Louis Braille's native house

It is in the common room of this typical little Briard house that the inventor of writing for the blind was born on January 4, 1809. At the age of three, little Louis injured his eye while trying to use his father's tools, a blacksmith by profession. The infection, due to lack of care, spread to the other eye and Louis Braille lost his sight for good at the age of five.

A brilliant pupil, he left his native village at the age of 10 to go to Paris to study at the Royal Institution for the Blind. It was then that he developed his ingenious six-point writing system and that he began to teach music. Suffering from tuberculosis, he died in January 1852.

Considered by the grateful nation as a "Benefactor of humanity", Louis Braille has been resting since 1952 in the crypt of the Pantheon. Only the replica of his hands is preserved at Coupvray, in an urn sealed on the family tomb.