In foreign policy, he called for a strong League of Nations, and the maintenance of peace through compulsory arbitration, controlled disarmament, economic sanctions, and perhaps an international military force.

Bourgeois was born in Paris in to a modest Republican family of a watchmaker of Burgundian descent,[2] and was trained in law, graduating from his university in 1874.

After holding a subordinate office (1876) in the department of public works, he became successively prefect of the Tarn (1882) and the Haute-Garonne (1885), and then returned to Paris to enter the Ministry of the Interior.

He energetically pressed the Panama prosecution, so much so that he was accused of having put wrongful pressure on the wife of one of the defendants in order to procure evidence.

In November 1895, he formed his own cabinet, distinctively radical, which fell as the result of a constitutional crisis arising from the persistent refusal of the Senate to vote supply.

After the short ministry, he represented his country with dignity and effect at the Hague Peace Convention, and in 1903 was nominated a member of the permanent court of arbitration.

Bourgeois also became delegate to Paris Peace Conference and strongly supported the Japanese Racial Equality Proposal as "an indisputable principle of justice".