Albert Pauphilet completed his secondary studies at the Lycée Condorcet, during which he obtained the honorary prize for French composition at the Concours Général.
He entered the École normale supérieure in 1905, where he obtained an associate degree in 1908 and defended in 1921 a thesis on The Quest for the Holy Grail attributed to Gautier Map .
Professor of French literature of the Middle Ages at the Faculty of Letters of Paris from 1934, he has thus edited numerous articles and books on the medieval period, such as the first volume of Strowski and Moulinier's "History of French Literature".
Imprisoned under the Occupation because of his resistance activities (on his attitude of opposition to Vichy and the Occupier during the Occupation, and in particular on his vote of opposition to the application of the statute of Jews during a preliminary vote at the Sorbonne Faculty Assembly of December 1940), he succeeds the Liberation of Jérôme Carcopino as head of the École normale supérieure, which he directed until his death in 1948.
Albert Pauphilet was appointed National Order of the Legion of Honour in a military capacity in 1924, officer on 5 April 1946 and received the Croix de guerre in 1915.