 While a student he wrote for "La Semaine des étudiants", getting to know Emile Verhaeren, Iwan Gilkin and Albert Giraud.After graduating he served as a magistrate in turn in Diest, Anderlecht and Ixelles, and contributed to Edmond Picard's "Pandectes belges" and to "Le Journal des Tribunaux".He further contributed more than 400 articles to the "Biographie Nationale de Belgique", and was the author of biographies of Don John of Austria and Charles V. As a writer he was best known as a poet, part of the circle of "La Jeune Belgique".