How has legal auditing developed in France from the control of accounts practised in limited companies during the XIXth century to the 1966 Act which set the current legal framework of auditing in France? To demonstrate that this simple function turns into a real profession, three key words have been studied: * The practice through the articles of association of limited companies during the XIXth century, the Company Acts, the reading of professional and economic press, the examples of two major French industrial firms : Pont-à-Mousson and Saint-Gobain, * The professional organisations. From the setting up of the Société Académique de Comptabilité in 1881 to the one of the Compagnie des Experts Comptables de Paris in 1912, from the establishment of the Fédération des associations de commissaires inscrits further to the Act of 1935 to the setting up of the OECCA in 1942, this thesis focuses on the struggles leaded by professionals in order to be recognized. * The education. We have analysed the evolution of accounting education: the setting up of the first business schools, the development of a complete system of accounting education implemented by the SAC, the progress of State accounting certificates concerning experts in accounting and legal auditors. Different sides according to the economic, social and cultural context have been highlighted in order to explain the slowness of the process of emergence and the choices made for the implementation of legal auditing in France.
