Professionalism. From 1750 to 1914 government officials across Europe became increasingly professional. During the eighteenth century most officials held their government posts either because they purchased them or because they received them as part of a favorable political negotiation with the crown. Few men were career bureaucrats with any formal training. By the nineteenth century, however, this situation was changing, especially in Britain.

French Republican Assemblies. Venal officeholding existed in France until the Revolution of 1789, when electoral politics and radical republicanism replaced the administrative infrastructure of the Old Regime. France's republican assemblies relied on elected officials who, initially, had no experience in government at all. High property requirements for officeholding and voting helped to restrict the membership of the assemblies to the wealthy elite. Two-thirds of the National Assembly in 1789, for example, were relatively well-off lawyers. During the Terror (1793-1794) the...