[en] This study deals with the effect of the loading history on the cyclic behavior and the fatigue life of two kinds (THYSSEN and CLI) of 304L stainless steel at room temperature. The experiments have been performed using two specimens' categories. The first one (virgin) has been submitted to only classical fatigue tests while in the second category, prior to the fatigue test, the specimen is subjected to a pre-hardening process under either monotonic or cyclic strain control. Cyclic softening followed by cyclic hardening are observed for the virgin specimens while only cyclic softening is exhibited by the pre-hardened specimens. The obtained results show that fatigue life is strongly influenced by the pre-hardening: it seems beneficial under stress control but detrimental under strain control, even in the presence of a compressive mean stress. The results are discussed regarding the cyclic evolution of the elastic modulus as well as the isotropic and kinematic parts of the strain hardening, and strain energy density per cycle, in different configurations: with or without prehardening,stress or strain control. (author)