I arrived at the sign club today and sat next to the friendly Deaf person who talked about Abbé de l’Épée, the French sign language educator, with me last week. My friend saw us and asked, “What’s new with the French Revolution this week?” So guess what? We talked about Deaf people and the French Revolution for another at least half of an hour.
I said that I became very interested in the relationships between hearing sign teachers and Deaf students in late 18th century France. I’m now reading about Abbé Sicard, l’Épée’s successor at the Deaf school, and his relationship as a hearing sign teacher with his Deaf student, Jean Massieu. Compared to the earlier relationship between l’Épée and Joseph, the Count of Solar, their relationship is more complicated and Massieu is more active and independent, saving Sicard several times from political crises.
The story of the Count of Solar is very dramatic and tragic. Abbé de l’Épée took him in as a homeless deaf child from the streets in Paris, named him Joseph, and taught him to sign, read and write. When Joseph became a young adult, he travelled with a fellow student and recognised his family’s house in Toulouse. The property belonged to a nobleman who had lost his only young deaf heir many years ago in Paris, and it was then being inherited by a distant cousin. L’Épée supported Joseph in finding his origin and brought the case to court. However, l’Épée's sudden death made all hope lost, and Joseph, out of anger and despair, joined the revolutionary army and was killed at his very first battle.
The Deaf person at the club told me a tv film was made by BBC in 1992 based on this story. When they showed me the clip, I immediately realised that the actors are also signing British Sign Language instead of French Sign Language. Of course, since it’s a BBC film, the actors are speaking English as well, but still feels a bit ridiculous in this context.
Here’s the clip of Count of Solar (1992):
Fragment of BBC tv-film Count of Solar (1992). We see the method of language teaching by Abbé de L'Epée And also the public lesson for fundr
I didn’t know the film, but I’ve learned that the story of Count of Solar was made into several theatre plays already in its contemporary times, popular in both France and England, raising social resonance. It became very fictional, more about hearing people’s imagination than about Deaf people’s actual lives. There are several articles and books about this, including Harlan Lane’s When the Minds Hear, which I’m planning to look at later.
Even without diving into this deeply, I can see that the image of Count of Solar as a Deaf person is somehow very innocent, romantic and fragile, and that his hearing teacher, l’Épée, acted as his saviour, guardian and protecter. It is, no doubt, a problematic social image, but it’s still notably more positive than before in the history of Deaf representation, because Deaf people are finally receiving education and fighting for their rights in the public sphere.
The relationship between Sicard and Massieu is another long story, hopefully I can articulate it and talk about it later.
