THE READING FINGERS

Jean Roblin

Chapter VIII: FINAL LABORS

THE BRACING, FRESH COUNTRY AIR, the absence of worry, and the nearness of his family soon gave Louis Braille new strength and the illusion of recovered health. Far from the feverish activity of Paris, far from jealousies, intrigues and underhanded fights, he felt like himself again; his whole being benefitted from restored calm and serenity.

His family took advantage of his long stay in Coupvray to settle the harness-maker's estate. It may appear strange that they had waited so long (Simon René Braille died in 1831) to apportion the property among the children. However, the Record of the Town Plots is positive on this point. In 1843 the distribution of the different properties was officially carried out. We can estimate the value of Louis Braille's little inheritance by going through the large volume, where on page 702 we find the imposing list of his property, in all, two and a half acres of land, 1700 square meters of vineyards, the revenue from which was evaluated at forty-six francs and thirty-nine centimes.

The allotting of the buildings seems to have been carried out fairly, in accordance with the wishes and needs of everyone. Louis Simon Braille, who lived in Chessy, asked only for a farm building and the workshop to store the crops from his numerous fields located in Coupvray. The Marniesses, already the owners of a large house and a workshop in Coupvray, also received two farm buildings. Louis Braille, who probably wished to have a home to which to come each year for his vacations, obtained the old family house where he was born. As for the Carrons, if their share seemed unimportant (one building shared with Louis Simon, and a few plots of land and vineyards), it is very possible that they received as compensation some of the tools from the harness-maker's shop; for Louis Braille's two nephews had learned the trade of their grandfather.

In 1843 Antoine Becheret, the teacher who had once inspired the blind boy with a desire for an education died in Coupvray. First the Abbé Palluy and the Marquis d'Orvilliers had gone, and now the last of his benefactors, the one to whom he felt most deeply indebted. A very understandable grief seized him when he thought of his friends and his relatives disappearing one by one, without his ever once being able to see their faces. He braced himself, however, and chased away such depressing thoughts. It was not his habit to dwell on his own life. There was his mother, always gentle and good, and his brother Louis Simon and his sister Monique Catherine, who did everything to make him happy. In Paris he could count on Gauthier, Coltat, and Pignier, all so understanding and affectionate. Why despair of life then? Besides there was his work, his research, and his invention, to which he devoted most of his time and thoughts, and which kept him from falling into a morbid and unproductive depression.

Louis Braille returned to Paris at the beginning of October. New setbacks awaited him. In his absence Dufau, stiffening his unfriendly attitude and continuing the changes undertaken at the start of his directorship, had widened the gulf which separated the defenders of the old system and the partisans of the alphabet in raised dots. Imitating Scotland and the United States, he had changed the dimensions of the Valentin Haüy letters, and burned all the Institution's old books.

Thus, the pupils were forced to start over again on new methods, and the unexpected result was that by this inopportune innovation Dufau considerably helped the braille system to make headway. "The students taught it to each other in outside 'classes'," Guilbeau tells us. It was the stubbornness of the blind children which was to make the alphabet triumph.

We have previously explained Dufau's tactics. He wilfully ignored the system, or sometimes, if he were forced to reckon with it, minimized its results. But soon, confronted by its growing success, he began to fight it directly and, finally, backed by an incapable and bureaucratic administration, he forbade it. The seeing thus won the first round of a match where the fate of the blind was at stake. One student was to say later in speaking of this troubled period, "We had to learn the alphabet in secret, and when we were caught using it, we were punished."

Louis recalled the struggles of Valentin Haüy whose many disappointments had shaken neither his perseverance, his courage, nor his faith in the final triumph of his work. His life was an example to Louis. He remembered, not without emotion, the great joy of the Master when, on his return to his beloved Institution, he was able to measure before his death the extent of his work. Maurice de la Sizeranne rightly says, "It requires a will of a particular stamp to succeed in putting over an idea. Men in general rarely adopt a new idea, it must be imposed upon them!" Impose it? Could Braille do more than disclose to those around him the incontestable merits of his system? He was not one of those mighty fighters who move heaven and earth to achieve their goal. But he believed sincerely that one day the administration would be forced to recognize his system when experience had proved its superiority. Moreover, the year 1844 was to bring him his first official success.

In 1840 Dufau, now director, had sent for one of his friends to assist him. Joseph Guadet, was a nephew of the famous Girondin. He was a man of letters, completely ignorant of the teaching methods used with the blind; but he immediately set to work, and if for a time he took Dufau's side against Pignier, he soon grew enthusiastic about the alphabet, and resolved to bring the director gradually to a more reasonable appreciation of Louis Braille's work.

Before going into his positive assistance we must narrate briefly the events which marked the life of the Institution at the end of the year 1843, events which, aided probably by the influence of the assistant director, paved the way for Dufau's change of mind.

For many years, the buildings on St. Victor Street had been inconvenient and unhealthy; and like others of his comrades, Louis Braille had suffered the evil consequences. The dampness and crowded quarters became a real danger to everyone, but in spite of the medical reports drawing attention to pupils of a "sickly appearance" no one seemed in a hurry to construct a new building. Lamartine, however, took up the defense of the Institution in 1838 and by a noble and eloquent speech in the Chamber of Deputies obtained the consent of the Government. A sum of money was voted, and work was begun immediately. On November 11, 1843 the school was finished and classes opened at 56 Boulevard des Invalides. The Institution for Blind Youth still occupies these premises.

We can understand the sadness of the blind when they had to leave their old home on St. Victor Street. Certainly they were going to new premises, spacious and well-ventilated, but their hearts sank at abandoning the old school, full of childhood memories. Braille remembered a morning in February 1819, when he had had to say good-bye to his father and remain, far away from his family among strangers in this house, once so unfriendly. Now that it had sheltered him for twenty-five years, he was fond of it. "Like the exile who goes away from his country and feels the more regret the more unfortunate and poor it is, several of the teachers and pupils wept, and sadly traveled the distance which was to separate them from their old home," wrote Guadet, who was present at this exodus. Such understandable regret, however, did not last long. The blind soon became accustomed to their new home. On December 28, 1843 Monseigneur Dupanloup consecrated the chapel, and on February 22, 1844, in the presence of a large public, the new buildings of the Royal Institution for Blind Youth were inaugurated.

We have before us a little booklet published that year and entitled: Account of the System of Writing in Raised Dots for Use by the Blind, read at the inauguration of the new buildings of the Institution, February 22, 1844 by J. Guadet. In some fifteen pages the author first sets down the defects of the Barbier system, gradually arrives at the Braille conception of writing in raised dots, and pays tribute to the talent of its young inventor.

Thus, before all the teachers and pupils of the school and the assembled friends and relatives, Dufau, through the voice of his assistant director, made the alphabet of Louis Braille official. That day the fruitless struggle which had delayed acceptance for several years ended in the very heart of the Institution. Acceptance was undoubtedly still incomplete (the Ministry concerned had not yet given its approval), but it marked the beginning of the general spread of the system throughout the world.

When Guadet had finished reading his account, actual experiments were performed. Let us transcribe faithfully the final little note in the pamphlet. Its dry style has for us the importance of an epic, since the facts related determine the fate of an invention and the future glory of Louis Braille. Mademoiselle Cailhe, a teacher, had a little girl write down poetry dictated by one of the spectators. The lines were read by another little girl who had been made to go out of the room. Then the schoolmaster, Guadet, had one of the teachers write a musical phrase under the dictation of one of those present. It, too, was read with the greatest of ease by a young blind pupil who was absent when it was written.

Enthusiastic applause greeted these conclusive results and moved Louis Braille deeply. After years of failure success now appeared absolute and final. Let us pay tribute to the intelligence of Guadet, who recognized the propitious moment for bringing the work of our extraordinary inventor to public attention. Moreover, he himself has judged his role in lines that poorly conceal his pride in having greatly contributed to the launching of a system which was to revolutionize the world of the blind. "Braille was modest, too modest. . . . Those around him did not appreciate him, or at least were wrong to leave him in the shade. We were perhaps the first to give him his proper place in the eyes of the public, either in spreading his system more widely in our musical instruction or in making known the full significance of his invention," he wrote.

Braille, however, could no longer stand the hectic life of Paris. The improvement in his health due to his stay in the country was soon endangered. The moving of the school, the courageous resumption of his classes and the preparation for the celebration of February 22, brought back the fatigue and the other symptoms of the terrible illness which was undermining him. In the first months of 1844 the director of the Institution declared him unfit to continue the class in his charge and asked the Ministry for authorization to keep him at the Institution during his illness to give him the care he needed.

With wonderful clarity and Christian serenity, Louis Braille more and more realized the seriousness of his condition; but the religion he had always embraced with as much assiduity as conviction let him look upon approaching death, if not without emotion, at least without fear. His piety was sincere, without ostentation and display, like the rest of his conduct. His love of God revealed itself in his life not only by strict faithfulness to religious ritual, but, more than that, by an ever-active charity. Pignier tells us, "he never spoke of the good that he could do, except when necessary, and then always with great discretion; those who did not know him could easily have assumed he was little interested in good works." In truth, it was a great joy to him to be able to ease his worried friends, and to bring material and moral comfort to his immediate circle with the eagerness of an apostle and the quiet zeal of a saint.

Of course, many of the deeds which should be attributed to him will always remain unknown, but thanks to the very commendable indiscreetness of some of his friends, we can measure the extent of his kindness.

He lived temperately, without any wastefulness, and bought only what he needed; this frugal existence enabled him each year to save from his salary small sums which, added to the modest income from his land, went very quickly to his close friends and to the poor.

His smiling, sensitive and kindly face radiated about him the joy of a happy man. He wished that no one knew the trials of his daily life, and so he tried to soften the effects of misfortune. He corresponded with his former pupils, kept his friendship for them intact, and obtained books or writing instruments for them. He had them copy books, paid them, and then distributed the copies to others, thus performing two acts of charity at the same time. Pignier tells us that during a trip (he was probably returning to Coupvray), he became acquainted with a blind person with whom he grew so friendly that, after he had taught her his system of writing and corresponded with her, he asked her to become "the dispenser of his charity." A friend, touched by his generosity, was to say later, "He never wanted to be thanked!"

Some cynic might say perhaps that his great kindness cost him nothing, that his property and his salary as teacher allowed him to live without worry and that, therefore, his charity had no spiritual value. But Braille deprived himself, even if he had to suffer for it. When one of his comrades was without work, he gave him his position as organist in an important Parisian parish. He left without regret a post from which he had derived great pleasure every Sunday, just because someone more unfortunate needed help.

That is the best proof of his great charity.

With his unshakeable will, Louis Braille was able once again to master the violent attack of tuberculosis which he suffered in 1844. Thanks to a prolonged rest imposed by Dufau, thanks also to extreme moderation, his body seemed in the months which followed to grow stronger and more successful in its fight against illness. The reader will notice this alternating of periods of apparent health with near-fatal hemorrhages, which had marked his life since 1835 and which had sometimes given him hope of returning to a normal existence. In 1847 Dufau, noticing an improvement and believing perhaps in a miracle of will or of medicine, allowed him, on the advice of Dr. Allibert, to resume teaching.

For three years Louis Braille knew once again the joys of teaching. He rejoined his pupils at last. If he no longer had his former strength, if he talked in a low voice so as not to tire his delicate chest, he still showed in class the same qualities of synthesis which had earned him the admiration of everyone.

He returned to Coupvray from time to time; he took an interest in the life and work of his family, visited his fields and vineyards with Louis Simon, and managed his small income. In 1846 by decree of the Sous-Préfet, he had to give up several parcels of land to permit right of way for the Paris-Strasbourg railroad, already under construction. Two years later, in order to make use of the compensation he had received, and to keep from eating into his small possessions, he bought 3012 feet of land on the road to Lesches which his brother cultivated for him.

In 1848 the revolution broke out in Paris. The workers were fighting passionately on the barricades. Gauthier, a fervent republican, composed a triumphal march to the words of Beranger, and all France planted trees of liberty singing, "Queen of the world, O France, O my country." The two friends followed the events enthusiastically. Louis freed himself from the traditional spirit which his father had instilled in him and adopted the new doctrines. He joined in with the demands of the workers, but he detested the riots, the pillaging, the hatreds, and the sometimes unjustified anger of a people in a frenzy—the whole violent aspect of revolutions. He was an idealist and greeted the Republic as the form of government under which liberty and fraternity could best develop.

Renouncing his past errors, Dufau now did everything he could to facilitate research. At this period different printing methods adapted to braille were being tried out, and already positive results crowned these new enterprises. One of the first methods, which consisted of assembling type molds of six dots, from which one, two, three, four or five units would be subtracted to make the symbol needed was tried in 1847. This method, however, was inconvenient in that it required an operation for each symbol. Nevertheless, the Book of Psalms was printed in this way.

The braille system triumphed in every activity of the blind. Fournier used it for his solfeggio class from 1846 on. Roussel introduced it in chapel service. In 1849 Leas d'Aguen, who had invented stereotype, stereotyped perfectly a fragment of the Imitation of Jesus Christ and several other books. Guadet revealed the advantages of braille in the Annals of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind. The system began to spread in Europe. Belgium adopted it. The wonderful invention of a fifteen-year-old began to conquer the world.

The combined efforts of everyone to exploit his work gave Louis Braille the proof at last that his years of hard work had not been in vain. But for him, the alphabet in raised dots already belonged to the past. It was a completely worked-out invention, which needed only to become known. To be satisfied, Louis Braille's creative mind had to father new projects and resolve new problems. Music remained his principal preoccupation, for no one had yet dared to ask a blind person to trace the signs of this complex art on paper. He tried it, and by using Foucault's machine adapted for this purpose, he obtained satisfactory results which he undoubtedly would have further perfected if the terrible illness which was to carry him off had not come once more to interfere with his research.

In 1850, feeling his strength leave him, he asked Dufau to be so kind as to let him retire. But since the meagerness of a pension would not have permitted him to live decently the director agreed to keep him on at the Institution and to employ him only within his means for a few infrequent piano lessons.