Son of Félix Giraud-Teulon, ophthalmologist, member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine and great-grandson of the conventional Marc Antoine Alexis Giraud, he belonged to a Protestant family from La Rochelle.

Licentiate in law, he became known by a series of publications on the history of institutions such as the mother among certain peoples of the antiquity.

In 1874, he published a critical summary of Johann Jakob Bachofen's book, Das Mutterrecht (The Maternal Right, 1861), under the title Les Origines de la famille (The Origins of the Family), which was the most complete presentation[citation needed], in French, of the doctrine of prehistoric matriarchy and its survivals.

He is credited with a translation of Geschichte der christlichen Kirche (History of the Christian Church, 1833), work of Ignaz von Döllinger, opponent of the dogma of papal infallibility.

He also translated the posthumous work of Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, De Motu Animalium (On the Movement of Animals).