His father was Alexis Joseph Bertrand (1840-1923), a senior civil servant in the state railway administration who served as burgomaster of La Hulpe from 1912 to 1921.

[2] In January 1914 Bertrand wrote of "caravans ... composed of women, sometimes carrying children, who travel distances of over 50km" to bring provisions to the Kanua mining camps of Forminière.

[1] Bertrand was interim vice-governor general of the Orientale Province after Justin Malfeyt left in July 1916, handing over to Adolphe de Meulemeester in August 1917.

[2] In his private correspondence and his official reports Bertrand criticized the brutal treatment of the African workers, often forced to work and severely mistreated in places such as the Kilo-Moto gold mines.

[1] In 1920 Bertrand began working on manpower policy for Forminière, a powerful colonial company that was very active in the Kasaï region.

[1] In 1922 the House of Representatives elected Bertrand as a member of the Colonial Council, a position he held until the end of his life.

[1] In 1930 a labor commission under Major Alphonse Cayen[a] was appointed after missionaries had complained about the effect of rapid economic development on African Societies.

[6] Betrand wrote a 1932 report that strongly criticized the practices at the Kilo-Moto gold mines, leading to a heated argument with General Georges Moulaert, the head of the company and an influential person in the colonial establishment.

[1] In 1939 Bertrand married Jeanne Tercafs, a young sculptor 28 years younger than him, who received artistic grants for several trips to the Mangbetu country in the Congo between 1935 and 1940.

[1] During World War II Bertrand was among those Belgians who considered that German victory was inevitable, and they should make the best they could of the new situation.