Successor to the Abbé de l'Épée at the head of the Institution nationale des sourds-muets in 1789, he devoted his life to proving that a deaf child could be educated. Imprisoned in 1792, he escaped the September massacres. His epitaph was written by two of his deaf pupils, Massieu and Clerc.
The story
Roch Ambroise Sicard was born on 12 September 1742 at Le Fousseret in the Haute-Garonne. The archbishop of Bordeaux sent him to Paris to learn from the abbé de l'Épée the method of teaching the deaf by signs; he came back to apply it in Bordeaux, where the school prospered. On l'Épée's death in 1789 he succeeded him at the head of the national institution in Paris.
Editor of the Annales catholiques, he was thrown into prison shortly before 10 August 1792. He escaped the September massacres by a hair: his friend André Daniel Laffon de Ladébat got Chabot to have him pulled out of the prison. He took up his post again after Thermidor.
In Year V the coup of 18 Fructidor condemned him to deportation to Cayenne; he dodged it by going into hiding. The 18 Brumaire let him take back the direction of the institution for good, and he never left it again.
He published treatises on grammar and logic in which he tried to found the education of the deaf on a theory of language, with the ambition of having his pupils recognised as whole and entire minds. In 1803 the Académie française elected him to seat number three.
He died in Paris on 11 May 1822. Laffon de Ladébat, who had saved him thirty years earlier, delivered his funeral eulogy; his own grave is a few steps away, in Division 39. The plot is maintained in perpetuity by the City of Paris.
The grave
The stele bears at its top six carved hands, each forming a sign: it is the only grave in the cemetery whose ornament is a language. Below, the inscription gives the exact dates — born at Le Fousseret on 12 September 1742, died in Paris on 11 May 1822 — then this sentence, attributed to his pupils Massieu and Clerc: “thanks to divine goodness and to the genius of this excellent father, we have become men”. The epitaph of a teacher written by those he taught, in a language his century refused to recognise. The plot is maintained in perpetuity by the City of Paris.
On site, do not miss
The six hands carved at the top of the stele, each in a different position, and the epitaph signed by two deaf pupils.
Visitors' questions
Where is the Abbé Sicard's grave?
In Division 39, Chemin Masséna, seventh row, in the older part of Père-Lachaise. The stele carved with six clasped hands makes it recognisable; the grave of his friend Laffon de Ladébat, who had saved him from prison in 1792, lies just a few steps away.
Ettore BugattiWhat did the Abbé Sicard do for the deaf?
From 1789, he ran the National Institution for the Deaf in Paris, carrying on the sign-language method of the Abbé de l'Épée. His contribution was as much theoretical as practical: his grammar treatises set out to prove that his pupils were fully capable minds.
Augustin FresnelWas the Abbé Sicard ever in danger during the Revolution?
Twice. Imprisoned in August 1792, he escaped the September Massacres thanks to the intervention of his friend Laffon de Ladébat; sentenced to deportation to Cayenne in Year V, he evaded it by fleeing, and did not resume his post until after the 18 Brumaire coup.
Zénobe GrammeWhat does his gravestone say?
An epitaph written by his pupils Massieu and Clerc: “through the divine goodness and the genius of this excellent father, we became men”. The inscription calls him the “second creator of the deaf”, after the Abbé de l'Épée.
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