Abbé de l'Épée

Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Épée
Founder of the first public school for the deaf
Born	(1712-11-24)24 November 1712 Versailles, France
Died	23 December 1789(1789-12-23) (aged 77) Paris, France

The Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Épée (24 November 1712, Versailles - 23 December 1789, Paris) was a philanthropic educator of 18th-century France who has become known as the "Father of the Deaf".

He was born to a wealthy family in Versailles, the seat of political power in what was then the most powerful kingdom of Europe. He studied to be a Catholic priest but was denied ordination as a result of his refusal to denounce Jansenism, a popular French heresy of the time. He then studied law but, soon after joining the Bar, was finally ordained—only to be denied a license to officiate.

Épée then turned his attention toward charitable services for the poor, and, on one foray into the slums of Paris, he had a chance encounter with two young Deaf sisters who communicated using a sign language. Épée decided to dedicate himself to the education and salvation of the deaf, and, in 1760, he founded a school. In line with emerging philosophical thought of the time, Épée came to believe that Deaf people were capable of language and concluded that they should be able to receive the sacraments and thus avoid going to hell. He began to develop a system of instruction of the French language and religion. In the early 1760s, his shelter became the world's first free school for the deaf, open to the public.

Though Épée's original interest was in religious education, his public advocacy and development of a kind of "Signed French" enabled deaf people to legally defend themselves in court for the first time.