ABSTRACT
The French Revolution, though indeed, the cornerstone for the nation's democratic and republican traditions, gave birth to a strange contradiction in the matter of education. At the end of the nineteenth century, the founders of the Third Republic promoted the school as the centre of their new society's values. Situated as they are at the summit of the academic system, and functioning along a logic of super-selectivity, the Grandes Ecoles bear witness to a curious by-product of the Republican ideology. Republican meritocracy gave birth, in fact, to a new 'Noblesse d'Etat'. Because of the dual character of its organization, higher learning in France is different from that of most other countries. With a few rare exceptions, the vocation of the Grandes Ecoles was scientific and technical: their mission was to apply the sciences to the professions. Very selective, they recruited their students by way of an anonymous entrance exam.
