Soulié de Morant had the opportunity to start learning Chinese at the age of eight, being taught the language by a Jesuit priest.
At the age of twenty, Soulié de Morant was employed by a bank, which decided to send him to China in 1899.
Given Soulié de Morant's command of the Chinese language, he soon joined the French diplomatic corps, for which he would work for most of the following two decades.
As he served as consul in several Chinese cities, he sought out teachers who could give him instruction in acupuncture.
After Soulié de Morant returned to France after several years of consular service, he was persuaded by the prominent advocate of alternative medicine, Paul Ferreyrolles (1880–1955), to put all his efforts into translating Chinese works on acupuncture.