JEAN MASSIEU

Arguably, one of the most important persons in Laurent's life and develop as a deaf man is Jean Massieu. From his first day at the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris, where he was dropped off in the hands of Jean by his uncle, Laurent Clerc, this professor nurtured and influenced Laurent on every level. With this page we begin an exploration of who this man was and his importance in the life of the "Apostle of the Deaf in America".

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And Laurent Clerc did not forget his mentor after his death in 1846. Laurent wrote a history of Jean for the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb in January 1849 and again in July 1849 (Published by: Gallaudet University). This may be the best place to start if you wish to know a more intimate history of Jean.

1772 Jean was born deaf on September 2, 1772, in Semens, in southeastern France, a very small village situated at some leagues south of Bordeaux. He was the second of six (6) deaf siblings, three boys and three daughters. His parents were poor and the occupation of his father was that of vine-dresser.

1785 Jean was denied schooling until age thirteen (13) when he met the Abbé Sicard, who enrolled him in the Institute National des Jeunes Sourds de Bordeaux-Gradignan or the Bordeaux School for Deaf Children. Sicard had long established it after having

received lessons from the Abbe De L'Epée. Jean becomes Sicard's favorite student. Jean learned to read and write French, later helping to develop the first formalized French Sign Language. In this same year, Laurent Clerc was born about 600 kilometres away.

Massieu would later write about his life:

(Excerpts from: M. l'Abbé Sicard, Notice sur l'enfance de Massieu, deaf-muet, Lons-le-Saunier, Imprimerie de Courbet, 1851)

"I was born in Semens, canton of Saint-Macaire, department of Gironde. My father died in January 1791; my mother is still alive. In my country, we were six deaf-mutes from the same paternal family, three boys and three girls. Until the age of thirteen and nine months, I stayed in my country, where I never received education; I had darkness for letters. I expressed my ideas by manual signs or gesture. The signs I used at the time, to express my ideas to my parents, and my brothers and sisters, were very different from those of the educated deaf-mute. Foreigners never understood us when we expressed our ideas to them, by signs; but the neighbors understood us. I saw oxen, horses, donkeys, pigs, dogs, cats, plants, houses, fields, vineyards, and when I had seen all these objects, I remembered them well.

Before my education, when I was a child, I could not write or read; I wanted to write and read. I often saw young boys and girls going to school; I wanted to follow them, and I was very jealous of them. I asked my father, tears in my eyes, permission to go to school; I took a book, I opened it from top to bottom, to mark my ignorance; I put it under my arm, as if to go out; but my father refused me the permission I asked him, signaling that I could never learn anything, because I was deaf-mute. So I shouted very loudly. I still took these books to read them; but I didn't know the letters, the words, the sentences, or the periods. Full of spite, I put my fingers in my ears, and I impatiently asked my father to have them cleaned. He told me that there was no cure. So I was sorry; I left the paternal house, and I went to school, without telling my father: I introduced myself to the master, and asked him, by signs, to teach me to write and read. He refused me harshly, and drove me out of school. It made me cry a lot, but didn't stop me.

I often thought about writing and reading, when I was twelve years old: I tried all alone to form, with a pen, signs of writing. In my childhood, my father made me pray by gestures, in the evening and in the morning. I knelt; I joined my hands, and moved my lips, imitating those who spoke, when they prayed to God. Today I know that there is a God who is the creator of heaven and earth. In my childhood, I worshipped heaven, not God; I didn't see God, I saw heaven. I didn't know that I had been done, nor if I had made myself. I was growing up; but if I had not known my teacher Sicard, my mind would not have grown like my body, because my mind was very poor; growing up, I would have believed that heaven was God.

While children my age did not play with me, they despised me; I was like a dog. I had fun alone playing Mail, hoof, or running on studs. I knew the numbers before my instruction; my fingers had taught me them. I didn't know the numbers; I counted on my fingers; and when the number passed ten, I ticked on a wood. In my childhood, my parents sometimes made me keep a herd, and often those who met me, affected by my situation, gave me some money. One day, a gentleman who passed by, took me in affection, made me go to his house, and gave me food and drink. Then having left for Bordeaux, he spoke about me to Mr. Sicard, who agreed to take care of my education. The gentleman wrote to my father, who showed me his letter; but I could not read it. My parents and neighbors told me what it contained; they told me that I would go to Bordeaux. They thought it was to learn to be a cooper. My father told me that it was to learn to read and write. I left with him for Bordeaux.

When we got there, we went to visit Abbé Sicard, whom I found very thin. I started by forming letters with my fingers: in the space of several days, I knew how to write a few words. In the space of three months, I knew how to write several words; within six months, I knew how to write a few sentences. In the space of a year, I write well. Within a year and a few months, I wrote better, and I answered the questions I was asked. It was three years and six months ago that I was with Abbé Sicard, when I left with him for Paris. In the space of four years, I became like the hearing-talking."

1789 Upon the death of the Abbé de l'Épée, Sicard was appointed to replace him as director of the National Institute of Young Deaf People in Paris.

1790-91 Abbe Sicard left Bordeaux, and Massieu accompanied his master thither. Jean obtained the position of repeater at the age of 19.

1793-94 Jean was appointed one of the tutors at the Paris Institution.

1797 Jean was twenty-five (25) years old when Laurent Clerc (11) was brought to the Paris school by his uncle, Laurent Clerc. Laurent Clerc is his student and then becomes his colleague and friend.

1815.05.28 During the spring political upheavel in France, the so called "One Hundred Days" period following Napoleon's return from the island of Elba, Sicard did not wish to remain in Paris. Sicard, accompanied by, Massieu (43) and Laurent (age 30), journeyed to London and gave several public lectures in that city, explaining his method of teaching the deaf, which he illustrated by the attainments of the two deaf teachers who had been his pupils.

1820 In The Civilized Deaf-mute or A look at the instruction of the deaf-mute. by L.-P. Paulmier, student and collaborator of Abbé Sicard, writes:

"Jean Massieu, the most intelligent, the dean, and the best known of the deaf-mute, son of an honest winemaker from Semons, a village a few leagues from Bordeaux, enjoys a more than European reputation; his name has passed the seas. Another deaf-mute, Laurent Clerc, his emulator, made him known to the deaf-mute of the United States of America. At the age of thirteen, Massieu was admitted to the institution of the deaf-mutes of Bordeaux, by Abbé Sicard, who had founded this institution after receiving the lessons of the Abbé de l'Épé, and before succeeding this immortal benfactor of humanity. From the most tender age, Massieu has always distinguished himself from his comrades by his prodigious dispositions. It is not only intelligence that he has, it is genius; and what offers a striking contrast is that with such a high mind he has the carelessness and abandonment of a child. I have often seen him hesitate to do the slightest action, for fear of displease the youngest of his comrades. He consults them on his most important affairs as well as on the slightest trifles. How many times he has come and still comes to me every day to tell me about his trances, his child's worries. He had a taste for watches, books; and when this fantasy takes him, we see him loaded with two, three, up to four watches, or he buys books in all the districts of Paris. Does he have these much-desired objects, he always carries them on him, in his pockets, in his hands; he looks at them constantly; he shows them to everyone: little by little this craze decreases, and after several weeks, he pushes himself to make room for another. Thus his first beautiful days passed between the study, and these different tastes, which are his passions.

He has never been able to submit to the customs of the world; it is not lacking to have seen the best society (I do not say frequented); he has seen, I repeat, for more than twenty years, all that is most distinguished in Europe; the most august characters, sovereigns and princes; the women most renowned for their graces and spirit; the greatest men in the sciences, in letters and in the arts. With this little use, his mores are simple; a great vivacity with which a slight brusqueness is mixed, adds one more trait to his character without being a defect.

His brilliant imagination bursts into fiery features in his answers, sometimes incorrect, because he does not slavily observe the often arbitrary rules of the French language; but they are always in accordance with healthy logic and general grammar; Does he not know a word, he invents it by following, with the most scrupulous fidelity, the principles of analogy. These slight spots, in the eyes of a cold purist, that we could put away, for our deaf-mute, with the capricious uses of the world, which he also neglects, are well redeemed by the originality of his thoughts, the color of his images, the accuracy of his comparisons and his all-oriental metaphors. You would think you were reading some passage from the prophets. What is admirable is that he writes and improvises quickly. His answers are in the form of small speeches, in which he knows how to artfully mix description with definition, without the slightest hesitation, so much so that one could believe that he is always willing to answer. So Mr. Sicard said on this subject, using a simple, but fair and expressive comparison, that to ask a question to Massieu is as if we were striking the stone with the lighter, immediately the spark springs out. His answers then seem to flow from source. We have seen for a long time, at the public sessions of the institution, a spectacle worthy of fixing the attention of the moralist philosopher, Massieu and Clerc competing in zeal and emulation, making answers that excited the admiration and tenderness of the assembly, composed of more than three hundred people from all countries and all conditions. Everyone hastened to copy these answers, which we are always looking for with great interest. "

1822 The Abbe Sicard died on May 10th at the age of seventy-nine (79) years old. After thirty-two (32) of labor alongside Sicard, Massieu left Paris for Bordeaux, either on account of his sorrow at the death of his illustrious master, or on account of his being dissatisfied with the changes which took place.

1823 A small school for the deaf and dumb, located at Rhodez, Department de l'Aveyron, in the South of France recruited Massieu. He was fifty-five (55) years old. Soon after his arrival, he was taken by a young lady of eighteen (18) who could speak and was employed at the school. Not long afterwards he married her and they had a son. Not long afterwards Jean was offered a position as principal of a deaf school in Lille. His wife was offered a position as matron of this school of thirty (30) students.

1836 Laurent visits the school on his trip to France to deposit his son, Francis, in school in Lyon. The couple had lost their son but now had a daughter.

1840 Jean suffers a stroke.

1846.07.21 Jean died in Lille, France. A month before Laurent Clerc returned there for a visit and to deposit his son, Charles Michael in school in Lyon. His funeral takes place in Saint-Étienne de Lille and he is buried in Esquermes, a district of Lille.

1849 Interestingly, after Jean's death, Laurent Clerc was asked to write about him for the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. You can read this tender and intimate eulogy in two (2) parts (1 and 2) of the series. It is at JSTOR and a free membership is available.

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