Mélanie de Salignac, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetMélanie de Salignac
Blind woman written about by Diderot
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Marennes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
About Mélanie de Salignac
- Mélanie de Salignac (Marennes, Charente-Maritime, 19 January 1744 –1766) was a young French woman whose achievements in the face of her disability - blindness - were mentioned in the accounts of Diderot.
- She was born blind long before the invention of Braille in 1829, but taught herself to read using cut out card letters and achieved much more through her sense of touch.
- Diderot wrote about her achievements in his "Addition to the Letter on the Blind". She was born at the Château de Mons (Charente-Maritime), the daughter of financier Pierre Vallet de Salignac (d.1760) and Marie-Jeanne Élisabeth Volland, elder sister of Sophie Volland.
- Her older brother was the politician Nicolas-Thérèse Vallet de Salignac.
Read more at Wikipedia