After completing his primary education and when he was twelve years of age, Boucher was apprenticed to a Rennes blacksmith but his artistic abilities came to the notice of the sculptor Charles Joseph Lenoir, the father of Pierre Charles Lenoir, who advised him to attend evening classes at the "Halle aux Toiles" in Rouen.

There he became a friend of the painter Jules Ronsin who was to become a director of the Ếcole Régionale des Beaux-arts in Rennes, a school which was to produce a generation of talented sculptors who became known as the "Ếcole de Rennes" and apart from Boucher included Paul Le Goff, Louis Henri Nicot, Pierre Charles Lenoir, Eloi Robert, Albert Bourget, Armel Beaufils and Francis Renaud.

1888 was to be an important year for Boucher and he enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, helped by a bursary from the Rennes municipality.

On arriving in Paris he shared rooms with Ronsin and his apprenticeship started at the Académie Julian where he was able to learn from Henri Chapu and by the end of 1889 he was able to join the Ếcole des beaux-arts itself and was placed in the studio of Alexandre Falguière and was able to attend classes run by Antonin Mercié.

In 1893 he executed the composition "Âge d'or" and in that year won the "Lemaire" competition medal which allowed him to reduce the length of his obligatory military service which was due at that time.

"Achille revêt l'armure apportée à Thétis" had been that year's set subject for those competing for the prize.

Boucher left Paris on 1 September 1901, visiting museums and staying for periods in Belgium, Germany, England and Spain before reaching Italy.

A plaster version was shown at the Salon des Artistes français in 1899 and in 1905 Boucher donated this to the Musée Joseph Denais in Beaufort-en-Vallée.

[6] In 1900 Boucher received the first class medal from the Salon des Artistes français for this plaster composition which featured a family scene; wife, husband and daughter.

His successes at this time with the Salon des Artistes français where he exhibited the work "Antique et Moderne" and others and his near successes with the Prix de Rome led to a bursary being granted in 1901 as part of the Prix National which allowed Boucher to travel overseas and he visited Belgium, Spain, Germany and Great Britain and finished in Italy where he was obliged under the terms of the bursary to study for one year.

In 1903, Boucher, having returned to France from Italy, received the commission to work on the Ernest Renan monument in Tréguier.

The association "Bretons de Paris" had organised for a monument to be erected in Brest dedicated to Dr Mesny.

The inscription on the pedestal reads " Armand Dayot / Inspecteur général / des Beaux-Arts et des Musées / Ecrivain Critique / Animateur / Fondateur de l’Art et les Artistes / Né à Paimpol le 19 octobre 1851 / Mort le 2 octobre 1934"Jean-Julien Lemordant and "les Bleus de Bretagne" decided to honour Dayot who was born in Paimpol.

[22] Biraud had set up the first cooperative milk factory in Brittany and Boucher was commissioned in 1932 to execute this bronze bust which stands in Surgères' avenue de la Gare.

This monument is of huge dimensions and stands at the top of a 73 step staircase joining the rue Mazes with the place de la Liberation.

Boucher's sculpture of a French warrior stands at the top of a pyramid shaped tower leaning on a massive sword and looking out towards the Verdun battlefields to the east.

Boucher had fought at Verdun and joining the Army as a sergeant he had been promoted to lieutenant and was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

The ceremony was performed before a huge crowd with Gaston Doumergue, Raymond Poincaré and Marshal Philippe Pétain presiding.

The initial commission went to the sculptor Bénet but his sculpture was considered as too modest for Paris and his work was erected in Trilbardour in 1924 facing the site of the Battle of the Ourcq.

Boucher chose the following to be inscribed on the monument " Pendant 45 ans, la victoire française fut recouverte d'un lourd voile de deuil; Et voici que les Saint-Cyriens arrachent ce voile alors la Victoire apparaît"The inauguration on 22 May 1922 was conducted by Alexandre Millerand in the presence of Franchet d'Esperey, Ferdinand Foch and Pétain.

The memorial inscribed " A nos morts victorieux" lists all the students and staff of the Beaux-Arts who gave their lives for France in 1914-1918.

[39] We must remember that not only had Boucher been a pupil at the Beaux-Arts but had also on 18 September 1919 become professor and head of the sculptural arm of the school, replacing Antonin Mercié.

The Vitré, Ille-et-Vilaine war memorial stands in the place du Château and involves a granite sculpture by Boucher of a soldier.

Boucher depicts a soldier in the trenches leaning on his rifle and lists the names of the 318 men of Vitré who gave their lives in the 1914-1918 war.

Also, on either side of the base of the statue, are two excerpts from Seeger's "Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France", a poem written shortly before his death on 4 July 1916.

Seeger intended that his words should be read in Paris on 30 May of that year, at an observance of the American holiday, Decoration Day (later known as Memorial Day): They did not pursue worldly rewards; they wanted nothing more than to live without regret, brothers pledged to the honor implicit in living one's own life and dying one's own death.

[43] Boucher depicts Victor Hugo as an exile standing in a storm on the rocks of Guernsey and facing the sea.

Initially carved in granite from the plaster model, a marble version was finally erected in Candie Gardens, Saint Peter Port, Guernesey.

A bronze version of the sculpture was shown at the 1931 Salon des Artistes français which then stood in front of the Panthéon in 1935 before it was despatched to Thionville.

A sculpture park extends from the Hotel de Ville, and a large statue commemorating Camille Desmoulins' call for the Bastille to be stormed on 13 July 1789, occupies a nearby junction.