Savoir scientifique et pouvoir social. L'Ecole polytechnique, 1794-1914

Knowledge and power : founded in 1794 for the purpose of developing and importing a changing scientific knowledge, the celebrated Ecole polytechnique, the prototype of France's grandes écoles, also contributed to the strengthening of the elite's political and social power. While at its inception the Ecole polytechnique recruited its students in ail strata of society and trained them in techniques applicable to France's nascent industry, it soon became sélective, both through its increasingly esoteric curricula and through its recruitment procédures. The school of an élite, an instrument of legitimization of that élite through the training which it provided, Polytechnique exercised a monopoly over the key positions of French administration and dominated the scientific éducation apparatus. After an éclipse at the turn of the century, World War I enabled it to regain its prestige and recover the first place among establishments of higher éducation in the field of science and technology.