This article is an attempt to elucidate further on the increasing professionalization of local bureaucratic candidates for the positions of conseillers de préfecture through an analysis of the logic behind recruitment for those positions during the era of the Second Empire, a regime under which the administrative system of modern France expanded considerably, while becoming more and more complex.
To this end, the author first examines the change in the character of conseillers de préfecture during the time in question through a quantitative analysis of the related documentation, showing a reduction in the age of candidates from every region. Conseillers de préfecture were given training experience as future executive officers in many different departments and public offices over a relatively short period of time.
Secondly, the author present his finding from an analysis of the narrative characterizing the documentation, in order to demonstrate that the element of ascription in the recruitment of conseillers de préfecture decreased in importance during the Second Empire compared to the July Monarchy, since the extant documents of petition show that candidates’ predecessors and fathers were no longer intervening in the recruitment process. On the other hand, three types of evaluation---personal character, acquired knowledge of administrative affairs and experience in public office---leading to recruitment existed in all the documents of petition for both July Monarchy and the Second Empire eras, although such meritorious attributes were described in more detail during the latter era, accounting for the change in the character of conseillers de préfecture during that time. The author also argues that many conseillers were able to improve their administrative skills working in the secretariats of prefectural governors.
Finally, the author takes up historian Christophe Charle’s argument that 1) the principle of meritocracy gradually penetrated French society between the 1830s and the 1880s, a period during which ascription still predominated the recruitment process, and 2) the turning point between the two sets of criteria occurred during the early Third Republic era, arguing to the contrary that for local officials, that turning point had already been completely accomplished under the Second Empire.

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The mid 14th century marked a turning point for the relationship between the universities and the Order of Preachers. In fact, a rapid increase in the number of faculties of theology in Europe gave Dominicans more opportunities to earn university degrees, while at the same time producing not only degree holders lacking knowledge and skills, but also promoting academic dishonesty. As a result, the Order, in an attempt to more rigorously control its friars’ attempts to obtain the magisterium, established a system of supervision for degree candidates. In order to examine the interaction between the Dominican authority and individual friars in such an institutional context, this article presents a prosopographical analysis of friars studying at the Avignon Faculty of Theology at the end of the 15th century, based on such Dominican sources as the General Chapters’ acts and the Master General’s registers of letters, as well as the account books of the University of Avignon.
At that particular time, the Faculty was attracting friars particularly from the Dominican province of France, which included Northern France. However, many friars who were studying for degrees at Avignon refused appointments there out of eagerness to attain their magisteria at the University of Paris, whose presetige and influence was European-wide. In other words, far from being passive toward the Order’s decisions concerning their obtaining university degrees, friars would not hesitate to negotiate with their academic superiors in order to gain assignationes that suited their own ambitions.
For members of the Province of France, degrees from the Faculty of Avignon seemed easier to earn due to tolerated shortcuts in the curriculum, but were much less interesting than earning a magisterium in Paris. On the other hand, graduation from the University of Avignon ensured a brilliant career as a professor or superior of the Dominican Order for friars from the province of Provence, to which the convent of Avignon belonged. Such a complex character of a regional university shows how university degrees were firmly established as an important status symbol in late medieval society.

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