L'Epee, CM

Name: Charles Michel de L'Epee

Achievements: The first to use sign language to provide an education for the deaf

Born: November 24, 1712; Versailles, France

Died: December, 1789; Paris, France. Aged 77

Field & Discipline: Religion; Education; Priest; Teacher

Language: French

Father: Unknown

Mother: Unknown

Siblings: Unknown

Spouse: None

Children: None

Education: College de Quatre Nations, Versailles

Major Work:

"Instruction of Deaf-Mutes by Means of Mechanical Signs" (1776)

Life & Times:

L'Epee's father was an architect in the service of Louis XIV. At the age of seventeen L’Epee began his  training for the priesthood. When he was required to sign an oath denouncing Jansenism, the doctrine of [a follower of] Jansen*,  L'Epee refused to sign. Monseigneur Christophe de Beaumont, who hated the Jansenists, decreed that L'Epee would not be allowed to take the vows of priesthood.

L'Epee was made a deacon and began studying law. He qualified at the Paris bar but then returned to his religious vocation. A more tolerant bishop accepted him in his diocese at Troyes in 1736 and two years later ordained him as priest. Soon afterwards, his protector died and L'Epee lost his position as canon and was forbidden to administer the sacrament or undertake pastoral duties.

Little is known about the next twenty-five years of L'Epee's life. He settled in Paris,

supported by a small allowance from his family, and began visiting the poor. It was on visit to a poor widow in the 1760s that he encountered her twin daughters who were both deaf. Aged fifteen, they had received no education apart from some instruction about the saints from a kindly priest who had since died. L'Epee undertook to continue this attempt

at  religious education.

He realised that the girls had their own means of communication through signing with each other and with other deaf people, but did not appreciate that this could be learned as a true language for education. He believed that deaf people could never hope to express their ideas in writing and that the most that cold be hoped for was that they would learn how to translate the language used by non-deaf people intotheir own signs.

To do this, the “language” used by the deaf had to be made to conform to French word order and word endings.  He began the process by which communication between deaf and non-deaf people could be taught and the deaf could receive an education.

His pupils were first taught the alphabet manually, with one hand-shape for each letter. Nouns were taught by pointing at different parts of the body while indicating the written name for the part on a card. Pupils learned to spell with hand-shapes and were then taught to write, using cut-outs of the alphabet. A manual sign was taught for the persons and tenses of the verbs, and a few signs for articles and prepositions. Pupils were then able to write a sentence in French following dictation given by manual signs.

So L'Epee used signing in what he called a methodical way, which resulted in laborious and complicated signing for even the plainest sentence. The word “gives,” for example required five signs: for verb, present tense, third person, singular and “give.” But it worked, and more pupils were sent to L'Epee.

He used a small income from his father to pay for assistants and the expenses of a school in the home he shared with his architect brother in the rue des Moulins.  From 1771, L'Epee gave public demonstrations which soon became so well attended that he had to give two a day. His purpose was to end the prejudice against the deaf which often  resulted in their being put in asylums for the insane, and to encourage others to follow his example.

In the seventeenth century the Spaniard [anticipated by] Bonet* had written the first book on teaching speech to the deaf, but there was no precedent for L'Epee's success.  Famous intellectuals including the philosopher [visited by] Etienne de Condillac* visited L’Epee’s school, and there were distinguished arrivals from all over Europe.  The American politician [visited by] John Quincy Adams* visited L'Epee, the pope sent his papal nuncio and the Russian ambassador was sent with a gift of money from [financial support from] Catherine the Great*. L'Epee's work became widely known and as his disciples and ex-pupils opened their own schools, so his method spread.

A school opened in 1777 at Angers in France. Ten years later, [successor was] Sicard*, who would succeed L'Epee in Paris, opened his school at Bordeaux. Other establishments were founded during L'Epee's lifetime by his followers and ex-pupils in Rome, Amsterdam, Vienna,  Karlsruhe and Prague.

After his death, his method was introduced by [method used by] Thomas Gallaudet* in America,  where [method opposed by] Alexander Graham Bell* would eventually try to abolish the use of signing.

In 1778, L'Epee became involved in a notorious court case when he supported in court the claim of one of his pupils to be the abducted son of an aristocrat. He acted as counsel for his pupil who won his case.

Although he was revered for his work and his saintly personality, L'Epee was not supported by promised funds from the government and in the winter of 1788 when people were dying from starvation in the freezing weather, his pupils had to force him to eat and to buy wood for a fire. The following year, as L'Epee lay dying, his greatest fear was allayed when a delegation from the National Assembly sent a delegation to assure him that they would take his school under their protection and that its work would continue.

Extra Connections: He inspired [inspired] Valentin Hauy*

Assessment: L'Epee pioneered a method involving sign language for teaching the deaf and was the first to provide education for the deaf.

Oneliner:  CM de l’Epee, pioneer in teaching the deaf

Bibliography:

• Lane, Harlan, When the Mind Hears, A History of the Deaf, Penguin Books, London, 1984.