasury pay a sum of 403 livres, 15 sols to supplement the pension of the nineteen students of the Institute for Blind Workers.” 6 Fructidor Year III. Published in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 365, item 246 (original signed draft A.N. F15 2569). 19.  16 Vendémiaire Year V: “Law allowing civil hospices to continue to profit from their property,” article 4, “Existing establishments destined for the blind and for the deaf and dumb will continue to be funded by the national treasury.” Législation charitable, 1: 41. 20. Haüy to the Minister of the Interior, 12 Prairial Year V (May 31, 1797), A.N. F15 2569. 21.  An extremely detailed account of this quite eventful episode of Haüy’s life can be found in A. L’Esprit, “Valentin Haüy, instituteur des aveugles et théophilanthrope. Son séjour dans nos quartiers,” La Cité. Bulletin trimestriel de la Société Historique et Archéologique du quatrième arrondissement de Paris 16 (1917): 279–91. 22. Haüy to the Commission of Public Assistance, 26 Thermidor Year III, in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 364, item 245 (signed original A.N. F15 2569). 23. Letter from the students of the institute . . . to Mr. Dernieau [member of the Commission of Public Assistance], “requesting that he summon the second

   Notes teacher of the house to their assembly,” 9 Fructidor Year III. Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 366, item 247. 24.  Jean-Denis Avisse, son of a Parisian tavern-keeper, had started off a cabin boy on a slave-trade ship at fifteen. After a first crossing without incident, he went on a second voyage during which he contracted an eye disease “off the coasts of Africa.” His biographer—and former student—Delpierre du Tremblay, speaks of a “gust of wind.” Trachoma? Gonococcal opthalmia? Whatever the true cause and despite months of “very badly administered treatments,” Avisse became completely blind at eighteen years old. See Delpierre du Tremblay, “Vie d’Avisse, professeur de grammaire et de logique à l’Institut des Aveugles-travailleurs,” in Œuvres d’Avisse (Paris: L’Imprimerie du Lycée des Aveugles, n.d.), 1–14. 25.  “Letter of Sire Avisse, grammar tutor at the Institute for Blind Workers, criticizing this establishment,” 11 Fructidor Year III. Published in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, document 249, 2: 368–69, item 249 (signed original A.N. F15 2569). 26. Haüy, “National Teacher of Blind Workers to Dernieau,” 14 Fructidor Year III, in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 368–69, item 249 (signed original A.N. F15 2569). 27.  “Petition of the blind of the Institute for the Blind to the National Assembly,” Parlementary Archives, September 9, 1792, cited in L’Esprit, “Valentin Haüy,” 263–66. In fact, following what had been the case for the external pensioners of the Quinze-Vingts, the petition’s signatories—some of whom would also sign the petition of 9 Fructidor Year III—hoped to obtain authorization to leave the institute while continuing to receive the pension accorded them by the decree of September 28, 1791. It is obviously hard to know if these blind people were convinced of what they were writing at the time—be it out of disenchantment or an internalization of certain traditional representations of inabilities inherent to blindness—or if they used the argument of the blind’s unfitness to work to get what they wanted more easily. 28.  Jean-François Galliod, Notice historique sur l’établissement des jeunes aveugles (Paris, Quinze-Vingts, 1828), unpaginated. 29.  Avisse, Œuvres, 17. 30.  A text from the same period, cited by Alfred Soboul, also testifies to functionaries’ grievances over the impact of the monetary crisis on wages: “There is not a convict, a prisoner, or a condemned man who does not cost the government more than four times the salary of one of our bureau chiefs. Their salary has been reduced to 6 livres, 2 sous, 8 deniers a day. The imperative to provide for their own subsistence long ago obliged them to sell their furnishings and other belongings necessary to a man’s life. They have recourse to the bread distributed only to the indigent. See Soboul, Histoire de la Révolution française (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), 2: 213–14. If it is legitimate to suspect the relevance of the comparison—prisoners at the time were dying of cold, hunger, and illness in the depots and jails—it is true

Notes    that the winter of Year IV was terrible for wage-earners, who were overcome by the monetary devaluation and the spike in prices. 31. Haüy to the Minister of the French Republic responsible for the Department of the Interior, 7 Thermidor Year IV. A.N. F15 2569. 32. Haüy to the Minister of the Interior, 12 Prairial Year V (May 3, 1797–98). A.N. F15 2569. 33.  Avisse, Œuvres, 23. In reality, this new petition is not dated, but given that Nicolas-Louis-François de Neufchâteau was a director only from September 8, 1797, to May 15, 1798, we can be certain it was written during the winter of 1797–98. 34. Galliod, Notice historique, unpaginated. 35.  “We have been incriminated for having brought within the reach of those who showed a disposition for the liberal arts reading, writing, calculation, geography, languages, poetry, even printing for the blind, and especially music [emphasis ours]. It is principally the enjoyment of this last talent that people have endeavored to suppress. Well! Experience has shown that it was for them a means of existence and a consolation. Haüy, Troisième note du citoyen Haüy, auteur de la Manière d’instruire les aveugles ou court exposé de la naissance des progrès et de l’état actuel de l’Institut national des aveugles-travailleurs au 19 brumaire an IX de la République française [November 10, 1800] entremêlée de quelques observations relatives à cet établissement (Paris: Imprimerie des Aveugles-Travailleurs, 1800), 14–15. 36.  A tradition Haüy explicitly referred to in a letter to the Directors of 5 Pluviôse Year IV (January 24, 1796). 37. In the colleges, this tradition had fallen into disuse at the end of the eighteenth century to make room for the practice of public exercises. 38. Haüy to the “Citizen Directors,” 5 Pluviôse Year IV, A.N. F15 2569. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Haüy to “the representatives of the People composing the Executive Directory of the French Republic,” A. N. FIII 45. Typed copy from the Bibliothèque Valentin Haüy. According to the printed “program note” attached to Haüy’s invitation, the session of “Septidi, 27 Thermidor Year IV . . . at five in the afternoon” was tripartite: “1st Work, 2nd Literary gathering, 3rd First performance of the Sage of Indostan.” It is specified that “five blind people had roles” in the play. 42.  A poet and dramaturge from Languedoc reputed for his philological works, Fabre d’Olivet was concerned, as were many of his contemporaries, with “going back to the first principles of speech.” He had especially devoted himself to the study of the Hebraic language “as one whose grammatical principles would most likely lead to these unknown origins.” After his death, his best-known work— which revealed religious preoccupations bearing the stamp of Illuminism—remained The Hebraic Tongue Restored and the True Meaning of the Hebrew Words

   Notes Re-Established and Proved by their Radical Analysis. It is divided into two parts, the first of which is specifically a dissertation on the origin of speech. This philologist-philanthropist, who had studied medicine in his youth as an autodidact, would later successfully undertake the demutization of several deaf-mutes. See the “Notice sur la vie et les œuvres de Fabre d’Olivet” appended to his Le Sage de l’Indostan. Philosophical drama . . . (Paris: Dorbon Libraire, 1894); and Léon Cellier, Fabre d’Olivet, Contribution à l’étude des aspects religieux du romantisme (Paris: Libraire Nizet, 1953). 43.  Fabre d’Olivet, dedicatory letter to Valentin Haüy, in Le Sage de l’Indostan. Philosophical verse drama in one act with musical choruses. Performed at the National Institute for Blind Workers by the blind themselves in Thermidor, Year IV. (Paris: Imprimerie des Aveugles-Travailleurs . . . and Dufy, 1796), 5. 44. Enthusiastic about Delisle de Sales’s La Philosophie de la Nature, which he had just discovered, Fabre d’Olivet put words in the mouth of his Sage that were directly inspired by the ideas of that philosopher who, moreover, attended the performance. On this subject, see Cellier, Fabre d’Olivet, 54–55. 45.  See the biographical notice preceding the 1894 edition of d’Olivet, Le Sage de l’Indostan, 34. 46.  The legend according to which Belisarius (ca. 490–565), general-in-chief of Emperor Justinian, fell out of grace with his sovereign and, on the latter’s order, was punished with blindness before being imprisoned and then released and reduced to mendicancy, was circulated in the twelfth century by the Greek monk Johannes Tzetzes. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries the legend became a recurrent theme in European literature that painters seized upon as well. In 1767, Jean-François Marmontel’s Belisarius, a pedagogical novel whose success in France and abroad was considerable, marked a turning point in the diffusion of this legend that inspired painters anew (in particular, Jean-Louis David in 1781 and 1784 and François Gérard in 1795) but also numerous dramaturges and composers of operas. In 1796—the very year of the creation of The Sage of Indostan— an opera by Dartigny and François-André Danican Philidor based on Marmontel’s novel performed on the stage of the Opéra-Comique achieved a great success echoed in the Décade Philosophique. Again under the Directory, in 1798, a romance on the theme of Belisarius (words by Népomucène Lemercier and music by Pierre-Jean Garat) made many sensitive souls shed tears. See the article “Belisaire” in Pierre Larousse’s Grand Dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle 2, 499–500; Robert Granderoute’s introduction and bibliography to his annotated edition of Marmontel, Bélisaire (Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes, 1994), 1–lxxvii; La Décade philosophique, littéraire et politique, Year V, first trimester, 106; Michael Fried, Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980), 147–60, 232–38; Visages mythiques de la cécité: de l’antiquité au Moyen Age. Voir (barré) 5 (October 1992): 18–20.

Notes    47. In “Suzanne,” published posthumously as were most of his poems, André Chénier also drew a connection between Milton’s blindness and poetic inspiration: “Words of delight or words of fear / At the lips of Milton ever budding / Great blind man whose soul could see so many things.” André Chénier, “Suzanne,” Poésies, ed. Louis Becq de Fouquières (2nd edition, 1872; Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 388. 48. Here Fabre d’Olivet returns to a tradition dear to neoclassical French literature and painting that made Homer a wretched wandering bard, abandoned by his people. This tradition is notably illustrated by Chénier’s L’Aveugle and by two unfinished drawings by David, usually dated to the autumn of 1794: Homer Asleep and Homer Reciting his Verses to the Greeks, which were studies for a history painting about Homer whose theme may have been inspired by Chénier, who was quite close to young David throughout the 1780s. See Fried, Absorption and Theatricality, 175–78, 241–42 (notes 6 and 7). 49.  “ . . . éclairé, sage, vaillant, humain . . . / Un peuple des beaux-arts généreux protecteur, / Qui par de justes lois honore le malheur.” D’Olivet, Le Sage de l’Indostan, 46. 50.  D’Olivet, Le Sage de l’Indostan, 46. 51.  “Eclaira leur raison, et, dans leurs mains savantes, / Sut remplacer des yeux les clartés bienfaisantes.” D’Olivet, Le Sage de l’Indostan, 46. 52.  “O vous dont le cœur est sensible, / Venez contempler nos travaux. / Voyez au milieu de nos maux, / Ce que l’étude rend possible.” D’Olivet, Le Sage de l’Indostan, 46. 53. Cellier, Fabre d’Olivet, 54. 54. In his letter of 5 Pluviôse Year IV (January 24, 1796) asking the directors to grant him “an assortment of theatrical decorations from the small apartments of Versailles and its outbuildings,” Haüy recalled the participation of his students in the revolutionary festivals: “In the public festivals we saw them suspend work at their workshops and come to add their voices to those of the musician-artists. The nature of their harmony was such that sometimes it served to inflame young Citizens to defend the country, sometimes to soften hearts that the spectacle of the scaffolds had appeared to harden. How many times, in moments of trouble and discord, did the words of their patriotic choruses exalt the sweetness of concord and union.” Letter of Haüy to the Citizen-Directors, A.N. F15 2569. 55.  “The ideal teacher is the very incarnation of this unity: he must at once teach students to read and to write and participate actively in the organization of civic festivals, make daily use at school of elementary books, indispensable tools of instruction, and, every Decadi, read to the assembled adult residents the patriotic almanac and civic catechism, which enrich the mind even as they touch the heart.” Bronislaw Baczcko, “Instruction publique,” Dictionnaire critique de la

   Notes Révolution française, Institutions et Créations (Paris: Champs/Flammarion, 1992), 3: 280. 56. Haüy, “National Teacher-in-Chief of the Blind,” to the Minister of Interior, 7 Thermidor Year IV. A.N. F15 2569. 57.  The theme of the play is as follows: in order to give his daughter in marriage to Périn, Dolfon, father of Lise, demands of the young man the sum of a thousand ecus. Périn, who has spent his savings to come to the aid of Clermont, a poor elderly man whose son is blind, cannot meet Dolfon’s demands. He thus invents a strategy that will enable him to obtain the required sum from his own father, Durban, who lives in the provinces: he writes him that a British oculist has restored sight to one of his eyes but that in order to operate on the other, he needs one thousand ecus. Delighted and full of hope, Durban sends the money. Dolfon gives Lise in marriage to Périn. Enter Durban, who has undertaken the trip in order to attend his son’s operation. Confusion of Périn, furor of Durban. The “drama” is resolved by the arrival of Clermont, who reveals the young man’s generosity to those in attendance. 58.  “mais si jamais garçon / Veut m’épouser, vraiment? Je ne dirais pas non: / Plus d’un m’a déjà dit que j’étais fort gentille; Et puis c’est ennuyeux de rester toujours fille! / Celle qui se marie, au moins, a des enfans: Elle joue avec eux: cela passe le tems: / On l’appelle maman, on la caresse, on l’aime: / Si j’étais maman, moi, ce serait tout de même.” C. Avisse (words) and C. Mathieu (music), La Ruse d’aveugle, “one-act verse comedy with ariettes, staged for the first time on 2 Nivôse, Year V of the Republic on the stage of the Theater of Beneficence, 34 rue Denis, at the corner of the rue des Lombards. Printed by and sold to benefit the Blind Workers” (Paris: Year V/1797), in Avisse, Œuvres, 111–12. 59.  Avisse, Œuvres, 116. 60.  “C’est, ma Justine, / Ce charmant velouté d’une peau fraîche et fine: / Ces contours gracieux, si doux à parcourir: / Ces chairs qui sous nos doigts refusent de fléchir: / Un front jeune et poli par les grâces légères: / Deux grands sourcils arqués et de longues paupières: / Une bouche mignonne, une joue où les ris / Semblent pour les amours former deux jolis nids.” Avisse, Œuvres, 116. 61. Denis Diderot, Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who See, in Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and Other Philosophical Works, trans. David Adams and Margaret Jourdain (Manchester, UK: Clinamen Press, 1999), 134. 62. Elisabeth de Fontenay, Diderot ou le matérialisme enchanté (Paris: Grasset, 1981). 63. M. Vimont, Pendant la Révolution, vol. 2, Histoire de la rue Saint-Denis de ses origines à nos jours (Paris: Les Presses Modernes, 1936), 328–29. French titles of the plays are as follows: L’Ecole des maris; Crispin rival de son maître; Nanine; Philoctète; L’Intendant comédien; L’Amant auteur et valet; L’Amant bourru; Les Etourdis; La Fête de Campagne; Jérôme Pointa; and Pygmalion [translator’s note].

Notes    64.  As an example, we cite Cassandra the oculist, or the oculist, dupe of her own art (Cassandra oculiste, ou l’oculiste dupe de son art), “comedy-parade in one act with vaudevilles, performed for the first time in Paris on May 30, 1780, by the Italian Comedians of the King”; The Blind Man from Spa, a comedy published in Paris the same year in a collection called Theater for Young People [Theâtre à l’usage des jeunes personnes]; The False Blind Man-The Blind Seer [Il finto cieco-L’Aveugle clairvoyant], a comic opera in two acts performed in Monsieur’s theater in August of 1791; Le conteur ou les deux postes, a “prose comedy in three acts by L.-B. Picard, first performed at the Théâtre de la République on 22 Fructidor Year II (September 8, 1794).” 65.  Sophie Fruchard, the blind wife of Jean-François Galliod, himself a musician and future author of the Notice historique, cited several times in this book. 66.  Avisse, “L’Atelier des Aveugles-Travailleurs. Scène,” in Œuvres, 64. 67. Ibid. 68.  Joseph Guadet, “Les Aveugles musiciens,” fourth and last article in “Musiciens remarquables sortis de l’Institution royale des jeunes aveugles de Paris, 1784–1801,” Annales de l’éducation des sourds-muets et des aveugles 4, no. 4 (1847): 177. 69.  Avisse, “L’Atelier des Aveugles-Travailleurs,” 64. 70. Ibid., 67. 71.  “Jeunes amis, séchons nos pleurs; / Nos jours ne s’usent pas dans un repos stupide. / Il est pour nous des arts consolateurs. / Au défaut de nos yeux [sic], ils seront notre guide.” Avisse, “L’Atelier des Aveugles-Travailleurs,” 67. 72.  Avisse, “L’Atelier des Aveugles-Travailleurs,” 69. 73.  “Plus nos bras font gémir la presse, / Plus l’argent vient meubler la caisse.” Avisse, “L’Atelier des Aveugles-Travailleurs,” 68. 74.  The “Gathering of the Friends of the Republic,” which was soon to be designated the “Society” or “Club” of the Pantheon, was created in Paris on 25 Brumaire Year IV (November 16, 1795). 75. On this subject, see François Furet’s article “Babeuf,” in A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1989), 179–85. On Haüy’s participation in the Club of the Pantheon and on Babouvism, see Raymond Monnier’s articles in Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, ed. Albert Soboul, François Gendron, and Jean-René Suratteau (Paris: P.U.F., 1989), 536, 809–10. 76. On this subject and what follows, see Albert Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie et le culte décadaire 1796–1801. Essai sur l’histoire religieuse de la Révolution (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1903). 77. Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie, 77. 78. Mathiez proposes Chemin’s affiliation with Freemasonry at this time as probable but cannot confirm it, because he was not able to examine the registers of

   Notes the Grand Orient. He reminds us, though, that under the Restoration, Freemason Chemin-Dupontès was invested with the 33rd degree and was a member of the Mont-Thabor council of the Grand Orient of France and a venerable of the Lodge of the Seven United Scotchmen; Chemin-Dupontès surmises that Chemin “did not attain all these high honors in a single day.” Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie, 82, note 1. Using evidence from a very unfavorable police report on Haüy, Mathiez also writes that this last was “most likely a Freemason like Chemin.” Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie, 89. For our part, we have not found any source allowing us to affirm or dismiss Haüy’s adherence to Masonry before and during the Revolution. However, he appears with the highest degree, that of the “Rosy Cross,” in several paintings of the Knights of the Cross preserved in the Masonic archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale: in 1805, as “Director of the Museum of the Blind, rue Ste [sic] Avoye,” and then in 1809 and 1810 among the “non-resident knights,” with the note “in Russia.” BnF. F.M. Impr. 2716, “Statuts de la Loge des Chevaliers de la Croix, Orient de Paris,” 5085, p. 64; BnF FM2 60bis Paris, “Chapitre des Chevaliers de la Croix, Tableaux, 1805–1825,” f44; BnF F.M. Impr. 1653, “Tableaux des Chevaliers de la Croix de Paris,” 1810, p. 36. As Mathiez has supposed for CheminDupontès, we may hypothesize that Haüy did not attain in the degree of S.R.E. (Sovereign of the Rosy Cross) in one day. He also appears in 1804 and then 1806 as a “free affiliate” among the brothers of the “Lodge of St. Jean” under the very distinctive title of “The Friends of Wisdom of the Orient of Paris” and as one of the signatories of a “Report on the admission of the blind to Freemasonry” by the Friends of Wisdom to the Grand Orient of France, dated the second day of the eleventh month (January 2, 1806). Now the Grand Orient only accorded the title of “free affiliate,” or “honorary member,” to long-standing officers who had successfully accomplished important missions. BnF FM2 38, Dossier 2, Paris, “Les Amis de la Sagesse,” Tableaux 1803–1834, items 3 and 5. BnF Opuscules de FrancMaçonnerie 16 H. 460 (9): Amis de la Sagesse, Orient de Paris, “Rapport, (sur l’admission des aveugles à la Franc-Maçonnerie),” 5085, Paris, Printery of the Museum of the Blind, 47 rue S. Avoie. 79.  To use Chemin’s expression in the Année religieuse des théophilantropes [sic] ou adorateurs de Dieu et amis des hommes (Year IV-1797), 4, where he evokes the early days of the Theophilanthropical Society. 80. Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie, 86. 81.  Jean-Baptiste Chemin-Dupontès, Qu’est-ce que la Théophilanthropie? ou Mémoire contenant l’origine et l’histoire de cette institution, ses rapports avec le christianisme, et l’aperçu de l’influence qu’elle peut avoir sur tous les cultes (Paris: Librairie Classique, Year X-1801), 9; cited in Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie, 90. 82. Chemin, Année religieuse des théophilanthropes, 5.

Notes    83.  La Décade philosophique, littéraire, et politique, Year V, third trimester, 24 (30 Floréal Year V—May 19, 1797): 343. 84. Louis-Marie Prudhomme, Histoire impartiale des révolutions de France (Paris: Librairie de Mlle Adèle Prudhomme, 1824), 11: 75–76. 85. Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie, 154. 86. Madame Permon, mother of the Duchess d’Abrantès, cited in Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Valentin Haüy (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1984), 114. 87. Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie, 169–71. 88. Ibid., 196. 89. L’Esprit, “Valentin Haüy,” 20–21. 90. Haüy, “Teacher of the Blind Workers,” to “Citizen Breuillard, commissioner of police of the Lombard division,” 27 Floréal Year VI, Haüy-Hédé Archives. Copy at the B.V.H. 91. Haüy, “National Teacher of the Blind Workers,” to the minister of the police asking him to guard against attempts at troublemaking in Montreuil, near Vincennes, during his apostolic mission. BnF 8 Ld188 (excerpt from “Les Théophilanthropes,” Revue des documents historiques (n.p., n.d.) paginated 35–37, facsimile [Don 217585] VIIIe). 92. Mathiez, La Théophilanthropie, 540. 93. Ibid., 553. 94. Ibid., 693. chapter 9 1.  “Decree of 15 Vendémiaire Year IX of the French Republic, one and indivisible,” article 4. Signed Lucien Bonaparte. A.N. F15 2576. 2.  Ibid. 3.  At the time of his second mandate, from Floréal Year VI to Messidor Year VII (May 1798–June 1799), over the course of which he did a lot to develop the Decadary Cult [Culte Décadaire], a direct competitor of Theophilanthropy. 4.  The buildings of the Quinze-Vingts were large enough to accommodate Haüy’s students, and renting out the Catherinettes, which was situated in a central commercial neighborhood, could bring in a significant sum, thus helping to fortify the budget of the Institute for Blind Workers, whom the state then owed considerable amounts of money: “Thirty thousand francs for student pensions, not counting nearly nine months of civil servant salaries” and “the modest sum of about a thousand ecus to suppliers.” Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy, auteur de la Manière d’instruire les aveugles ou court exposé de la naissance des progrès et de l’état actuel de l’Institut national des aveugles-travailleurs au 19 brumaire an IX de la République française [November 10, 1800] entremêlée de quelques observations

   Notes relatives à cet établissement (Paris: Imprimerie des Aveugles-Travailleurs, 1800), 13. What’s more, the reform of the institute’s operations made possible a reduction in administrative and teaching personnel. 5.  The General Council of Hospices (on which neither the Quinze-Vingts nor the Blind Workers—national establishments directly attached to the Ministry of the Interior in the manner of the Deaf and Dumb of Paris and Bordeaux and the Asylum of Charenton—were dependent) would be created by a consular decree of 27 Nivôse Year IX (January 17, 1801). 6. Henri Grégoire, Abbé, Histoire des sectes religieuses, nouvelle édition considérablement augmentée vol. 1, bk. 2, “Histoire de la Théophilanthropie, depuis sa naissance jusqu’à son extinction” (Paris, Beaudoin Frères, 1828). 7.  A decree of 28 Vendémiaire Year IX (October 20, 1800), completing that of 15 Vendémiaire, states the names of the administrators: Citizens Béthune-Charost (the Duke of Béthune-Charost), president of the Philanthropic Society when the Institute for Blind Youth was founded; Brousse-Desfaucherets; Lasalle; Citizen Bouret, the agent responsible for the Quinze-Vingts; and Citizen Mauclerc, agent for the Deaf-Mutes. Archives XV–XX, B 114–6805, copy of the decision of the Minister of the Interior of 28 Vendémiaire Year IX. 8.  For example, a German, August Wilhelm Schwenger, editor of a collection of Reports on the Blind, Sight, and Vision [Mémoires sur les aveugles, sur la vue et la vision] (Paris and Amsterdam: Auguste-Guillaume Schwenger de la Société Médicale de Paris, 1800), speaks in his preface of “the Institute for the Blind in Paris, which will be of interest to all cultivated people.” 9. Haüy to the president of the National Institute, 21 Frimaire Year IX, archives of the Institut de France, box 4 A2, ancillary documents. 10.  Deuxième note du Citoyen Haüy Instituteur des Aveugles-Travailleurs, archives of the Institut de France, box 4 A2, ancillary documents. 11.  To which we have referred several times throughout this book. 12. Haüy, Troisième note du Citoyen Haüy, 15–16. 13. Ibid., 16. 14. Minutes of fifth general session, National Institute of Sciences and Arts, 5 Nîvose Year IX, 21. 15.  “Minister of the Interior to Citizen Haüy, Teacher of the Blind Workers, 3 Nivôse Year IX of the French Republic One and Indivisible,” Archives XV–XX, B109–6715. Typed copy at B.V.H. 16. Lucien Bonaparte, the signatory of the decree of 15 Vendémiaire. 17.  “Minister of the Interior to Citizen Haüy, Teacher of the Blind Workers, 3 Nivôse Year IX of the French Republic One and Indivisible,” Archives XV–XX, B109–6715. Typed copy at B.V.H. 18. Ibid.

Notes    19.  “Rapport présenté aux Consuls de la République par le Ministère de l’Intérieur,” signed by Chaptal, excerpt from the Registers of the Deliberations of the Consuls of the Republic [Registres des délibérations des Consuls de la République], 14 Nivôse Year IX, Archives, XV–XX, B109–6715 and A.N. F15 2576. 20. Ibid. 21. Minister of the Interior, Report to the Executive Director, A.N. F15 2576. This report is neither signed nor dated, but we know from, among other things, Chaptal’s report to the Consuls of 13 Nivôse Year IX, that it was the work of François de Neufchâteau (then the Directory’s minister of the interior for the second time), whose initiatives in favor of social investigations were behind the first philanthropic encyclopedia of the Directory and the Consulate (thirty-nine titles in eighteen volumes, distributed throughout the departments), which was to serve as a reference for nineteenth-century theorists of social action. See Catherine Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” Le Temps des philanthropes. La Philanthropie parisienne des Lumières à la monarchie de Juillet 1 (Paris: Editions du CTHS, 1993), 417–19. 22.  André Gueslin, Gens pauvres, pauvres gens dans la France du XIXe siècle (Paris: Aubier, 1998), 112. 23. On the military men who returned blind from the Egyptian campaign, see François Natali, “La Succursale des Invalides d’Avignon et les séquelles de l’ophthalmie d’Egypte” (thesis in medicine, Université Claude Bernard, 1974). 24.  Who would become, under the Empire, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s Third Division (Charities and Correction [Hospices et Assistance]). 25.  Barbier-Neuville, Report Requested by the Minister of the Interior, Paris, 19 Vendémiaire Year IX, A.N. F15 2576. The date at the top of the report is probably erroneous (it dates, perhaps, from the ninth and not the nineteenth of Vendémiaire), for Barbier’s signature is followed by a short note specifying that “a decree should be made consisting of a few articles joining together the blind workers to the 15/20 as well as to the blind returning from Egypt.” The decree in question was that of 15 Vendémiaire Year IX. 26.  “Arrêté du 15 Vendémiaire An IX de la République française, une et indivisible,” article 5, signed Lucien Bonaparte. 27. Ibid., article 7. 28.  “Report Concerning the New Organization of this Hospice” [“Rapport relativement à la nouvelle organisation de cet hospice”], Quinze-Vingts session of 22 Nivôse Year IX (January 12, 1801), Registre des délibérations de l’administration de l’Hospice national des Quinze-Vingts (From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI [October 24, 1800, to March 18, 1803]), Archives XV–XX (unnumbered manuscript). Some parts of the report are worth citing here for what they reveal of the representations of blindness to which the Quinze-Vingts administrators conformed: “Of all the afflictions that menace humanity, blindness is perhaps the

   Notes greatest. Condemned to an eternal night, he who is thus afflicted outlives himself, so to speak. He has all his diligence but no more guidance. He has all his ingenuity but no more strength. Exposed to every danger, abandoned to his fears, he is reduced to the slavery of childhood or old age in the vigor of his youth, and his needs, worries, and desires keep him in a state of continual dependency. If the government, charged with the honorable function of distributing the Nation’s assistance to the unfortunate, owes assistance to anyone, it is certainly to this group of interesting men.” “Report Concerning the New Organization of this Hospice.” 29.  Administration of the Establishments of Beneficence to the Minister of the Interior, 27 Pluviôse Year IX, A.N. F15 2576. 30.  “Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts,” in Suite du rapport fait par le Comité de mendicité des divers hôpitaux de Paris, printed by order of the National Assembly (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1791), 13. 31. Ibid., 18. 32. Ibid., 19. 33. Law of October 23 and 28 through November 5, 1790, on the property declared national and on that of the same nature, such as that of hospices, charitable institutions, and other establishments designed to relieve the poor that the Assembly refrained from declaring national. Article 13 of this law ordered that the property of hospices and charitable institutions, and so forth, would be run as they had been on October 1, 1790, until further notice, A.N. D XIX 10, n 94, in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique à Paris pendant la Révolution, 1: 42, item 10. 34.  “Citizen Saint-Martin’s Presentation to the Committee of Public Assistance of a Report Recommending Suppression of the Hospice of the QuinzeVingts . . . ” [“Présentation au Comité des Secours Publics par le citoyen SaintMartin d’un rapport concluant à la suppression de l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts”], Minutes of the Sessions of the Comité des Secours Publics, ordinary session, November 26, 1792, A.N. F* II 39 f103v, in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 213, item 140. 35.  “Rejection by the National Convention of a Proposal to Suppress the Quinze-Vingts and Referral to the Committee of Public Assistance of the Question of the Provisional Organization of that Institution” [“Rejet par la Convention nationale d’une proposition tendant à la suppression des Quinze-Vingts et renvoi au Comité des Secours Publics de la question de l’organisation provisoire de cette maison”], February 4, 1793, Minutes of the National Convention, vol. 4, 56, A.N. C 245, n 334. 36.  The Committee on Mendicancy’s report on the Quinze-Vingts, quite critical in many respects of the way the hospice was managed, would, in contrast, show itself to be very favorable to the tradition of the sworn members and capitulants. As it happened, the Convention’s Committee of Public Assistance followed the advice of the Constituent Assembly by deciding to perpetuate the authority

Notes    of the more “democratic” Quinze-Vingts: that of sworn members and capitulants, thenceforth grouped together under the denomination of “sworn members” [“jurés”]. 37.  “Decree of the National Convention Noting that the Home of the Quinze-Vingts Will Be Provisionally Administered and Governed by the Department of Paris” [“Décret de la Convention Nationale, portant que la maison des QuinzeVingts sera provisoirement régie et gouvernée sous la surveillance du Département de Paris”], July 22, 1793 (printed with handwritten corrections by Saint-Martin), Minutes of the National Convention, vol. 17, 94, in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 272, item 173. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40.  Bertrand Barère, reporter of the Law of National Beneficence of 22 Floreal Year II (May 11, 1794). 41.  “Report of Citizen Lerebours to Barère Proposing to Change the Purpose of the Quinze-Vingts and Henceforth Only Admit the Blind Who Are Ill” [Rapport du citoyen Lerebours à Barère, proposant de changer la destination de la maison des Quinze-Vingts et de n’y admettre que des aveugles infirmes”], A.N. F15 241 (signed original), in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 294–96, item 186. 42. Ibid. 43.  “Law Permitting Civil Hospices to Hold On to Their Property. This law revokes the decree of 19 Messidor Year II and returns to the poor the property that had been taken away from them” [“Loi qui conserve aux hospices civils la jouissance de leurs biens. Cette loi révoque le décret du 19 Messidor an II et rend aux pauvres les biens dont on les avait dépouillés”], Législation Charitable . . . , ed. A. de Watteville, baron, 1 (Paris: Cotillon, 1863), 41. 44.  Jean-Henri-Romain Prompsault (Abbé), ed., Les Quinze-Vingts. Notes et documents (Paris: Victor Sarlit, Libraire and Carpentras, Imprimerie de E. Rolland, 1863), 91. 45. Ibid. 46.  The laicization of the Quinze-Vingts had begun in 1791 with the reduction of the number of priests attached to the hospice, which went from eight to three. The upholding of the respective positions of organist, serpent-player, two cantors, six choirboys, a Swiss Guard, beadle, and bell ringer nevertheless testifies to the persistence of regular religious offices meant to discharge an important number of duties. In 1792, to diminish total expenditures on worship, the administration reduced the salary of the First Chaplain, retired the organist, and dismissed the choirboys, cantors, serpent-player, and beadle. The bell ringer was also relieved of some of his duties, and his salary was apparently lowered as a result.

   Notes On October 29, 1793, it was decided that only one priest should be kept on. On November 9, “in response to a member’s report that there was still a bell tower in the hospice’s church bearing the royal seal, which could only please fanatics and those who idolize tyrants . . . , the administration decreed that the bell would be offered to the community to be transformed into a cannon.” Administration of the Quinze-Vingts, Session of Nonidi, 19 Brumaire Year II of the Republic, Registre des délibérations, July 22, 1793–January 3, 1797, Archives XV–XX, unnumbered manuscript. Finally, on November 16, at the request of a delegation of the blind, enlightened by “the torch of Reason,” “the administration decreed that the cult established in the hospice church will be suppressed effective immediately; that the church employees will henceforth cease to be paid; that seals will be immediately affixed to the sacristy and in other places where church vestments are to be found. . . . Following the suppression of the cult, the administration has decreed that Citizen Desesquelle [the chaplain] will leave the residence he occupies . . . at the hospice and will return the keys by the end of next January of the old calendar.” Session of Sextidi, 26 Brumaire Year II, Registre des délibérations, July 22, 1793, to January 3, 1797, Archives XV–XX, unnumbered manuscript.. The Quinze-Vingts chapel was thus shut down. It would remain so until December 12, 1809, date of a decision of the prefect of the Seine to rent it to the parish of Saint-Antoine for an annual fee of 900 francs. From a symbolic perspective, the closure of the Quinze-Vingts church represents, in our view, an important step not only in the hospice’s history, but also in that of welfare for the blind. Indeed, if we omit the period of religious reaction under the Restoration, of which the Quinze-Vingts would be a privileged site because of the reinstatement of the Grand Almoner of France, 1793 marks the outcome of the progressive secularization of the establishment and of a desacralization of assistance to the blind that would never be called into question. Founders of a patriotic society similar to the Society of Social Harmony created a few months earlier in the neighboring Arsenal Section—in which Valentin Haüy and the Blind Workers participated—the Quinze-Vingts then voluntarily and forever did away with whatever remained, at the end of the Ancien Régime, of their identity as the “poor of Christ.” They doubtless did not suspect that in moving to liberate themselves from a tutelage and religious obligations that had become obsolete, they were contributing to the removal of the last obstacle to the mercantilist aims of governments to come. 47.  The Quinze-Vingts nonetheless retained some revenues of their own: rents within the enclosure; rents from various houses in Paris; rents from their farms in Vinantes and Louvres and nine other small pieces of real estate; income from individuals; and real estate income from houses in Paris and property in the provinces.

Notes    48. It was, moreover, to these two texts that the Directory of the département of Paris had referred in June 1792 in order to disavow the initiatives taken by the chapter after the Grand Almoner’s resignation and the dismissal of the former governors: “There are no old laws specific to this hospice other than the Edict of May 1546, registered in Parliament, and other authentic regulations that the statutes of 1522, given as an ordinance by François Dumoulin, at the time Grand Almoner to the King, ratified in Parliament on 6 September of the same year.” A.N. F15 241, in Tuetey, L’Assistance publique, 2: 196, item 123. The previous regulations had been well known to the revolutionaries, since Liancourt, in his report on the Quinze-Vingts to the Committee on Mendicancy, had mentioned the regulation of Michel Debraché [sic], almoner to King John,” as “the oldest known regulation concerning this hospice.” See his report in Suite du Rapport fait par le Comité de Mendicité, 1791. The Directory of the département of Paris—already responsible for the authoritarian regulations given the establishment for the deaf and dumb and the congenitally blind in February 1792—probably preferred to ignore, when it came to the Quinze-Vingts, the regulations most favorable to blind people’s participation in the management of their own hospice. 49. During the Revolution, the financial situation of the hospice, and, as a result, the living conditions of the blind, had rapidly deteriorated. The members of the Quinze-Vingts had thus begun to beg again. This situation is hinted at in 1795, for example, when numerous blind people once again took up alms-seeking or had their children do so, and this, not only in spite of the interdiction in place since 1781, but also in violation of the laws against mendicancy of March 19 and October 15, 1793. When the consular government, by a police regulation of 24 Prairial Year VIII (June 13, 1800), began to get the fairly anarchic situation of the hospice back under control, the first article of the regulations thus specifically invoked the ban on mendicancy and the punishments to which offenders exposed themselves. 50.  “Décret du 15 Vendémiaire Year IX de la République française, une et indivisible,” article 4. Signed Lucien Bonaparte. A.N. F15 2576. chapter 10 1. Ministry of the Interior, 23 Ventôse Year IX, “Special Measures for Blind Youth” [“Dispositions particulières aux jeunes aveugles”], article 4, in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 4, Archives XV–XX, B 10–6610. 2. Despite a demand for the “reinstatement of the two-hundred-and-fiftythousand-franc income for the Quinze-Vingts,” addressed to the Minister of the Interior of 22 Nivôse Year IX (January 12, 1801) by the hospice administrators, the ministry upheld the principle of a subvention—and not an income—whose total

   Notes remained equal to that set in Year V, and this, in spite of the increase in expenditures resulting from the arrival of the blind youth. 3.  For a more detailed study of the causes of blindness in France in the nineteenth century, see Weygand, Les Causes de la cécité et les soins oculaires en France au début du XIXe siècle (1800–1815) (Paris: CTNERHI, 1989). 4. Lullier-Winslow, “Aveugle,” Dictionnaire des sciences médicales par une société de médecins et de chirurigiens 2 (Paris: C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1812), 469–70. 5.  Jourdan, “Cécité,” Dictionnaire des sciences médicales 4 (1813), 390. 6. Georges Dumont, Recherches statistiques sur les causes et les effets de la cécité (Paris: Labé, 1856), 8–9. 7.  The ophthalmoscope is an instrument used to examine the interior of the eye, including the retina and the vitreous humor. 8.  Pierre Henri, Les Aveugles et la société (Paris: PUF, 1958), 17, 19. 9.  Because the Quinze-Vingts was open to blind people of both sexes from throughout the country, the documents concerning blind men and women applying or admitted to the hospice in the nineteenth century are an exceptional source of information on the causes of blindness in all of France at the time. Moreover, as a result of the union of the Institute for Blind Youth and the hospice under the Consulate and the Empire, the archives of the Quinze-Vingts contain the files of children as well as adults. 10. R. Liebreich, “Amaurose,” Dictionnaire des sciences médicales par une société de médecine et de chirurgie pratiques illustré de figures intercalées dans le texte 1 (Paris: J.-B. Baillière et fils, 1864), 785. 11.  Terrible, frightful smallpox—which disfigured and sometimes disabled those it had not killed—was still, in the nineteenth century, a veritable scourge. And yet, at the time, it was the only disease causing blindness that held the promise of a cure, thanks to the systematic prevention through vaccination. It would be more than a century before this was achieved. 12.  We know now that this ophthalmia, which begins as a purulent conjunctivitis and can rapidly become complicated by affecting the cornea, is contracted at the moment of birth when the fetus passes through the pelvic channel. It can be caused by a virus (inclusion conjunctivitis) and declare itself eight to ten days after birth or by gonococcus. In the latter case, the incubation period is shorter (three to four days) and the complications infinitely more dreadful. 13. Ocular complications from measles, responsible even today for a third of the cases of childhood blindness in Africa, were significant in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. It was because of measles that Pierre Villey (born in 1879) became blind at five years old. [Translator’s note: Pierre Villey was a blind French intellectual noted for his work on Michel de Montaigne and his book, Le Monde des aveugles, written in 1918 to dispel myths about the limitations of blind people.]

Notes    14. On the origins of this famous pandemic, see Georges Cornand and Pierre Renard, “L’Ophtalmie des armées au XIXe siècle,” in L’Ophtalmologie des origines à nos jours, vol. 2 (Annonay: Laboratoire H. Faure, 1979). According to these two authors, “Today it is accepted that the expression ‘Egyptian Ophthalmia’ was applied indiscriminately to different stages of trachoma complicated by additional ailments or no, to several forms of catarrhal conjunctivitis, among which predominated the acute conjunctivitis caused by the Koch-Weeks bacillus, and to blennorrhagic conjunctivitis.” However, for nearly a half-century, this pandemic gave rise to impassioned controversies concerning its origins, nature, transmission, treatment, and prophylaxis, and it was not until 1844 in Belgium, the European country it most severely affected, that the ideas of the contagionists triumphed over explanations of a climatic or humoral sort and that effective prophylactic measures were taken with the Belgian army. During this period, the quarrels between different schools of thought had grave epidemiological consequences, and it would take many years before the disease was completely eradicated and the civil population rid of it. 15.  For instance, amaurosis could be the result of a detached retina, itself caused by a violent contusion, and the cataracts of glassmakers or foundry workers were due to the effect of infrared rays on these workers’ eyes, which were constantly exposed to “a blazing fire.” 16.  Beyond accidents proper—which especially affected builders and those engaged in public works—harsh working conditions could also cause illnesses that progressively led to blindness: exposure to “irritating vapors” (e.g., sulfur, ammonia, hydrochloric acid), to allergenic dust, to mineral or metallic particles causing ulcerations and wounds; exposure to the fire of ovens or the forge; the manipulation of toxic products such as lead or antimony; the practice of delicate and painstaking work such as embroidery, engraving, jewelry making, or painting on porcelain under poorly lit conditions. 17.  Based on a few cases found in our files and in the medical literature of the time, we should add hereditary factors to these various causes. 18.  The data from the 1851 census concerning the total number of blind people in France—37,666—and the evaluation, by region, of their relations with the population were published, among other places, in the Annales de la Charité of March 31, 1855. New figures would be established after a census taken in 1858. That census, in contrast to the preceding one, established a distribution by sex and by age: there would have been, at the time, 30,214 blind people in France out of a population of 36,039,364: 16,469 men and 13,745 women. But once again, can we trust such statistics, despite their apparent precision, when even today there are no global statistics on blind people in France? 19.  That is to say, in the département of the Seine.

   Notes 20.  Pierre-Armand Dufau, Des Aveugles. Considérations sur leur état physique, moral et intellectuel, 2nd ed. (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1850), 211. 21.  Alexandre Rodenbach was the author of, among other things, a book on the blind and on deaf-mutes published in Tournai in 1853 and reedited with additions in 1855: Les Aveugles et les sourds-muets. Histoire. Instruction. Education. Biographie. This work included, in particular, a number of biographical notices on famous blind people from antiquity to the nineteenth century. 22.  Pinet, excerpt from a report made to the Society for Christian Morality, in Eugénie Niboyet, Des aveugles et de leur éducation (Paris: P.-H. Krabbe, 1837), 5. 23. Unlike what had happened in the previous century. 24.  A.N. F15 2573, Quinze-Vingts: Admission Requests, 1813–1815. File of Pierrette de La Folanches. 25.  A.N. F15 2573, Quinze-Vingts: Admission Requests, 1811–1815. File of JeanBaptiste Girot. 26.  For more details on this manuscript and on the at once exceptional and unfortunate destiny of its author, see our book, written in collaboration with Catherine J. Kudlick: Thérèse-Adèle Husson, Reflections: The Life and Writings of a Young Blind Woman in Post-Revolutionary France, trans. Catherine J. Kudlick and Zina Weygand (New York and London: New York Univ. Press, 2001). 27.  A.N. F15 2571, Quinze-Vingts: Admissions Requests, Year IX-1812. File of Jean-Baptiste Degrais. 28.  Augustus von Kotzebue, Travels from Berlin through Switzerland to Paris in the Year 1804, anon. trans. from the German (London: Richard Phillips, 1804), 1: 107. 29.  Jean Duplessi-Bertaux, La Bienfaisance ingénieuse, 1802, etching and engraving, in Henri Béraldi, Les Graveurs du dix-neuviéme siècle: guide de l’amateur d’estampes modernes 4 (Paris: L. Conquet, 1885–92); Inventaire du fond français 11, group of four proofs (Paris: Musée Valentin Haüy). This engraving was reproduced in Victor Fournel, Les Cris de Paris, types et physionomies d’autrefois (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1888), 217. 30.  Antoine-Pierre Mongin, L’Aveugle Frélon, oil on canvas, 1814, MNATP, Paris; Godefroy Engelmann, Le Chien de l’aveugle, lithograph, 1816, BNF Estampes, Ad 64 a. Fol., Album 1; Vernier, Le Chien de l’aveugle, a romance (Paris: by the author, n.d.), BNF Musique, Vm7 108025. 31.  Portrait of the head of Philippe-François Bellanger, drawn from life at the Conciergerie the day of his execution, June 28, 1805, BNF Estampes, Hennin collection, vol. 148, 12 986. The “Bellanger affair” was reported in the register of the administration’s deliberations at the Quinze-Vingts on 10 Germinal Year XI and May 21, 1808, for the sessions of 14 Ventôse and 17 Messidor Year XIII (March 6 and July 17, 1805). Jean-Baptiste Gouriet alluded to this in his Personnages célèbres dans les rues de Paris depuis une haute antiquité jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Lerouge,

Notes    1811), 1: 322. Another account can be found, according to the Journal des Débats of May 11, 1805, in Charles Simon, ed., La Vie parisienne à travers le XIXe siècle. Paris de 1800 à 1900 (Paris: Plon, 1900), 1: 114–16. Lastly, see Hélène Tulard, “The Lucky Blind Man: A Criminal Affair under the Empire” [“L’Aveugle du bonheur. Une Affaire criminelle sous l’Empire”], Vigilat 19 (1956): 4–8. 32.  A.N. F15 2583 B, Quinze-Vingts: Nominations of Pensioners for Year XIII1812. File of Jean-Baptiste Laurence. 33.  A.N. F15 2571, Quinze-Vingts: Admissions Requests, Year IX-1812. File of André Chicot. 34. Report adopted by said academy on 30 Prairial Year XIII (June 19, 1805). 35.  A.N. F15 2574, Quinze-Vingts: Admissions Requests, 1810–1815. File of Charles Jean-François Vallée. 36. Despite the lack of registers for these depots of mendicancy in the archives we searched (A.N., series F16; the archives of the préfecture de police and the archives of the Assistance Publique, in particular), we are sure that blind people numbered among the disabled beggars kept in these establishments, because they are mentioned in certain official documents. A report on the depot of VillersCotterets addressed to the Prefect of Police on May 25, 1810, mentions “eightyyear-olds and seventy-year-olds without family, blind people, and disabled people under and over the age of sixty” among the men and women held there at that date. A.N. F16 1045, copy of a report addressed on May 25, 1810, to “Monsieur, the Councilor of State, prefect” by an “auditor” who had visited the depot. The deliberations of the Quinze-Vingts administration also attest that blind people of the establishment caught begging in flagrante could be imprisoned at the SaintDenis depot. 37.  This was the case, for instance, of Jacob Birrer, a Swiss blind man born in 1800 to a family of “poor country folk” from the canton of Lucerne and blinded at four years old as a result of smallpox. Having become a shopkeeper and then a peddler of books, he left the story of his life, dictated in German to a village teacher and published in 1840 and then translated into French in 1843. It is memorable for what he says of his childhood spent in the village of Luthern. He tells us, for instance, that his poor parents, responsible for a large family (Jacob was the second-youngest of seven children), were capable of great sacrifices in the name of treatment for their child threatened with blindness—to the great advantage of charlatans to whom ocular medicine and surgery were usually confided at the time. He also shows us how, after having overcome the temptation to overprotect the child, his father initiated him into work in the fields and woods, while his grandfather, the village healer, taught him the secrets of his pharmacopoeia. Finally, regarding the attitude a village community could then have toward a disabled child, Jacob relates how various people sent him on little errands—which taught him to undertake, alone or with his older brother, little excursions in the

   Notes vicinity, preludes to his activity as a traveling salesman later on. Jacob Birrer, Souvenirs curieux et vie remarquable de l’aveugle Jacob Birrer . . . , dictated by the blind man to Naegeli, teacher. Translated by a sighted person. (Zurich: Zurcher and Furrer, 1843). 38.  A.N. F15 2571 and 2573, Quinze Vingts: Admissions Requests, Year IX-1812 and 1813–1815. Files of Marie-Julienne Blin, widow Pétré, 1812. 39.  A.N. F15 2572 and 2573, Quinze Vingts: Admissions Requests, Year IX-1812 and 1813–1815. Files of Thérèse-Jacqueline Parent, 1809 and 1812. 40.  Twenty years later, Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet, in the course of his inquiry into prostitution in the city of Paris, would note the presence of blind women in the so-called imbeciles division of Saint-Lazare prison, which was dedicated to suppressing crimes committed by Parisian prostitutes. Of the work imposed on prostitutes during their incarceration he wrote: “There are some prostitutes . . . who are kept busy setting wire teeth into wool cards . . . Sticking pins in a pincushion hardly requires more wit or intelligence! Well, believe it or not, there are beings incapable of such a simple task! They have thus to be left to themselves in another division called the division of imbeciles, in which I have sometimes counted up to fifteen or twenty individuals. I must say, though, that several times I have found women in this division who were only incapable of working because they were almost completely blind. I will add that, among these, the disability was the sole reason they had been forced to resort to prostitution. These last, finding themselves unable to work, the only reproach that could be made of them was that they had lacked the courage to allow themselves to die of hunger.” Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet, La Prostitution à Paris au XIXe siècle, ed. Alain Corbin (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1981), 192. (This is an abridgement of the two-volume De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris considérée sous le rapport de l’hygiène publique, de la morale et de l’administration of 1836.) 41.  True, beginning in 1801, there was an attempt to create several divisions allowing for classification by age and disability at Bicêtre and La Salpêtrière, but the blind, considered “significantly disabled,” remained with the paralytics and the octogenarians. 42.  A.N. F15 2572 and 2573, Quinze-Vingts, Admissions Requests, Year IX-1812 and 1813–1815. Files of Pierre-Martin Paillet, 1812 and 1814. 43. Consisting of the original hospice and branches created in Year VIII and little by little suppressed under the Restoration, with the exception of the Avignon branch. 44.  Jean-Pierre Bois, Les Anciens soldats dans la société française au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Economica, 1990). There is a book that discusses not just the wounded but veterans in general: Isser Woloch, The French Veteran from the Revolution to the Restoration (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1979), cited by Jean-

Notes    Paul Bertaud in his La Vie quotidienne des soldats de la Révolution 1789–1799 (Paris: Hachette, 1985). 45.  Before 1811, disabilities of admitted military men were not mentioned. 46.  Archives de l’Armée de Terre. Invalides, Registers containing (in alphabetical order) the names of military men entering the motherhouse and its branches. Registre 212 BA to BL, manuscript. 47.  Arlette Farge, Les Fatigues de la guerre. XVIIIe siècle. Watteau (Paris: Gallimard, 1996). 48.  “The important thing for the soldier was to know how to march,” writes Jean-Paul Bertaud. “François-Joseph Jacquin, grenadier in the 37th regiment, crossed Belgium and northern France, Brittany, and Normandy in less than six weeks. After a trek of more than eight hundred kilometers, he was allowed to rest an entire month at Vannes. The order then came: with his unit, he was to reach the area around Turin in two and a half months. And all that on an empty stomach.” Bertaud, La France de Napoléon 1799–1815 (Paris: Messidor/Editions sociales, 1987), 71; citing F.-J. Jacquin, Carnet de route d’un grognard (Paris: Clavreuil, 1960). 49. On this topic, see Lydia Lerolle’s thesis, “Les Principales maladies épidémiques dans les armées de Napoléon” (doctoral diss., Univ. de Bordeaux II, U.E.R. des Sciences médicales, 1981). As others did before her, the author underscores the failure of material support and the increasing degradation of the military health service, which would be suppressed in 1814. 50.  Joseph-Marie Moiret, Captain Joseph-Marie Moiret: Memoirs of Napoleon’s Egyptian Expedition, 1798–1801. Ed. and trans. Rosemary Brindle (London: Greenhill Books, 2001), 25. chapter 11 1.  This remark is of interest because it runs counter to the stereotype of the “prodigious memory” of blind people, which would virtually release them from the effort and the methods necessary to any apprenticeship. 2.  Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle, “Notice sur la vie et les écrits de François Huber,” offprint from the Bibliothèque universelle des sciences, belles lettres et arts (February 1832), pp. 9–10. The remark about the role Huber’s sister played in his musical education sheds light on the importance of the help close relatives provided to blind people educated at home. 3. Germaine de Staël, trans. Avriel H. Goldberger (DeKalb: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1995), 227. 4.  We know well that to obtain aid, the applicant might be tempted to paint a bleak picture of the situation. Unfortunately, when it comes to poverty, it is also often the case that reality surpasses fiction.

   Notes 5.  File of the admission request of Citizen Mazé of Fontainebleau, Year V-1801, A.N. F15 2572 6.  That is to say, the orphans whose family—sometimes reduced to an aged and penniless widowed mother—was too poor to come to their assistance. 7. Imperial Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, “Rapport et arrêté sur les comptes de 1808,” Registre des délibérations de l’administration dudit hospice, f99, Archives XV–XX, unnumbered manuscript. 8. Ibid., f98v and 99. 9.  The first organization of this type, the “Society for the Patronage and Assistance for the French Blind” [“Société de patronage et de secours pour les aveugles de France”] would be founded in 1841 by Pierre-Armand Dufau, director of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth. Its mission would be to assist all blind people, whether or not they had passed through the institute. In contrast, the “Organization for Placement and Assistance of Blind Students from the Institute for Blind Youth” would be founded in 1849. 10.  The expression comes from Louis Chevalier, who applies it to the authors of inquiries before 1840: “Gérando and his like, friends of benevolence, as they called themselves, philanthropists accustomed to climb the staircases of the poor, visit hospitals, carry on the traditions of the ancestral urban charity, friends to benevolence and to the industrious and deserving poor, and always certain (by virtue of this reciprocal benevolence) of succeeding in all their undertakings and of solving all the problems, were almost wholly blind to the demographic and social changes around them, imprisoned as they were in their branch of study and their professional charity.” Chevalier, Laboring Classes and Dangerous Classes in Paris during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, trans. Frank Jellenek (New York: Howard Fertig, 1973), 139. 11. On what the authorities expected of philanthropy and philanthropists in postrevolutionary society, we cite, once again, Catherine Duprat: “In the first place, and most prosaically, money and contributions. But also—an always underlying, less explicit request—that the tutelage and protection of the rich work toward the conciliation or reconciliation of classes.” Duprat, “Pour l’amour de l’humanité,” Le Temps des philanthropes. La Philanthropie parisienne des Lumières à la monarchie de Juillet 1 (Paris: Editions du CTHS, 1993), 368. 12. Imperial Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, “Rapport et arrêté sur les comptes de 1808,” session of November 24, 1809, in Registre des délibérations de l’administration dudit hospice (May 28, 1808, to October 25, 1811), f99, Archives XV–XX, uncataloged manuscript. 13. Ibid. 14. In fact, Count de Montalivet, who succeeded Crétet at the Ministry of the Interior on October 1, 1809, would take four years to comply with the administrators’ request, which was reiterated several times after the 1809 report. 15. Imperial Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, “Rapport et arrêté sur les comptes de 1808,” . . . f99.

Notes    16. Ibid. 17. Given the difficulty of writing with the means extant at that time and the near impossibility of rereading, the texts in question were dictated, as in the past. They are the Notice historique sur l’établissement des jeunes aveugles (Paris: QuinzeVingts, 1828) and the Notes of Jean-François Galliod, already cited several times over the course of this study; a text Jean-Baptiste Penjon dictated to his daughter about his life and career (the text would be published by François Grille in 1853 in his Miettes littéraires, biographiques et morales); and finally, a letter on “the study and teaching of mathematics for the congenitally blind,” addressed by Penjon to the Annales de mathématiques pures et appliquées and appearing in volume 3 of that periodical, published in Nîmes by J.-D. Gergonne. 18. Louis Prudhomme, Miroir historique et critique de l’ancien et du nouveau Paris et du département de la Seine, 3rd ed. (Paris: Prudhomme fils, 1807), 1: 315–16. 19.  Augustus von Kotzebue, Travels from Berlin through Switzerland to Paris in the Year 1804, anon. trans. from the German (London: Richard Phillips, 1804), 1: 106–7. 20. Maria d’Anspach, “Les Musiciens ambulants,” Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, vol. 4, Le Prisme. Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle (Paris: L. Curnier, 1842), 186. 21.  See Chapter 1 of this volume. A plagiary of this farce, Les Trois aveugles, a comedy-parade by an anonymous author, had been staged in Paris on December 4, 1782, at the Théâtre des Variétés Amusantes and published by Cailleau in 1784. 22.  Jacqueline de Jomaron, ed., Le Théâtre en France, vol. 2, De la Révolution à nos jours (Paris: Armand Colin, 1989), 164. 23.  An anonymous opéra-comique with the same theme, Il Finto cieco, had been staged in 1791 at Monsieur’s theater by the Italians. 24.  Which, in this case, owes nothing to the Trois aveugles de Compiègne. 25.  To these various novelistic and dramatic works, we may add a number of songs and romances with titles and words evocative of the contemporary representations of the blind: Vernier’s Blind Man’s Dog [Le Chien de l’aveugle] (1814?); Camille and Romagnesi’s Poor Blind Man [Le Pauvre aveugle] (1826?); Charles Malo’s Pity the Poor Blind Man [Plaignez le pauvre aveugle] (1827); or, again, the very popular Blind Man of Bagnolet [L’Aveugle de Bagnolet] (1817) by Béranger, which was sung by street singers—who were sometimes blind—accompanying themselves on the hurdy-gurdy. 26.  L’Aveugle supposé, comedy in one act with vaudevilles by Monsieur L***, 16 (by Lepître, according to Geizel) (Paris: Madame Masson, Year XII-1803), 23–24. 27. If this last trait is specified to underscore the blindness of the oculist who claims to treat Valcourt, we may nonetheless remark that in literary works of the time that sought to give a positive image of blind people apt to arouse the public or readers’ support and pity, the blind “hero” or “heroine” is never disfigured by his or her infirmity.

   Notes 28.  According to Candolle, “François Huber,” 3–4. 29.  Friedrich-Melchior Grimm, January 1773 entry in Correspondance littéraire, philosophique, et critique 10 (Paris: Editions Maurice Tourneux, 1877–1882), 161ff. Cited in Brigitte Level, A Travers deux siècles. Le Caveau, société bachique et chantante, 1726–1939 (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1988), 95. 30. On July 26, 1768, when Piron had just entered his eightieth year, Bachaumont wrote in his Mémoires secrets, for instance: “Mr. Piron who, at an even more advanced age than Mr. Voltaire also maintains all the fire of his youth, is still the latter’s rival when it comes to spirited attack and sarcasm.” Cited by Level, A Travers deux siècles, 91. 31.  Jacquelin and Riguad, Piron aveugle (Paris: Hugelet, Year XII-1804), scene 7, p. 15. 32. Ibid., scene 12, p. 23. At the end of his life, Piron, who resided on the rue des Moulins (along with the Abbé de l’Epée), indeed lived with his niece, Antoinette Soissons, a servant, and a cat. When he drafted his will, he revealed that he had discovered a note—a secret of his niece—without saying anything—the opposite of what happens in the play. See Level, A Travers deux siècles, 91, 95. 33.  The “Caveau,” a literary and bacchanalian society of epicurean songwriters, probably founded at the beginning of 1730 by Alexis Piron, Charles Collé, Nicolas Gallet, and Bernard-Joseph Saurin, and presided over by Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, met once or twice a month in the lower hall (or “Caveau” [cellar]) of Nicolas-Alexis Landelle’s cabaret on the rue de Buci, at the intersection of the rue Dauphine. It was in the upper hall of this cabaret that the Duc d’Aumont would establish, on April 3, 1732, the headquarters of the Buci Lodge, the first Masonic Lodge in Paris, founded by the Grand Lodge of London. See Level, A Travers deux siècles, 29–30. 34.  Jacquelin and Rigot, Piron aveugle, scene 6, p. 13. 35. Ibid., Scene 1, p. 3. 36.  Jules Moinaux and Jacques Offenbach would be responsible, in 1855, for a “musical buffoonery,” Les Deux aveugles, the last nineteenth-century avatar (to our knowledge) of farces on this age-old theme. 37. De Jomaron, Le Théâtre en France, 2: 42. 38. Ibid. 39.  Frédéric [Frédéric Dupetit-Méré], L’Aveugle du Tirol, act 2, scene 9 (Paris: Barba, 1812), p. 30. 40. Ibid., 1.6, p. 11. 41. Ibid. 42. De Jomaron, Le Théâtre en France, scene 2, p. 42. 43.  Frédéric, L’Aveugle du Tirol, act 1, scene 3, p. 6 44. Ibid., 7. 45. Ibid.

Notes    46. Ibid. 47. De Jomaron, Le Théâtre en France, 2: 42. 48.  We should note in this regard the important evolution with respect to older performances, where the blind person was not the “revealer” of evil but its incarnation. 49. On this subject, see “Les Infortunes du mélodrame,” chapter 5 of VincentBuffault’s Histoire des larmes: “People cried over the good guys, who were usually weak, mute, blind, disabled, or defenseless, with the exception of the avenging hero, who was perfection itself. Pity was thus born of the mere appearance of the positive characters and provoked torrents of tears when these touching victims found themselves in the most dangerous of situations. . . . In melodrama, people shivered with fright, cried out of pity, and always over finer feelings” (226). 50.  According to Quérard (a nineteenth-century French bibliographer) several of these twelve novellas were imitations of German works by Starke. Alas, we have not found any trace of those that might have served as a model for Sophie, nor have we found their dates of publication. 51. Isabelle de Montolieu, Sophie ou l’aveugle (n.p.: Paschoud, 1812), 8. 52. Ibid., 9. 53. Ibid., 10. 54.  See what we said above (note 27) about the character Valcourt. 55. Montolieu, Sophie ou l’aveugle, 13. 56. Ibid., 15. 57. Ibid., 21. 58. Ibid., 22. 59. Ibid., 23–24. 60. Ibid., 40. 61. Ibid., 28–29. 62.  Victor Hugo, The Man Who Laughs, trans. Joseph L. Blamire (1889; reprint, Milpitas, CA: Atlantean Press, 1991), 264. 63. Montolieu, Sophie ou l’aveugle, 40. 64. Ibid., 46. 65. Ibid., 56 66. Ibid., 57. 67. Ibid., 61. 68. Ibid., 62. 69. Ibid., 59. 70. Ibid., 67. 71. Ibid., 97. 72. Ibid., 103–4. 73. Madame Hippolyte Taunay, Vertus du peuple. La Jeune aveugle, histoire contemporaine, vol. 1 (Paris: C. Lachapelle, 1842).

   Notes 74. Ibid., 68. 75. Ibid., 121. 76.  A watered-down prefiguration of Josiane in The Man Who Laughs. 77.  We note that the title of Montolieu’s novel recalls that of the fifth book Emile: “Sophie loves virtue. This love has come to be her ruling passion. She loves virtue because there is nothing fairer in itself, she loves it because it is a woman’s glory and because a virtuous woman is little lower than the angels; she loves virtue as the only road to real happiness, because she sees nothing but poverty, neglect, unhappiness, shame, and disgrace in the life of a bad woman.” See Grace Roosevelt’s online version of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education, trans. Barbara Foxley (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1911), http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/pedagogies/rousseau/em_eng_bk5.html (accessed January 18, 2008). 78. Montolieu, Sophie ou l’aveugle, 128. 79. Ibid., 130. 80. Ibid., 196. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid., 196–97. 83. Ibid., 197–98. 84. Ibid., 197. 85. Ibid., 256. 86. Ibid. 87.  Journal des Dames et des Modes 36 (June 30, 1828): 285. 88. Ibid., citing Alexandre Rodenbach, Lettre sur les aveugles (Brussels: Imprimerie de J. Sacré, 1828), 29. 89.  Which made it the Comédie Française’s most frequently staged play in the nineteenth century. On this subject, consult Jean-Claude Yon, Eugène Scribe, la fortune et la liberté (Saint-Genouph: Librairie A.-G. Nizet, 2000), 365. chapter 12 1.  Registre des délibérations de l’administration des Quinze-Vingts. From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI (October 24, 1800, to March 18, 1803), session of 26 Brumaire Year IX (November 17, 1800), f5, Archives XV–XX, unnumbered manuscript. 2.  “Arrêté du 15 vendémiaire an IX de la République française, une et indivisible,” article 7, Archives XV–XX, B 114–6805. 3. Ministry of the Interior, 23 Ventôse Year IX, “Administration générale,” chap. 1, article 1, in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, Archives XV–XX, B 106–6610. 4. Ibid., article 2.

Notes    5. Ibid. 6.  The order of Frochot, Prefect of the Seine, creating the central hospice for vaccination dates, in effect, from 18 Pluviôse Year IX (February 7, 1801). 7. However, on 2 Nivôse Year IX (December 23, 1800), an invitation had been made “to Citizen Demours, oculist, to come to the hospice for a general visit in the company of Citizen Goulliart, Surgeon-in-Chief, to check the eyes of the blind members and consider if there might not be a way to give some of them back their sight either by procuring them an artificial pupil [an operation for which Antoine-Pierre Demours was a reputable specialist] or by some other means.” Registre des délibérations. From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI (October 24, 1800, to March 18, 1803), session of 2 Nivôse Year IX (December 23, 1800), f15v and f16, Archives XV–XX, unnumbered manuscript. This invitation was indeed followed by a visit on 12 Nivôse Year IX (January 2, 1801) of whose outcome we unfortunately know nothing. In any case, Demours was a surgeon from outside the hospice. 8.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 1, article 4. 9.  “Nombre, secours et régime des aveugles,” in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 2, article 1. Emphasis in text. 10.  Anon., Notes sur le Règlement pour l’organisation du 23 Ventôse an IX (n.p., n.d.), page one of three manuscript pages, Archives XV–XX, B 106–6610. 11.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 2, article 3. 12. Ibid., article 4. 13. Ibid., article 7. 14. Ibid., article 9. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., article 10. 18.  Anon., Notes sur le Règlement, 1–2. 19.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 2, article 11. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., article 13. 22.  Anon., Notes sur le Règlement, 2. 23. Ibid. 24.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 2, article 16. 25.  Anon., Notes sur le Règlement, 2. 26.  “Police,” in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 3, articles 4 and 5. 27.  Johann-Friedrich Reichardt, Un Hiver à Paris sous le Consulat 1802–1803, ed. A. Laquiante (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie, 1896), 103; cited by Jean Tulard,

   Notes Le Consulat et l’Empire 1800–1815 (Paris: Association pour la Publication d’une Histoire de Paris; distributed by Hachette, n.d. [1970]), 227. 28.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 3, article 8. 29. Cited in Léon Le Grand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation jusqu’à leur translation au Faubourg Saint-Antoine (XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France, 1887), 234. 30.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 3, article 9. 31.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 12 Messidor Year IX (July 1, 1801), f77. 32.  Anon., Notes sur le Règlement, 2. 33.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 2 Ventôse Year X (February 21, 1802), f112v. 34.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 3, Article 11. 35. Ibid., article 12. 36. Ibid., article 13. 37. Ibid., article 18. 38.  Règlement pour l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts avec l’arrêt d’enregistrement à la cour de parlement . . . prononcé le sixième jour de septembre M.D.XXIII, in Dom Michel Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris, rev. ed., ed. D. Guy-Alexis Lobineau (Paris: G. Desprez, 1725), 5: 753. 39.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 3, article 20. 40. Ibid., article 21. 41.  “Dispositions particulières aux jeunes aveugles,” in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 4, article 1. 42.  “Bienfaisance,” Journal de Paris 354 (December 20, 1783): 1457. 43.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 4, article 2. 44. Ibid., article 4. 45. Of these, we don’t know how many children had reached school age. Moreover, school age was not mentioned in any regulations at this time. A new set of regulations, given to the blind youth and sighted children of Quinze-Vingts members in 1806, would set the age at which these children were to begin school at four years. 46.  Fifteen of whom were really young workers who had finished their schooling—which brought the number of real “students” to forty-four. 47.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 4, article 5. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid., article 6. 50.  Valentin Haüy, “Mémoire de M. Haüy sur l’éducation des aveugles,” in Mémoires lus dans la séance publique du Bureau Académique d’Ecriture . . . le 18 novembre, 1784 (Paris: Imprimerie d’Houry, 1784), 45. 51.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 4, article 8.

Notes    52.  “Devoir des élèves,” in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 5, title 1, article 1. 53. Ibid., article 4. 54.  “Des Punitions,” in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, title 2, article 4. 55.  “Des Récompenses,” in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 5, title 3, article 2. 56. Ibid., article 4. 57.  “Des Récréations et des vacances,” Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 5, title 4, article 1. 58. Ibid., article 2. 59.  Paul Gerbod, La Vie quotidienne dans les lycées et collèges au dix-neuvième siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1968), 100, 103. 60.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 5, title 4, article 4. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid. 63. On this subject, see the film by the Iranian Majid Majidi, The Color of Paradise (1999), whose hero, a boarder at the Institute for the Blind in Tehran, is rejected by his father, who struggles with the idea of bringing the boy to his native village in northern Iran for summer vacation. 64.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 22 Fructidor Year IX (September 9, 1801), f89. 65. Galliod, Notice historique sur l’établissement des jeunes aveugles (Paris: Quinze-Vingts, 1828). 66.  “Des Leçons publiques,” in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 5, title 6, article 3. 67.  “Devoirs des instituteurs et des répétiteurs,” Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 6, articles 8 and 9. 68. Here we encounter the spirit of the Règlemens pour l’établissement des sourdsmuets et des aveugles-nés of February 16, 1792, whose effective application had been prevented at the time by both circumstances and Haüy’s determination. 69.  Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 6, article 10. 70.  By the decree of March 17, 1808. 71.  “Logements des jeunes aveugles,” Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 2 Ventôse Year IX (February 21, 1801), f35v. 72. Ibid., f36. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid.

   Notes 77. Ibid. 78. Ibid. 79.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 27 Germinal Year IX (April 17, 1801), f61. 80. Ibid., f62. 81.  Registre des délibérations de l’administration des Quinze-Vingts. From 14 Germinal Year XI (April 1, 1803) to May 21, 1808, session of June 6, 1807, f147v, Archives XV–XX, unnumbered manuscript. 82. Ibid. 83.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 14 Germinal Year XI to May 21, 1808, session of September 12, 1807, f170. 84.  Augustus von Kotzebue, Travels from Berlin through Switzerland to Paris in the Year 1804, anon. trans. from the German (London: Richard Phillips, 1804), 1: 106. 85.  Sébastien Guillié, Rapport fait à Son Excellence le ministre secrétaire d’Etat au département de l’Intérieur par le docteur Guillié, sur l’état de l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles, pendant les exercices 1816 et 1817 (Paris: Imprimerie de J.-L. Chanson, 1818), 40. 86.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, extraordinary session of 5 Messidor Year IX (June 24, 1801), f75. 87.  This class took place from three to five o’clock, and those who took it then went to join their fellow students in their respective workshops, where they returned to their manual work until suppertime. 88.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, extraordinary session of 5 Messidor Year IX (June 24, 1801), f76. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 91.  We have here a good illustration of the principle of the exhaustive use of time and of discipline’s inscription at the heart of pedagogical practice as revealed by Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 170–256. 92.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, extraordinary session, f76. 93. Decision on the appointment of employees to the Institute for Blind Workers, 13 Prairial Year IX, signed “Chaptal,” Archives XV–XX B 109–6722. 94.  Bicêtre’s Surveillance Agent to the Citizen Agent of the Home of the Quinze-Vingts, 10 Messidor Year X (June 29, 1802), Archives XV–XX, B113–6789. 95. Decision of the Minister of the Interior, 2 Thermidor Year X (July 21, 1802), Archives XV–XX, B 113–6791. 96.  “Administration générale,” in Règlements pour l’organisation de cet hospice, chap. 1, article 4.

Notes    97. Decision of the administration of charitable establishments, 24 Floréal Year IX (15 May 1803), A.N. F15 2576. 98. Ibid. 99.  According to this document, the blind of the first class employed at the tobacco manufactory were women: they were leaf stemmers [“décôleuses” ] and their salaries ranged from thirty centimes to one franc per day. The blind youth were also employed there as leaf sorters [“époulardeurs” ]. Four of them were under sixteen and earned five centimes a day. Journal des aveugles qui travailleront aux journées à la fabrique de tabac des Quinze-Vingts, Archives XV–XX, B 113–6789. 100.  “Règlement pour une manufacture de filature de laine cardée,” Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 2 Ventôse Year IX (February 21, 1801), article 8, f36. 101. Ibid., article 9, f37. 102. Minister of the Interior to the Administrator of the Quinze-Vingts, 28 Ventôse Year IX (March 19, 1801), Archives XV–XX, B 113–6787. 103. Minister of the Interior to the Administrator of the Quinze-Vingts, 12 Fructidor Year IX (August 30, 1801), Archives XV–XX, B 113–6787. 104.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI (March 17, 1803), extraordinary session, f76. 105. In principle, this reading room was only to serve [as a place] “to listen to the reading of newspapers and some history books,” and the administration deplored the fact that it had become “the source of the indiscipline and insubordination that [now] reign at the residence.” Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 12 Messidor Year IX (July 1, 1801) f78. 106. Ibid. 107.  A petition he addressed in 1807 to the Count of Champagny, then Minister of the Interior, reveals that before becoming blind, Claude Burard had been a public prosecutor; he was therefore perfectly suited to draft a juridically substantiated memoir justifying his demands and those of his fellow members. The fact that he was the only one of the fourteen signatories of the petition given to Bonaparte in Year IX to be sanctioned suggests that he had been the leader in the affair. 108.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 22 Messidor Year IX (July 11, 1801), f78, unnumbered manuscript. 109. Ibid. 110. However, in a letter of the following 18 Fructidor (September 5, 1801), Chaptal softened his decision of 21 Messidor by authorizing the administration “to include Citizen Burard in the distribution of aid to the blind not residing within the enclosure.” Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 22 Fructidor Year IX (September 5, 1801) f89. In other

   Notes words, Burard, despite his expulsion, was no longer struck from the list of members, which subsequently permitted him to recover his rights. 111.  “Pétition présentée au Premier Consul, par les aveugles de l’hospice des Quinze-Vingts,” undated, Archives XV–XX, B 109–6724. 112. Ibid. 113. Ibid. 114. In reality, the workday at the carded wool spinnery, as at the textile manufactory, began in the summer at six in the morning and ended at seven in the evening, and in the winter, it began at seven in the morning and ended at eight in the evening. But of these thirteen hours, three were reserved for meals, which means that there were ten total work hours. “Règlements pour une manufacture de laine cardée,” in Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 2 Ventôse Year IX (February 12, 1801), article 5, f36, and session of 22 Ventôse Year IX (March 13, 1801), f43v. 115.  François-Bernard Gilles, Parallèle de Napoléon-Bonaparte et du Cardinal de Rohan, sur les œuvres qu’ils ont pratiquées dans l’établissement royal de l’hospice des Quinze-Vingts; suivi d’un discours adressé, à cet égard, à Sa Majesté Louis-le-Désiré; et d’un autre discours au peuple français (Paris: the author, 1816), 16–17. 116. Ibid., 19–20. This episode of the hospice’s history under the Consulate struck the blind so much that the authors of a long diatribe addressed to LouisPhilippe in 1830, in answer to a memoir of the former administration of QuinzeVingts published the same year, still alluded to it: “In 1801, the said Burard was led from brigade to brigade to his department for having dared to raise his voice against the status quo.” Diette, Galliod, Groscœur, Guénard, and Villa, “for the fellow blind members of the Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts,” in Observations en réponse au mémoire de l’ex-administration des Quinze-Vingts (Paris: “Printed in relief for use of the blind by Mr. Galliod, born blind, at the Quinze-Vingts,” 1830). 117.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 12 Ventôse Year XI (March 3, 1801), f40. 118. Ibid., f73. 119.  The Minister of the Interior to the Citizen Administrator of the QuinzeVingts, 29 Germinal Year IX (April 19, 1801), Archives XV–XX, B 109–6715. 120. Ibid. 121.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 12 Thermidor Year IX (July 31, 1801), f81 and 81v. 122. Ibid., f81v. 123. Ibid. 124. Ibid. 125. Ibid. 126. Ibid.

Notes    127. Ibid. 128. Ibid., f81v and f82. 129. Ibid., f82. 130. Ibid. 131. Ibid. 132. Ibid. 133.  This school is the one Haüy had announced in the Notes sent in Brumaire Year IX to the National Institute. 134.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, session of 12 Thermidor Year IX (July 31, 1801), f82. 135. Ibid. 136. Ibid. 137.  The Minister of the Interior to the administration of the Quinze-Vingts hospice, 28 Pluviôse Year X (February 17, 1802), Signed “Chaptal,” Archives XV– XX, B 109–6722. 138.  “Arrêté signifiant la suppression de la place de premier instituteur de l’Institution des Aveugles-Travailleurs, et la mise à la retraite de Valentin Haüy,” 28 Pluviôse Year X (February 17, 1802), Signed “Chaptal,” Archives XV–XX, B 109–6722. 139. Ibid. 140.  The Minister of the Interior to the administration of the Quinze-Vingts hospice, 28 Pluviôse Year X (February 17, 1802). 141. Ibid. 142. Certificate delivered by Haüy on 9 Frimaire Year XIII (November 30, 1804) at the request of the mother of a student from Montmédy, Antoine Anselme Brayer, attending the Museum of the Blind since 21 Floréal Year XII (May 10, 1804). Archives Hédé-Haüy, typed copy at the BVH. 143.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 2 Brumaire Year IX to 26 Ventôse Year XI, sessions of 10 and 17 Fructidor Year X August 28 and September 4, 1802), f135v. 144.  Valentin Haüy to Mr. Seignette, Agent General of the Imperial Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, April 23, 1806, Archives XV–XX, correspondence, typed copy at the BVH. 145.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 10 Germinal Year XI to May 21, 1808, session of 12 Prairial Year XIII (June 1, 1805), f64. 146. Ibid., session of 16 Frimaire Year XIV (December 7, 1805), f78. 147. Ibid., f79. 148. Ibid. 149.  Jean-François Galliod, Note sur l’établissement des jeunes aveugles réunis aux Quinze-Vingts en 1801, adressée à M. Haüy à son retour en France, par M. Gail-

   Notes liod [sic] son ancien élève, maître de musique aux Quinze-Vingts. INJA Archives (n.p., n.d. [1817]), unnumbered manuscript, 1. 150.  Registre des délibérations. . . . From 10 Germinal Year XI to May 21, 1808, session of 16 Frimaire Year XIV (December 7, 1805), f79. 151. Ibid., session of March 27, 1806, f91 to 94v. 152. Ibid., session of April 17, 1806, f98v. chapter 13 1. Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts, Registre des délibérations de l’administration dudit Hôpital. From December 1, 1814, to May 14, 1819, session of December 9, 1814, f1, Archives XV–XX, unnumbered manuscript. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., session of January 25, 1815. 4. Ibid., session of December 9, 1814, f1. 5. Ibid., session of December 29, 1814, f4. 6. Ibid., session of December 9, 1814. 7.  Registre des délibérations de l’administration dudit Hôpital. From February 1, 1827, to September 5, 1831, session of January 25, 1830, f263. The decision of March 1783 provided for 450 stipends. 8.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from December 1, 1814, to May 14, 1819, session of December 29, 1814, f3. 9. Galliod, Notice historique sur l’établissement des jeunes aveugles (Paris: Quinze-Vingts, 1828), 2. 10.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from December 1, 1814, to May 14, 1819, session of February 22, 1815, f12v. 11. Ibid. 12. Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, Au soir de la Monarchie. La Restauration, 2nd edition (Paris: Flammarion, 1955), 306. 13.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from July 16, 1819, to January 20, 1824, session of December 1, 1823, f168v. 14.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from July 31, 1824, to December 6, 1826, session of December 6, 1824. 15. Ibid., session of July 17, 1824, f2v. 16.  Jean-Henri-Romain Prompsault (Abbé), ed., Les Quinze-Vingts. Notes et documents (Paris: Victor Sarlit, Libraire and Carpentras, Imprimerie de E. Rolland, 1863), 113. 17.  The Knight of La Croix d’Azolette to the Grand Almoner, confidential report, June 20, 1824, Archives XV–XX, B 107–6685, draft. 18.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from July 16, 1819, to January 20, 1824, session of November 27, 1821, f68v.

Notes    19.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from July 31, 1824, to December 6, 1826, session of May 6, 1826, f130. 20. November 14, 1832, Registre destiné à recueillir les délibérations et arrêtés de l’administration des Quinze-Vingts, par nous, administrateur provisoire de cet hospice [Register of the deliberations and decisions of the Quinze-Vingts administration established by Jean-Denis Cochin, temporary administrator of the hospice], from September 5, 1831, to June 24, 1835, p. 79. 21.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from July 31, 1824, to December 6, 1826, session of November 28, 1825, f103v. 22. Ibid., decision of the administration concerning bread, clothing, and financial assistance, session of November 28, 1825, f24v, article 5. 23.  And which was still mentioned with indignation by the authors of a notebook entitled Observations in Answer to the Memoir of the Former Administration of the Quinze-Vingts, addressed to Louis-Philippe in 1830 “on Behalf of Our Fellow Blind members of the Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts [Observations en réponse au mémoire de l’ex-administration de Quinze-Vingts { . . . } pour leurs confrères les membres aveugles de l’hôpital royal des Quinze-Vingts] (Paris: Quinze-Vingts, “printed for the use of the blind by M. Galliod, blind since birth,” 1830), 25. BVH, manuscript copy. 24.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from July 31, 1824, to December 6, 1826, session of January 10, 1825. 25. Ibid., session of November 28, 1825, f104v. 26.  The Knight of La Croix d’Azolette to the Grand Almoner, confidential report, June 20, 1824, Archives XV–XX, B 107–6685, draft. 27.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from July 31, 1824, to December 6, 1826, session of February 28, 1825, f49v and 50. 28. Givers of holy water (here, a woman) stood next to the stoup in Catholic churches and offered holy water to those who entered [translator’s note]. 29.  Registre des délibérations . . . , from July 31, 1824, to December 6, 1826, session of May 6, 1826. 30.  Prompsault, Les Quinze-Vingts, 113. 31. Ibid., 114. chapter 14 1. L. Montigny, “L’Institution des aveugles,” in Le Provincial à Paris. Esquisses des Mœurs parisiennes, 2nd ed. (Paris: Ladvocat, 1826), 3: 249. 2.  Joseph Guadet, L’Institut des jeunes aveugles de Paris. Son histoire et ses procédés d’enseignement (Paris: Thunot et Cie, 1849), 64. 3.  The separation of sexes was a recurring question in this institution that, unlike other boarding schools of the time, admitted both girls and boys.

   Notes 4.  Sébastien Guillié, Rapport fait à Son Excellence le ministre secrétaire d’Etat au département de l’Intérieur par le docteur Guillié, sur l’état de l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles, pendant les exercices 1816 et 1817 (Paris: Imprimerie de J.-L. Chanson, 1818), 11. 5.  Règlement pour l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles, decision of October 14, 1815, article 114, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 6.  Alexandre-René Pignier, “Punitions,” in Rapport fait au Conseil d’administration de l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles par le directeur de l’établissement, May 19, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 7. In this letter, which is a refutation of certain passages in the work Guadet published in 1849, Zélie Lagrange-Cardeilhac, who had been appointed headmistress of the blind girls in 1815, wrote: “Most of these students, who developed in such a short time, owed this swift blossoming to the firmness with which they were kept in check and the severity of the regulations’ observance (yes, the severity. Something good always comes out of it.).” And further: “When recently arrived, mischievous kids played rotten tricks (I could cite some curious ones for you), after a second offense and a first admonition, we punished them with the whip, and even then, we often confined ourselves to scaring them.” Z. Lagrange-Cardeilhac to Joseph Guadet in response to his publication about the Institute for the Blind, July 15, 1861, Archives of Maurice de La Sizeranne, BVH. 8.  Antoine-Jean Letronne, “Observations sur la direction et l’état de l’instruction littéraire dans l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles,” in Pignier, Rapport fait, document 8, p. 3. 9. Ibid. 10.  Whatever the necessity may have been for these demonstrations to convince the public of the validity of educating the blind youth and to rouse its generosity when the institute was founded and then, during the Revolution, when it was threatened with ruin. 11. Lagrange-Cardeilhac to Guadet, July 15, 1861, Archives of Maurice de La Sizeranne, BVH. 12.  Règlement pour l’Institution Royale, October 18, 1815, article 1. 13. Louis Costaz, “Produits du travail dans les établissements de bienfaisance et de charité,” in Rapport du jury central sur les produits de l’industrie française (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1819), 340. This report was prepared by Costaz, a member of the Institut d’Egypte, for Count Elie Decazes, who was Minister of the Interior at the time. 14.  Pignier, “Mort de l’élève Poupé,” in Rapport fait au Conseil d’administration, article 3. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid.

Notes    18.  According to a register of students who entered the institute between May 31, 1796, and November 22, 1822 (Museum of the INJA, A8 72T), Pierre Poupé, born July 6, 1810, in Nod-sur-Seine in the Côte-d’Or, entered the institute on September 12, 1820, and died there on April 13, 1821. 19. Ibid. 20.  Sébastien Guillié, Bibliothèque ophtalmologique ou Recueil d’observations sur les maladies des yeux, faites à la clinique de l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles (Paris: Les Jeunes Aveugles, 1820), 1: 81. 21. Ibid., 1: 82–83. 22. Ibid., 1: 83. 23.  Zina Weygand, “De l’expérience de Cheselden (1728) aux expériences du docteur Guillié sur l’ophtalmie contagieuse (1819–1820). Diverses modalités de l’utilisation de l’aveugle-né comme lieu de la preuve,” Histoire des sciences médicales 34, no. 3 (2000): 295–304. 24.  Sébastien Guillié, Essai sur l’instruction des aveugles ou Exposé analytique des procédés employés pour les instruire, 3rd ed. (Paris: Les Aveugles, 1820), 42. The Abbé Sicard was a friend of the family of Guillié, whom he had encouraged to come to Paris to pursue medical studies begun in Bordeaux. It was very likely to the influence of Sicard, one of the administrators of the Quinze-Vingts, that Guillié owed his position as headmaster at the time when the Institute for Blind Youth was still attached to the hospice. 25.  Sicard, “Discours préliminaire.” 26. Guillié, Essai sur l’instruction des aveugles, 68. 27. Ibid., 13. 28. On this subject, see Jean-Claude Caron, A l’Ecole de la violence. Châtiments et sévices dans l’institution scolaire au dix-neuvième siècle (Paris: Aubier, 1999), especially chap. 2, “L’Inventaire de la punition.” 29. Edgar Guilbeau, Histoire de l’Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles (Paris: Belin Frères, 1907), 81. 30. In her letter of July 15, 1861, to Guadet, Lagrange-Cardeilhac writes explicitly that the reason for Guillié’s refusal of Haüy’s reiterated requests to be received at the Institute for Blind Youth after his return from Russia had to do with his fondness for Sicard: “We had another reason to exclude Haüy [whose methods she had just criticized]. In difficult times, this man had been steeped in revolutionary principles. At the section, he had denounced and sentenced to death the illustrious Abbé Sicard, our close friend. This fanatic, who had always affected a false gentleness of the Blessed, had, in a denunciation that I saw at the Abbé Sicard’s house signed by Haüy himself (I tell nothing but the truth), asked for the head of the venerable man. Could we, I ask you, have distressed such a friend by welcoming a wretch who had solicited his death to a home he frequently visited?” In addition to the reasons for Haüy’s exclusion from the institute, this letter seems to offer

   Notes proof of his culpability toward Sicard during the Revolution. . . . Unfortunately, in this letter (and in another, dated July 17 and also addressed to Guadet), the headmistress merely follows her most questionable affirmations with a peremptory “I tell nothing but the truth” or an “I never lie” that of course prove nothing. Indeed, in many of these cases, we are certain that it is a question of lies. 31.  Alexis de Noailles to Pignier, July 27, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 32.  Pierre-Armand Dufau, “Notice sur Valentin Haüy . . . ,” Annales de l’éducation des sourds-muets et des aveugles 1, no. 2 (1844): 78. 33.  There is still some doubt as to the date of Haüy’s death: in his Essai historique, published anonymously in 1860, Pignier speaks of March 18, 1822, which is also the date mentioned on a commemorative plaque hung in the institute’s chapel, whose text, according to Pignier, was composed by “Mr. Petit-Radel, member of the National Institute”: “IN MEMORY OF VALENTIN HAÜY . . . DIED IN PARIS ON MARCH 18, 1822. . . .” See Alexandre-René Pignier, Essai historique sur l’Institution des Jeunes Aveugles de Paris (Paris: Imprimerie de Madame Veuve Bouchard-Huzard, 1860), 24, 229. However, Alphonse Mahul’s necrology for the year 1822 reports a date of March 19, 1822. See his Année nécrologique ou Complément annuel et continuation de toutes les biographies ou dictionnaires historiques (Paris: Ponthieu, 1823 [for the preceding year]), 120. This is also the date retained by Dufau in his “Notice” (see note 32, above). Henri, in his biography of Haüy published in 1984, writes: “Surrounded by his brother and the Abbé Michaut, the parish priest, Valentin Haüy passed away on March 18, 1822.” But in appendix A of his book, “Ascendance et descendance de Valentin Haüy,” citing the Saint-Just-en-Chaussée parish registers, he writes “Valentin (November 13, 1745, to March 19, 1822).” Pierre Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Valentin Haüy (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1984), 190, 194. The debate remains open, all the more so since Haüy’s death certificate seems to have disappeared in the fire at the Paris archives in 1871. 34.  “The next day, after having sung a mass in counterpoint at the Church of Saint-Médard composed by Galliod, chapelmaster of the Quinze-Vingts, his former students accompanied his remains to Père-Lachaise.” Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Valentin Haüy, 190. 35. Letronne, “Observations sur la direction et l’état de l’instruction littéraire dans l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles,” May 10, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 36.  See the transcription of the “Rapport de MM. les docteurs Récamier et Cayol,” in Pignier, Essai historique, notes and supporting documents, 265. 37.  Alexis de Noailles to Pignier, April 4 1821, INJA Archives. 38. Ibid.

Notes    39. Louis Braille, Remarques et observations critiques sur l’ouvrage de M. Guadet, March 1851, 10–11, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. Braille’s remarks are also cited by Pignier in his Essai historique, 57. 40.  [Pignier], Essai historique, 157. 41. Geoffroy de Grandmaison, La Congrégation (1801–1830) (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1889), 161. 42.  Pignier, Rapport fait au Conseil d’administration, May 31, 1833, 17–18, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 43.  Braille, Remarques et observations, 21. 44.  [Pignier], Essai historique, 165. 45. Emile Bienaimé, Pierre-Armand Dufau, and Tahan, Claude Montal, facteur de pianos (aveugle): sa vie et ses travaux (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1857), 15. 46.  Alexis de Noailles to Pignier, April 4, 1824, INJA Archives. 47.  “Prix pour un moyen de procurer aux aveugles indigents le travail le plus utile pour eux et le mieux approprié à leur situation,” extracted from the “Programme des prix proposés par la Société d’Encouragement pour 1824,” Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale (1824): 299ff, BVH, typed copy. 48.  Rapport fait par le Directeur de l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles le 7 Mars 1825 à Messieurs les administrateurs de l’établissement, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 49.  “Rapport des médecins consultants et du chirurgien de l’institution,” signed by Baron as “doctor for the Royal Children of France,” consulting doctor for the establishment,” Cayol, “professor at the school of medicine, consulting doctor for the establishment,” Fizeau, “professor at the school of medicine, doctor of the Institute for Blind Youth,” Gondret, consulting doctor for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth,” Récamier, “professor at the school of medicine and consulting doctor for the establishment,” Mirambeau, docteur in medicine, chief surgeon of the Royal Hospice of the Quinze-Vingts and surgeon for the establishment,” December 4, 1828, in Pignier, Essai historique, notes and supporting documents, 267. 50.  “Avis des médecins sur la nécessité de faire faire aux élèves des promenades à la campagne,” signed by Baron, Cayol, Fizeau, Gondret, Mirambeau, and Récamier, in Pignier, Essai historique, notes and supporting documents, note 37, 261. 51.  Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles. Décès des élèves. Archives INJA. Unnumbered manuscript. 52.  Petition of administrators and former administrators of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in favor of Mr. Alexandre-René-Pignier, signed by Dehaussy de Robécourt, de Schonen, Acloque, de Tascher, and Lahure, February 3 and 4, 1841, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript.

   Notes 53. Catherine Duprat, Usage et pratiques de la philanthropie. Pauvreté, action sociale et lien social à Paris au cours du premier dix-neuvième siècle (Paris: Comité d’Histoire de la Sécurité Sociale, 1997), 2: 1046. 54.  [Pignier], Essai historique, notes and supporting documents, note 15, 244. 55.  Anon. [Barbier], Essai sur divers procédés d’expéditive française, contenant douze écritures différentes, avec une planche pour chaque procédé (Paris, 1815). Despite the absence of an author’s name, this text, preceded by a “foreword” signed “B,” can definitively be attributed to Charles Barbier: its style, the writing methods proposed, and the objectives advanced by the author for the use of his systems are the same as those found in other documents signed by Barbier. 56.  José de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Sevilla, 1590); translated into French by Robert Regnault as Histoire naturelle et morale des Indes, tant orientales qu’occidentales (1598). On Father de Acosta’s work, “the beginnings of a comparative study” between nonalphabetic writing systems: Chinese writing, “Mexican paintings,” and Peruvian quippos, we refer to Madeleine V. David, Le Débat sur les écritures et l’hiéroglyphe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles et l’application de la notion de déchiffrement aux écritures mortes (Paris: SEVPEN, 1965), 28–30. 57.  François Picavet, Les Idéologues. Essai sur l’histoire des idées et des théories scientifiques, philosophiques, religieuses, etc. en France depuis 1789 (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1891), 76. 58. Charles Barbier, preface to Principes d’expéditive française pour écrire aussi vite que la parole. Deuxième édition considérablement augmentée par l’auteur, suivie d’un Procédé d’écriture coupée pour suppléer la plume ou le crayon et exécuter plusieurs copies à la fois sans tracer de caractères (Paris: Imprimerie de Gillé fils, 1809). Okigraphie, invented in 1802 by a Monsieur Blanc, was another system that enabled people to write at the rate of speech—according to N. Boquillon, Dictionnaire des inventions et découvertes depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Librairie de Maison, 1843), 261 [translator’s note]. 59.  Barbier, Principes d’expéditive française, 44. 60. Ibid., 48–49. 61.  [Barbier], Essai sur divers procédés, 12–13. 62. Copies of the certificates signed in Paris on November 23, 1810, by the Abbé Depierre, the Abbé Tardy, Brother Leufroy, and Brother Bénézet, of the Brothers of the Christian Schools can be found in Manuscripts, Archives XV– XX, B115–6856. 63.  [Barbier], Essai sur divers procédés, 20. 64. Ibid. 65.  Barbier to Pignier, April 24, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 66.  Barbier to “His Excellence Monsignor de Quélen, co-adjutor for the Archdiocese of Paris,” May 28, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript.

Notes    67.  Barbier to “Monsieur the President of the Administration of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth,” June 20, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 68. De Prony, Molard, and Bréguet, reporters to the Académie Royale des Sciences, Rapport sur un instrument au moyen duquel on peut tracer sur une planche métallique les caractères d’une écriture appelée “Expéditive française,” May 15, 1820, Archives of the Academy of Sciences, BVH, typed copy. 69.  Pignier, Rapport fait au Conseil, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 70.  Pierre-François-Victor Foucault (a member of the Quinze-Vingts), Appareil pour écrire à l’usage des aveugles, report to the members of the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, October 3, 1842. The text is in pinprick writing. Bibliothèque du CNAM, 40⁰K 20. 71.  Barbier to “the President of the Administration of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth,” June 20, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 72.  Barbier to Pignier, December 8, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 73.  Barbier to Pignier, December 11, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 74.  “Suite des applications de l’expéditive française,” the second article in “Ecriture nocturne à l’usage des aveugles,” excerpted from the Annales de l’industrie nationale et étrangère ou Mercure technologique (Paris: Bachelier Libraire, 1822), 9. 75. Ibid., 10. 76. Ibid. 77.  Barbier to Pignier, December 8, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 78.  Barbier to “the President of the Administration of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth,” June 20, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 79.  Barbier to Pignier, June 20, 1821, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 80.  The Baron de Gérando, “Travail des aveugles indigents” in “Rapport sur les concours ouverts par la Société pour l’année 1823,” Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale (1823): 264, BVH, typed copy. 81.  Rapport de Messieurs de Lacépède et Ampère sur l’écriture imaginée pour les aveugles par Monsieur Charles Barbier, December 1, 1823, Archives of the Académie Royale des Sciences, BVH, typed copy. 82.  Barbier to Pignier, January 5, 1822, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 83.  Pierre Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, inventeur de l’alphabet des aveugles (1809–1852) (Paris: PUF, 1952), 46. 84. Ibid. 85.  Barbier to Pignier, November 11, 1824, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript.

   Notes 86. Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, 48. 87.  Barbier to Pignier, November 11, 1824, INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 88. Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau, “Sudre: Solrésol,” Histoire de la langue universelle (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1903), section 1, chap. 6. Beginning around the time of the World’s Fair of 1900, the two authors were involved in plans for an auxiliary international language to facilitate communication between scientific organizations worldwide [translator’s note]. 89. Hippolyte Coltat, Notice biographique sur Louis Braille, in Institution Impériale des Jeunes Aveugles, Inauguration du buste de Louis Braille, aveugle, ancien professeur de l’Institution, inventeur du procédé d’écriture en points saillants (Paris: Imprimerie d’E. Duverger, 1853), 17. 90.  See Christine MacLeod, Heroes of Invention: Technology, Liberalism and British National Identity 1750–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 91.  For a more complete study of Braille and his work, we recommend Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille (see note 83). 92. Georges Bidault, preface to Les Doigts qui lisent. Vie de Louis Braille, 1809– 1852, by Jean Roblin (Monte Carlo: Regain, 1951) 11. 93. Guadet, L’Institut des jeunes aveugles de Paris, 88. 94. On Coupvray and Braille’s family, see Roblin, Les Doigts qui lisent, chaps. 1 and 2. 95.  [Pignier], “Notice sur Louis Braille,” in Notices biographiques sur trois professeurs anciens élèves de l’Institution des jeunes aveugles de Paris (Paris: Imprimerie de Madame Veuve Bouchard-Huzard, 1859), 8. 96. Institut des Jeunes Aveugles, Registry of March 31, 1796, to November 22, 1822, Museum of the INJA, A8 72T. 97.  [Pignier], Notices biographiques, 9. 98.  Probably an essay prize. 99. Montigny, Le Provincial à Paris, 258. 100. Coltat, Notice biographique, 15–16. This musical talent and the pleasure Braille took in it were the subject of one of the rare personal accounts of the inventor that have come down to us. Among Braille’s letters recently published by the INJA, a letter he sent from Chamalières to Pignier evokes musical interludes with which he, and other musicians, regaled the neighborhood: “We performed duets and trios on the piano, the violin, or in song that electrified the neighborhood. We were satisfied with this modest public, and I absolutely refused any musical gathering at Clermont. However, my name can be found in a departmental newspaper in connection with pompous praise whose object was someone other than myself.” We may ask ourselves why the young man refused to appear before a

Notes    larger public, but aside from fatigue due to his health problems—which he briefly mentions in the letter—we have no answer to this question. 101.  [Pignier], Notices biographiques, 14. 102. Ibid., 15. 103. Ibid. 104. Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles, Bordereau des objets envoyés par l’Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles à l’exposition des produits de l’industrie nationale en 1834 (l’Institution a obtenu une médaille à cette exposition), INJA Archives, unnumbered manuscript. 105. Guadet, L’Institut des jeunes aveugles de Paris, 81. 106. Louis Braille, foreword to Procédé pour écrire les paroles, la musique, et le plain-chant au moyen des points, à l’usage des aveugles et disposé pour eux (Paris: 1829), Valentin Haüy Museum, Inventory A-05–3001. 107. Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, 57. 108. Ibid., 58. 109.  Annales de l’éducation des sourds-muets et des aveugles 1, no. 2 (1844), devoted to the inaugural ceremony for the new building of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth on February 22, 1844. 110.  The journal founded by Joseph Guadet at the beginning of the 1855–56 school year, which he used, among other things, as a strong means of disseminating the raised dot writing system. 111. Guadet, “Ecriture en points saillants (système Braille),” L’Instituteur des Aveugles 1, no. 5 (February 1856): 96–97. For a more complete explanation of how to generate the ten fundamental signs—whose principle Braille himself had not revealed—we refer to Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, 51–53. 112. Guadet, “Exposé du système d’écriture en points saillants à l’usage des aveugles,” Annales de l’éducation des sourds-muets et des aveugles 1, no. 2 (1844): 88. For a more complete explanation of the Braille system applied to musical notation, see the third chapter of Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, 60–61. 113.  [Pignier], Essai historique, 107. 114.  [Pignier], Notices biographiques, 23. 115.  This method is often called “decapoint” because, in order to represent ordinary characters, Braille decided upon combinations requiring ten points maximum in height. Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, 101. 116. Coltat, Notice biographique, 19. 117.  For more details on this invention and on other writing machines invented by Foucault, see Zina Weygand, “Un Clavier pour les aveugles, ou le Destin d’un inventeur: Pierre-François-Victor Foucault (1797–1871),” VOIR barré, no. 23 (December 2001): 30–41. 118. Coltat, Notice biographique, 17.

   Notes 119.  The Abbé Carton to Louis Braille, manuscript copy, n.d., INJA Archives, not inventoried. We believe this letter concerns decapoint and dates from 1839— the year the method was published—because, in a letter to Carton of May 21, 1842, written using Foucault’s machine (whose recent invention he announces), Braille alludes to the “flattering reception” the Abbé had reserved for his method “in 1839.” Braille to the Abbé Carton, May 21, 1842, Collection of the Congrégation des Sœurs de l’Enfance de Marie, Bruges, Belgium. Reproduced in VOIR barré, no. 23 (December 2001): 31. 120. Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, 74. 121.  Johann Wilhelm Klein in Vienna, or Johann Knie in Breslau. 122.  Pierre-Armand Dufau, Des Aveugles. Considérations sur leur état physique, moral et intellectuel, avec un exposé complet des moyens propres à améliorer leur sort à l’aide de l’instruction et du travail, 2nd ed. (Paris: Jules Renouard et Cie, 1850), 123. 123. Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, 75. 124. Gabriel Gauthier, a recognized composer, organist at Saint-Etienne-duMont, and author, notably, of a composition manual and a treatise on harmony, had entered the Institute for Blind Youth at the age of ten in 1818, one year before Braille. A teacher of harmony, composition, and the organ at the institute, this dearest and oldest friend died there one and half years after Braille, on June 27, 1853. Pignier also wrote a biographical notice on Gauthier, which was published in 1859 along with that of Braille and another of the institute’s blind teachers, Augustin Moulin. 125. Coltat, Notice biographique, 16. 126. Ibid. 127.  [Pignier], Notices biographiques, 23. 128. Coltat, Notice biographique, 21. 129.  [Pignier], Notices biographiques, 8. 130.  Congrès Universel pour l’Amélioration du Sort des Aveugles et des SourdsMuets (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1878), 153. The meeting took place from 23 to 30 September. 131. Henri, La Vie et l’œuvre de Louis Braille, 81. 132.  Founded in 1883 in Saint-Mandé at his initiative. 133.  [Hippolyte-Henry?] Letalenet, “L’Inauguration du monument Braille, Coupvray, 30 May 1887,” Le Valentin Haüy, revue française des questions relatives aux aveugles, 5th Year (June 1887): 41. 134. Ibid., 46. 135. Guilbeau, Histoire de l’Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles, 81.

Notes    conclusion 1. Loukou Koukou Louss, seventh grade-student in Togoville (Togo), participant in a competition of the World Blind Union: “What Braille Means to Me and What It Changed in My Life.” Cited in Caty Cavaillès, “Le Braille,” a talk given at “Bilan et perspectives de la prise en charge du jeune déficient visuel en France et en Europe,” [“Young Visually Impaired People: Present state and future prospects in France and Europe”], a UNESCO conference held in Paris, November 30, 2000. The text was kindly given to us by the author before its publication.

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Works About Vision: The Gaze, Blindness and the Blind, Deaf-Mutes Bentounsi, Yasmine, and Olivier Maisondieu. “Les Quinze-Vingts de Paris dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle (1742–1779).” Master’s thesis, Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 1978. Cohen, Gustave. “Le Thème de l’aveugle et du paralytique dans la littérature française. “ In Mélanges Emile Picot, vol. 2. Paris: E. Rahu, 1973, 393–404. Cornand, Georges, and Pierre Renard. “L’Ophtalmie des armées au XIXe siècle.” In L’Ophtalmie des origines à nos jours, vol. 2. Annonay: Laboratoires Faure, 1979, 110. Dufournet, Jean. Le Garçon et l’aveugle. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1982. “Figures littéraires de la cécité du Moyen Age au XXe siècle.” VOIR barré 12–13 (November 1996). Gauthier, Brigitte. “La Cécité et l’aveugle au Moyen Age, IXe–XVe siècles.” Doctoral thesis, Univ. Lyon II, 1984. ———. “Les Aveugleries médiévales, XIe–XVe siècles.” Santé et histoire. Cahiers d’histoire 29, nos. 2–3 (1984): 97–118. Golesceano, Constantin. Les Aveugles à travers les âges. La clinique opthalmologique des Quinze-Vingts. L’Hospice des Quinze-Vingts modernes. Paris: Maloine, 1902. Griffon, Pierre. Déficiences visuelles: pour une meilleure intégration. Paris: Editions du CTNERHI, 1995. Guilbeau, Edgar. Histoire de l’Institution nationale des jeunes aveugles. Paris: Belin, 1907. Havelange, Carl. De l’Œil et du monde. Une histoire du regard au seuil de la modernité. Paris: Fayard, 1998. Henri, Pierre. Les Aveugles et la société. Contribution à la psychologie sociale de la cécité. Paris: PUF, 1958.

   Bibliography ———. Le Siècle des Lumières et la cécité, de Molyneux à Valentin Haüy (1692– 1822). Vol. 1, Les Savants, les philosophes, les lettrés et les curieux devant la cécité. Paris: Editions du GIAA, 1984. ———. Le Siècle des Lumières et la cécité, de Molyneux à Valentin Haüy (1692– 1822). Vol 2, La Vie et l’œuvre de Valentin Haüy. Paris: PUF, 1984. Karacostas, Alexis. “L’Institution nationale des sourds-muets de Paris de 1790 à 1800. Histoire d’un corps à corps.” Doctoral thesis in medicine, Univ. René Descartes-Paris V, Faculté de Médecine Port-Royal, 1981. Knowlson, James R. “The Idea of Gesture as a Universal Language in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Journal of the History of Ideas 26 (1965): 495–508. Kuisle, Anita. Brillen. Munich: Deutsches Museum, 1985. “La Fonction du regard 1. Art, littérature, philosophie.” VOIR barré 9 (November 1994). “La Lettre sur les aveugles de Denis Diderot (1749) 1. L’Invention de l’aveugle.” VOIR barré 18 (May 1999). “La Lettre sur les aveugles de Denis Diderot (1749) 2. Le Problème de Molyneux.” VOIR barré 19 (October 1999). “Le Braille. De l’analogie au symbole.” VOIR barré 23 (December 2001). L’Esprit, A. “Valentin Haüy, instituteur des aveugles et théophilanthrope, son séjour dans nos quartiers.” La Cité, bulletin trimestriel de la Société historique et archéologique du quatrième arrondissement de Paris 16 (1917): 253, 291, and 17 (1918): 5–30. Loraux, Nicole. “Voir dans le noir.” Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse 35 (Spring 1987): 219–230. Margolin, Jean-Claude. “Des lunettes et des hommes, ou la satire des mal-voyants au XVIe siècle,” Annales ESC 30, nos. 2–3 (March–June 1975): 375–93. Markovits, Francine. “L’Enfant, le muet, le sauvage.” In L’Enfant, la famille et la Révolution française, ed. Marie-Françoise Lévy, 53–67, 447–50. Papers from a colloquium organized by the IDEF, Paris, France, January–February, 1991. ———. “Mérian, Diderot, et l’aveugle.” Afterword to Sur le problème de Molyneux, by J.-B. Mérian, 193–282. Paris: Flammarion, 1984. Marly, Pierre. Lunettes and Lorgnettes. Texts by Jean-Claude Margolin and Paul Bierent. 2nd ed. N.p.: Hoebeke, 1988. Marx, Paul. “Le Glaucome avant De Graefe.” In L’Ophtalmologie des origines à nos jours, vol. 4. Annonay: Laboratoires Faure, 1983, 141–47. Milcent, Martine. “Les Aveugles dans la littérature et la société médiévales.” Master’s thesis, Université de Paris III–Sorbonne nouvelle, 1978.

Bibliography    Milner, Max. On est prié de fermer les yeux. Le Regard interdit (Paris: Gallimard, 1991). Morgan, Michaël J. Molyneux’s Question. Vision, Touch, and the Philosophy of Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987). Paulson, William R. Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the Blind in France (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1987). Ribault, Jean-Yves. “Un Groupe social peu connu: les joueurs d’instruments aveugles et conducteurs d’aveugles au XVIIe siècle dans la paroisse de Saint-Ambroix de Bourges.” Cahiers d’archéologie et d’histoire du Berry 2 (June 1985): 28–29. Ronchi, Vasco. L’Optique, science de la vision. Paris: Masson et Cie, 1966. Saraux, Henry. Abrégé d’ophtalmologie. 5th ed. Paris: Masson et Cie, 1982. Sicouly, Claude. Les Quinze-Vingts de la fin de l’Ancien Régime à la fin du Premier Empire 1780–1815. Memoir for an assistantship, Ecole Nationale de la Santé Publique, 1978. Swain, Gladys. “Une logique de l’inclusion: les infirmes du signe.” Esprit 5 (May 1982): 61–75. Villey, Pierre. Le Monde des aveugles. 1914. Reprint, GIAA, Paris: Librairie José Corti, 1984. “Visages mythiques de la cécité. De l’Antiquité à nos jours.” VOIR barré (journal of the Centre de Recherche sur les Aspects Culturels de la Vision, Ligue Braille, Brussels), 5 (October 1992). Weiner, Dora B. “The Blind Man and the French Revolution.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 48, no. 1 (Spring 1974): 60–89. Weygand, Zina. Les Causes de la cécité et les soins oculaires en France au début du XIX e siècle (1800–1815). Paris: CTNERHI, 1989; distributed by PUF. ———. “De l’Expérience de Cheselden (1728) aux expériences du docteur Guillié sur l’ophtalmie contagieuse (1819–1820). Diverses modalités de l’utilisation de l’aveugle-né comme lieu de la preuve.” Histoire des sciences médicales 34, no. 3 (July–August 2000): 295–304. ———. “Un Clavier pour les aveugles ou le Destin d’un inventeur: Pierre-François-Victor Foucault (1797–1871).” VOIR barré 23 (December 2001): 30–41.

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