He invented a multiplexed printing telegraph system that used his code and allowed multiple transmissions over a single line.

His only formal education was at his local primary school, after which he carried out agricultural work on his father's farm before joining the French Post & Telegraph Administration as an apprentice operator in 1869.

[4] It was a 5-bit code, with equal on and off intervals, which allowed telegraph transmission of the Roman alphabet, punctuation and control signals.

The signals from the telegraph line were temporarily stored on a set of five electromagnets, before being decoded to print the corresponding character on paper tape.

This could be achieved at a speed of 30 wpm by strictly observing the "cadence" of rhythm of the system when the distributor gave the operator the use of the line.

Baudot received little help from the French Telegraph Administration for his system, and often had to fund his own research, even having to sell the gold medal awarded by the 1878 Exposition Universelle in 1880.

The Baudot telegraph system was employed progressively in France, and then was adopted in other countries, Italy being the first to introduce it, in its inland service, in 1887.

His condition affected him for the rest of his life, until he died on 28 March 1903, at Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris, at the age of 57.

The Tribunal Civil de la Seine, which reviewed testimony from three experts unconnected with the Telegraph Administration, found in favor of Mimault and accorded him priority of invention of the Baudot code and ruled that Baudot's patents were simply improvements of Mimault's.

Neither inventor was satisfied with this judgment, which was eventually rescinded with Mimault being ordered to pay all legal costs.

Mimault became unnerved because of the decision, and after an incident where he shot at and wounded two students of the École Polytechnique (charges for which were dropped), he demanded a special act to prolong the duration of his patents, 100,000 Francs, and election to the Légion d'honneur.