The chain of events which led to the discovery of braille began after King Louis IX of France suffered a massive defeat in the Sixth Crusade. King Louis was a pious man and after his defeat, he returned to Paris. His interest in charity grew and he built a formal School for the Blind, the first of its kind in the world in the year 1260, ‘Quinze-Vingts’. It provided the basic amenities to the blind Parisians, which was a boon to them. King Louis attempted another crusade and almost at once succumbed to mysterious fever. A few years later a city was named after him and in 1297, the Church canonized him as ‘St. Louis’.

Paris is not only the Capital of France but also one of the most beautiful city in the world. St. Ovid’s Fair is one of Paris’ popular religious street festivals. The fair runs each year from August 14 to September 15 and exhibits a number of merchandise, puppet shows, jugglers, animal acts and scores of variety shows. In the year 1771, a young man Valentin Huay, visited the fair and stopped at a café for lunch. An incident at the fair shook not only his life but also changed the lives of millions of blind people forever.

A group of eight blind men from Quinze-Vingts were performing a comedy show and acting like musicians. They wore caps, huge cardboard glasses, and one of them wore a red dress and donkey’s ears hung from the ceiling, suspended on a perch shaped like a peacock. The ‘musicians’ performed like a clown and the crowd was roaring with laughter as the show was a great hit. Valentin Huay, however, had different feelings and was so sickened by the act that he left the café without finishing his lunch. His feelings for the blind people later encouraged him to improvise their living condition.

Valentin Huay, who was born into a weaver’s family received  education in a monastery from Monks and became a skilled linguist who could speak ten different languages fluently, including Hebrew and Greek. In 1783, he was named interpreter to the King of France.

One day Valentin met a beggar, Francosis Lesuer, who was blind since birth. Valentin taught him to read by using wooden letters. Within a few months Francosis became master in primary education and stunned France’s top scholars when Valentin Hauy brought him for a small demonstration. The success encouraged Valentin further and he opened a school in his own house. He devised his own methods and system, like embossed books, to educate the blinds. Slowly and gradually, many blind pupils became his students and his school gathered much reputation. He made rapid progress in his mission to educate the blind and was the founder of the Royal Institution for the Young Blind in Paris, in the year 1784.

Simon Rene Braille and his wife Monique lived on three hectares of land and vineyards in Coupvray, France, a small town located in the East of Paris. Simon Rene was a saddle-maker and maintained a successful enterprise as a leatherer and maker of horse tracks. They were blessed with three children, a daughter, Monique Catherine Josephine Braille in the year 1793, followed by a son, Louis Simon Braille, in the year 1795 and again a daughter, Marie Celine Braille, in the year 1797. Simon was ecstatic when he learnt that his wife was expecting their fourth child and the family proudly welcomed a new addition to their family - Louis Braille, on January 4, 1809.

An infant Louis would often crawl to his father’s workshop which was located in their home. Monique really had a hard time keeping him away from the room, but the naughty toddler always found his father’s workshop very attractive. Soon time flew and Louis began to take his first steps. This is the age when kids love to explore their surroundings and Louis was no different. He would spend much of his time in his father’s workshop, playing and toying with some of the tools.

As Louis was growing up, France was going through a major political conflict. Napoleon decided to invade Russia and political crisis affected the town where Simon and his family resided.

Louis had just turned three when an unfortunate event changed his life. On the fateful day, when the news spread about Napoleon’s invasion on Russia, Louis’s father left the workshop unattended to gather more information about Napoleon’s invasion from his neighbours and friends. Louis took full advantage of the situation and entered the room unnoticed. He began playing with the tools and wanted to copy his father’s craft. He picked up an awl and tried hard to make holes in the piece of leather, and in the process the awl glanced across the hard leather and struck him in one of his eyes, wounding it badly.

Simon rushed him to the local physician who patched the affected eye and recommended him to a renowned surgeon in Paris. But the damage was too severe and no treatment could save his eye. Louis suffered in pain for weeks as the infection spread to his other eye. Though he was under medication, his ordeal was far from over. For two years he survived the torment, and by the age of five he completely lost sight in both his eyes. To make matters worse, Napoleon’s constant war with the rest of Europe caused their town to be ravaged by soldiers and army. For over two years, i.e. from 1814 to 1816, Simon’s small home served as a camp for the soldiers. Their growing demands for food and lodging caused severe hardship for the whole town.

Despite of the remorse conditions, Louis’s parents gave him full support and made great efforts to raise him in a normal way. His father hewed canes for him, which helped him to navigate the paths of the village and the countryside. Louis’ determination to overcome his visual disability was tremendous and he grew up at ease and peacefully.

The tragic event and the subsequent loss of his sight did not hamper the progress of Louis’ youthful intelligence and he went to the village school at Coupvray He was intelligent and creative and did well in his studies. His extraordinary skills needed an environment where his talents could prosper. He studied at Coupvray until the age of ten. His school master, Antoine Becheret and the local priest, Abbe Jacques Palluy knew Louis Braille well and approached a rich nobleman for scholarship. The nobleman, Marquis Dwellers who had seen Valentin Huay’s students, agreed to write to the current director of a reputed school in Paris. The Director, Sebastian Guillie agreed and finally Louis was granted scholarship in Royal Institution for the Young Blind, at 68, rue Saint-Victor, Paris in the year 1819.

The Institute was an old seminary and was used as a prison for uncooperative priests until 1815 and accommodated the blind from the year 1816. It was an underfunded, uncomfortable, unhealthy place and smelled of mildew. Though the school was in a ramshackle state, it provided the much needed stability for the blind children to learn and associate themselves together. The year Louis Braille was admitted, Guillie referred to blind students as “degraded beings condemned to vegetate on the earth”.

For teaching, Guillie would instruct the older students to teach the younger ones.  Guillie received a small stipend for the older students ‘instructional time’ from the government which he cleverly pocketed. The living conditions were pathetic as students got to bath only once in a month, stayed in cold and damp rooms and were served poor quality of food, mostly beans and porridge. The drinking water was muddy and unfiltered and if anybody raised objection he would be punished by way of solitary confinement and a dinner of dry bread. However, Louis adapted himself beautifully to the adverse situations and made friends quickly. Gabriel Gauthier, who was one year senior to Louis Braille became his best friend.

The school’s founder, Valentin Hauy, a committed philanthropist, had designed a system of reading for the blinds. The books were embossed with raised imprints of Latin letters so that the readers could run their fingers along the line and comprehend slowly what the book conveyed. Hauy’s books were available in different weights and sizes but were also very expensive. The school could afford only 14 books and Louis spent a lot of time comprehending them. By the time he finished reading one sentence he almost forgot what was the beginning of sentence all about? He also discovered that the books only enabled the blind to read and not write. He pondered that there must be a better way for a blind person to read the words as quickly as a sighted person. Young Louis missed his parents and expressed his desire to write letters to them. His father then designed alphabets from bits of thick leather. It was a slow procedure but it enabled Louis to trace the letters easily and frame his first sentence.

Despite of their limitations, Louis read Hauy’s books repeatedly and paid equal attention to oral instructions by his teachers. He was proficient in literary and scientific essays which depicted his extreme clear concepts and imagination.

Valentin Hauy, now an old man of 76 years, had not been in contact with the school for years. After his dismissal by Napoleon in 1802 he had left France, accompanied by one of his best student, Alexandre Fournier and spent over a decade in exile, working with the blind people. Upon his return to France, Valentin was exhausted and nearly blind. He was banned from the school by the treacherous Guillie.

The subsequent year i.e. in 1822, Valentin Hauy passed away at the age of 77. Louis Braille was one of a small group from the institution who attended Valentin’s humble funeral. Valentin Huay was immortalized in the stone carving adorning New York’s Riverside Church.

Around the same time, the Institute got a new headmaster- Alexandre-Rene Pignier who found the state of teaching chaotic. He agreed with Louis’ views that Hauy’s system allowed to only read and it was impossible to write fast or take notes. He had heard about Charles Barbier’s ‘night writing’ artillery code and wanted to know more about it.

Charles Barbier De la Serre was a French National who graduated from the Brienne Military School as Artillery Captain. He fled the military and spent some time in the United States working as a land surveyor and returned back to France to join Napoleon’s army. His invention was based on Napoleon’s demand for a code which the soldiers could use to communicate silently without using light at night. However, his system was never used by the army.

Barbier met the students of the Institute for the first time at the Museum of Science and Industry where he was exhibiting his device that enabled the writer to create messages in the dark. Barbier’s system was a bit complicated and was related to the Polybius Square, in which a two-digit code represents a single alphabet. The alphabet was represented by two columns of dots, in which the first column had one to six dots denoting the row in the square and the second had one to six dots denoting the column. The dashes took up a lot of space on a page and each page could accommodate only one or two sentences.

As many as twelve dots i.e. two columns of 6 were needed to represent one symbol. In order to draw the dots evenly, Barbier made special tools. The main tool was to press on the paper six slots, which cut into a wooden support, onto which was a closed grid whose windows served as a guide.

When Barbier demonstrated his system in the Institute, it received an overwhelming response. The headmaster, Alexandre Pignier found it very practical as he realized that the Barbier system could help students write their symbols using a special board and writing ink, and a pointed tool called the stylus.

Louis Braille was amazed when he first touched the dots of the night writing samples. Louis had often played with tactile writing at home, tried leather in various shapes and arranged upholstery pins to develop a tactile method but had not succeeded. However, now he knew that he had found a medium to innovate his own system of reading and writing. The Barbier system was immediately implemented in the Institute as an accessory to learning.

Louis Braille was around twelve years when the Barbier system was introduced in the institution. Although Louis was impressed with Barbier’s system, he had suggestions to improve it further. He was quick to identify the problems in the Barbier System. The cells were bigger than what the fingertips could cover. The cells stood for 36 basic sounds instead of letters. There was no way to identify punctuation marks, numbers or musical signs and there were horizontal dashes along with the dots.

On his next vacation at home, Louis spent considerable time working on finding a way to improvise on Barbier’s system. When he returned to school, he met Captain Barbier to discuss his ideas to improve the code. The Captain who was in his mid-fifties felt humiliated and annoyed on being questioned by someone who was so young and inexperienced. However, Louis did not lose courage and began devoting his time in trials and experimenting with papers, stylus, rulers and other tools. Even on holidays, Louis would spend hours in his room either experimenting or doing research work. He worked tirelessly on his ideas, as his main motive was to simplify the Barbier system and maximize its efficiency. Alexandre Pignier noted, “Braille was occupied for part of the day with his class but devoted wholeheartedly to trials relating to his method, early in the morning and sometimes he even woke at night. He would be seen going to the dormitory, bearing paper, stylus, ruler, tools amidst which he would fall asleep. He also concerned himself with his research at home during holiday and when the country folk smiled scornfully seeing him ‘pecking the paper’ as they called it, little did they realize that from this occupation would emerge an invention so powerful to the blind and so honorable to the author.”

When Louis turned 14, he began his career as a foreman for workshop making braid footwear. The blind students were introduced to this craft in the institution to make their fingers more nimble and flexible. Louis proved excellent in this craft and received lots of appreciation from other pupils and Alexandre Pignier.

After three years of research and experiments, at the age of 16, Louis came out with his own method of reading and writing. His method consisted of patterns of raised dots which were arranged in a cell of six dots in a 3X2 configuration and each cell symbolized a letter, a number or a punctuation mark, including a few dashes as well. Louis halved the height of the signs to adapt perfectly to the fingertips. His new alphabet was received enthusiastically by other students and Alexandre Pignier co-operated by ordering special slates which Louis had designed using Brabier’s original one. Gabriel Gauthier, Louis’s best friend was the first person ever to read braille.

The popularity of Louis Braille’s discovery did not help in making the lives of students easier as France was going through bad times. The ration provided to the Institute was reduced considerably and the students were forced to survive on bread and soup. The teachers were reluctant to accept the new code as they found it very alien. 

Louis Braille received numerous prizes for his academic achievements between 1820 and 1825. He excelled in French Grammar, Geography, Arithmetic, History, Logic, Geometry and Algebra. At the age of 19 he was appointed as a tutor to teach Grammar, History, Geography, Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry and other subjects.

Louis’ first love was music and he regularly attended organ and cellist classes taught by Jean Nicholas Marrigues. He proved to be an excellent student in the music classes too and became a successful musician. He was successful in intellectual and manual disciplines. He was also appointed to assist Jean to teach piano and cello and received certain monetary benefits from the same.

He truly proved as a role model for other pupils and the cult of his personality grew among the blind community. Alexandre Pignier was impressed by Louis’ intelligence and quoted, “He showed promise in domains, but especially in Science. His literary and scientific essays did not merely contain precise thoughts; they stood out for an extreme precision of concepts, expressed in a clear and correct style. Imagination is contained therein, but this was always led by a sense of judgement.”

When Louis turned 20, he modified his alphabets to strive for excellence. His second method enabled the transcription of the alphabets, numbers, algebraic symbols, punctuation marks and musical notes. He published his book on the new system “Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged for them”. A few years later, he along with Gabriel Gauthier and another blind friend Hippolyte Coltat, became the first blind professors at the Institute. All the three teachers used Louis’s system. By this time he had eliminated the lines, except for the dot which were more appropriate to the touch of a finger.

Louis continued with his profession as a professor and enjoyed teaching other blind pupils. His life suffered a major setback when he lost his father at the age of 22. Before his demise, Simon had his eldest son write a letter to Alexandre Pignier requesting him that braille should not be abandoned by the institution. Pignier was moved by the request and considered it as a sacred legacy. Since Louis was very good in music, Pignier recommended him to play the organ for Churches all over France.

Louis was not only an efficient teacher but also very popular among his friends. He was very generous with both time and money, as he regularly helped his students financially for buying warm clothes and better food. He also saved money to buy himself a piano so he could practise at wish.

Living in unhealthy conditions at the school and surviving on an unhealthy diet caused respiratory ailments to Louis. On further diagnosis, it revealed tuberculosis. Louis was barely 26 years old and the diagnosis did not surprise him, as for years, many students had fallen prey to the deadly disease. A visitor to the school had even complained that students could rarely stand for a long time without coughing and wheezing.

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