The Survival of a Non-Juror: the Abbé Sicard and the Founding of the National Institute of Deaf-Mutes during the Reign of Terror | Dr. Emmet Kennedy

Christendom College Lectures

Historian Dr. Emmet Kennedy delivered a lecture entitled The Survival of a Non-Juror: the Abbé Sicard and the Founding of the National Institute of Deaf-Mutes during the Reign of Terror. He explored the life of Roch-Ambroise Sicard, a priest who educated the deaf and mute during the Reign of Terror. Sicard avoided execution twice during the tumultuous times of the French Revolution. Kennedy examined whether Sicard was a “girouette,” that is, a turncoat who changed with every regime and tailored himself to meet the new requirements.

Kennedy is a world-renowned expert on the French Revolution and author of many celebrated works on it, including A Cultural History of the French Revolution.