The historiography on modern intellectual work tends to superimpose two distinct narratives: the inventory of the signs expressing the increased social esteem in which such work was held is conflated with the description of movements toward professionalization. As a result, all kinds of social practices that do not belong to professionalizing trends – for instance the services performed by authors under the Ancien Régime – are not taken into account. The same thing happens with phenomena that can be assimilated with de-professionalization or with the disorganization of existing statuses as a result of different policies or actions. Thus, this historiography largely ignores professors – an old profession that was deeply institutionalized but had difficulties resisting various kinds of encroachments. The paper therefore considers the organization of modern intellectual professions through the case of teachers.