Achieving Professionalism in the French Technical Corps

In this chapter we shall be examining the way the French army became professionalized, a process where the technical corps were in the vanguard. In the case of the engineers and the artillery admission was by competitive examination, and this ratified the distinction between officers and their subordinates; it made them the forerunners of meritocracy, which benefited their position during the Revolution. The geographical engineers developed more slowly than the other two corps, only attaining full militarization in the Napoleonic period. That is also the point in time when we detect the presence of technocracy.