François Bidel – Wikipédia

Jean Baptiste François has changed , usually called François Bidel (born on October 23, 1839 in Rouen, died on December 24, 1909 in Asnières), was a French tamer and director of Foraine menagerie.

At the age of six, he lost his father, who had a managers of a fun fair exhibition.
His mother remarries. Widowed twice, she married the Italian tamer Upilio Faimali.

Raised to the hard and brutality by his stepfather, the young Bidel ran away from the family trailer at the age of fifteen.

François Bidel entered the Magnie Bernabo as a trail boy, then after 1859, went to Le Havre to the former Domompter Herbert, who became animal merchant, who taught him his profession.

François Bidel began on the fair August 15, 1866 With a monkey, two caimans and a constricted boa.
The first profits allowed him to buy two hyenas, two wolves, a panther, a bison, a bear and a lioness Saida What Bidel Dressa.

The Bidel tamer executed all his numbers in the central cage or “theater cage”, moving the wild beasts.

Bidel is known to have worked in ferocity, obtaining its animals and grunts from its animals during the show.
In his performance, he represented the perfect type of the belluaire including Victor Hugo, after his return from exile, was able to say “Leo Inter Leones”.

His mother being died in 1871, Bidel joined his stepfather in Italy, where they made together tours that had great success. Bidel performed in 1871 before Victor-Emmanuel, king of Italy.

In September 1876 , being in Lyon, Bidel received from Marseille a lion of about four years, which he appointed Sultan ^{[ first ]} .

Bidel performed in 1877 before Alphonse XII, king of Spain.

In 1878, Bidel was present at the Throne Fair, with 6 lions reported from Africa, before the opening of the Universal Exhibition.

In the year 1883, the Bidel menagerie came to the Throne Fair on the Vincennes course in Paris.

The July 6, 1886 , at the Neuilly-sur-Seine fair, Bidel will be the victim of a serious accident caused by his lion Sultan .
The memory of this drama was given by the painter Édouard Detaille and the writer Paul Hervieu who had attended the representation where the tamer almost was devoured ^{[ 2 ]} .

The show by François Bidel, tamper of wild beasts, caused a sensation during the universal exhibition of 1889.

In 1894, more than twenty-five years after his beginnings, he exhibited 20 lions and lionesses, 8 royal tigers, 15 black and spotted panthers, 10 white and black bears, 7 hyenas, 5 camels of Asia, wolves, monkeys , parrots, etc.

Bidel was also able to take advantage of the invention of cinema to prepare, by a travel films session, his tamper service.
The Bidel zoological theater succeeds in mixing genres by presenting, at the 1904 throne fair, the cinematographic views of a trip around the world with explanatory conference and presentation of wild beasts in their places of origin.
In 1905, Bidel had even more than thirty wild beasts.

In 1908, he withdrew to Asnières where he had built the Villa des Roses. His animals, twenty-five, were sold after his death ^{[ 3 ]} .

Genealogical descendants [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Cirque director Alphonse Rancy (1861-1932) had married, in 1889, Jeanne Bidel, daughter of the famous tamer, with whom he had for children: Marcelle, André and Albert.

In August 1967 , Albert Rancy, grandson of Bidel, published the book “A lion among the lions” devoted to the famous tamer.

The tamer Gilbert Houcke (1918-1984), son of Jean Houcke (1878-1973) and Marcelle Rancy, is by her mother the great-grandson of Bidel.

Etymological descendants [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

François Bidel, during his splendor was extremely famous, his menagerie too. For the general public, he was “the” tamper of wild beasts par excellence.

This is evidenced by two expressions spent in common language (although in well -specialized, military and rail areas).

In the French Navy, the Captain of Arms (in principle the oldest sailor officer in the highest rank of the specialty of Fusilier Marin or failing Missilier) is always colloquially designated under the nickname of convert .

Within the bidellerie, the attributions of the Bidel (or captain of arms) are to enforce the discipline and the activities of the service sheet on board buildings or on land units. In stopover, his most emblematic task is to “manage” the sometimes turbulent permits after a bordered on the ground too watered.
There is no doubt that this nickname was born out of a sailor’s joke about a captain of weapons boasting of knowing set up the wild beasts .

Certain types of tram or suburban train equipment in use between the two wars (two -story bidel car, with an imperial closed by trellis evoking a fence) were nicknamed Bidel car Due to their resemblance to the transport vehicles of the Bidel Menageries.

• François Bidel, Memoirs of a tamer , Art bookstore, Paris, 1888, 228 p.
• Henry Thétard, The tamers or the menagerie from the origins to the present day Gallimard, Paris, 1928, P.251 sq.
• Albert Rancy, A lion among the lions, or the adventurous and passionate life of the bidel tamer , A. Rancy, Courbevoie, 1967, 318 p.

The Portrait of Sultan and Saïda , painting of two of the lions of the tamer François Bidel painted by Rosa Bonheur, was the property of Jean Richard. ^{[ 4 ]}