Gabriel Gauthier

Gabriel Gauthier (15 February 1808 – 27 June 1853) was an organist and composer, a teacher at the school for the blind in Paris, and a close friend of Louis Braille. Early life Gauthier was born in 1808 in Briant, Saône-et-Loire, to Claude Gauthier, farmer, and Claudine Pequet, the second of four children (his siblings were Claudine Louise, Antoinette, and François). Before his first birthday, Gabriel lost his sight as the result of smallpox. He also lost his sense of smell, most of his sense of taste, and became slightly deaf in one ear. Gauthier’s father died when he was eight years old. His late father’s brother, a priest, took care of young Gabriel, and secured his admission to the Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles (now the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles) in Paris in 1818. After several months at the school, Gauthier had to return home to recuperate from an illness, but re-entered the school in 1820. At the school, Gauthier became close friends with Louis Braille, and another student, Jean-Pierre Binet. Gauthier and Binet supported Braille’s work on his raised-point writing system. According to the school’s director, Alexandre-René Pignier, Gauthier worked on his ow