Bovesse worked as an employee in the tax administration while studying law at the University of Liège.

That same year World War I broke out and Bovesse served in the Belgian Army during the Yser campaign.

Following the end of the war, Bovesse was admitted to the bar in 1919 and began practicing law in Namur.

[4] Bovesse took an anti-fascist stance against the Nazi leadership in Occupied Belgium and everyone who collaborated with them, thereby quickly becoming a symbol of civil resistance.

On 1 February 1944, five men affiliated with the Rexist Party and the SS went to Bovesse's home in Namur and wanted to force him in their truck at gunpoint so they could kill him elsewhere.