After his year in Germany, Marc Bloch spent three years at the Fondation Thiers, then two as a lycée professor, and almost five in uniform. His writings from this decade reflect both his predoctoral status with the Université and his reactions to the on-going debates over the relative merits of history, geography, and sociology. His developing critical stance toward géographie humaine and his increasing attraction to Durkheimian thought can be detected in a monograph on “l'Ile-de-France,” his dissertation, and a number of articles and reviews. Despite his interest in the new methods, the approach which he took in his published work remained very much like that of his teachers – a reflection of not only his junior status but also of the disruptions of war. He focussed on a careful interpretation of documents related to the history of France and made only limited use of the concepts and methods promoted by the Durkheimians.

In 1909 Bloch entered the Fondation Thiers, which had been established in 1893 as a residence in Paris for a very select group of doctoral students following their successful completion of the licence (an academic certificate acquired a few years after the baccalauréat) or an equivalent diploma.