Pierre-François-Victor Foucault (1797–1871) was the inventor in 1843 of the first printing machine for braille, the decapoint. Life A pupil of the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, Foucault married Thérèse-Adèle Husson, a blind author, in 1826. This marriage gave birth to two daughters. After his wife's death in 1831, following a fire, he married a seamstress (non blind) in 1832, Adélaïde Louise Juteau. This allowed him to become a resident of the Quinze-Vingts (marriages between blind people were prohibited), which gave him the financial possibility to collaborate with Louis Braille. The raphigraphe His invention was awarded a platinum medal by the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, then he showed it at The Great Exhibition (1851) in London. References External links Louis Invents Decapoint 1797 births 1871 deaths 19th-century French inventors Braille technology