Musée Valentin Haüy

The museum stands as a tribute to Valentin Haüy, a French linguist who became a pioneer for the rights of the visually impaired in the late eighteenth century. His commitment began after he witnessed a public spectacle at a street fair in 1771, where a group of blind people were dressed in ridiculous costumes and forced to play discordant music for the amusement of a mocking crowd. Horrified by this dehumanizing display, Haüy vowed to restore their dignity through education. He developed a method of embossing standard Latin letters onto heavy paper, which allowed his students to read by touch for the first time. This breakthrough laid the foundation for the world's first school for the blind, which he established in Paris in 1785.