Théophile Bidard was a well-known law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 professor in Rennes

Rennes

Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.-History:...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 during the 1840s and 1850s. He was one of the principal witnesses for the prosecution in the Hélène Jégado

Hélène Jegado

Hélène Jégado was a French domestic servant and serial killer. She is believed to have murdered as many as 36 people with arsenic over a period of 18 years...

 trial in 1851. Employed as a cook, Jégado had killed two of Bidard's servants with arsenic

Arsenic

Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...

 after a long series of similar crimes over a period of eighteen years. She was executed by guillotine in February 1852.

Bidard held elected office as Mayor and Deputy for Rennes for a short period after the fall of Napoleon III of France

Napoleon III of France

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...

in 1871.