Yes indeed, notaries in the civil law countries are noticeably different from those in the common law; in the civil law tradition, it’s a much more prestigious job. They are fully qualified lawyers, and they are intended to provide impartial legal advice to both parties in a transaction where the law requires notarisation (examples for which would be real estate transactions or corporate law resolutions). Part of their job is to do what common law notaries public do, i.e., confirming the authenticity of a signature or document, but it goes far beyond that. It can also be quite lucrative; their fee is usually defined by statute as a percentage of the volume of a transaction, and access to the profession is highly regulated with a limited number of positions in any given area, so notaries can rake it a sizeable income from the transactions in their district for which the law requires notarisation. The details of how they are trained differ among the civil law jurisdictions, but typically the way it works is that after the standard legal education a dedicated additional training is necessary, following which graduates can apply for one of the limited number of positions when one becomes available.