A look back at the fate of Alexandra David-Néel, the adventurer who braved the forbidden city of Tibet<

Singer, writer, orientalist, feminist... During her life, Alexandra David-Néel has worn many costumes, but it is that of the explorer that has made her famous. 110 years ago, in 1911, this Frenchwoman began the journey that would change her life. A journey of fourteen years across the continent that has fascinated him so much since his young years, Asia.

Then 43 years old, Alexandra has been married to Philippe Néel for seven years but her desire for studies, independence and travel push her to end her married life and start alone. She travels to Sri Lanka, India, Tibet, Nepal where she frequents many monasteries to perfect her knowledge of Buddhism.

The adventures and encounters of the Frenchwoman already have everything to make her an extraordinary adventurer. But it was not until 1925, at the end of her Indo-Tibetan expedition, that the press of yesteryear began to take an interest in the "woman with the soles of the wind" as she would later be nicknamed.

First Western woman to reach Lhasa

The previous year, Alexandra indeed became the first Western woman to reach Lhasa in Tibet, a monastic city whose entry is normally forbidden to foreigners. She manages to do so disguised as a beggar after a journey of 2,000 kilometers with the young Aphur Yongden, her adopted son.

On January 25, 1925, the newspaper La Croix reported the news in a brief titled "A French explorer": "It is announced from Tokio that a Frenchwoman, Mrs. Alexandra David Neel, who left France in 1911 for India, is arrival in Lhasa". Before retracing the rest of his journey until his entry into the forbidden city in February 1924.

A few months later, on April 20, 1925, it was the novelist Charles Géniaux who reflected on this feat in the newspaper Le Petit Marseillais: "The newspapers told us that this Frenchwoman had just returned to India after thirteen pasts in the heart of Asia, in Tibet inaccessible to foreigners [...] As it is not a question of a sporting raid, but of the disinterested search for the truth, this magnificent feat barely caught the attention public".

Charles Géniaux, who had the opportunity to meet the passionate adventurer before her departure, is full of praise for her: "We were far from suspecting that this woman musician, philosopher and scholar and whose physical complexion, without being delicate, did not make the explorer suspect, would accomplish the most extraordinary study trip in appalling conditions and that very few men could bear".

Once back in France, Alexandra David-Néel gave exclusive access to her travel stories to Le Matin newspaper. On June 21, 1925, she recounted in her columns her stratagem to manage to enter the forbidden city, "the difficult crossing of the Rakchi pass and the hostile reception of nomadic shepherds and their ferocious dogs".

"A few previous experiences had convinced me that cunning and absolute incognito alone could make it possible to cross the closely guarded border of forbidden territory and continue a journey there to Lhasa. So I had disguised myself as a woman from the people,” she explains.

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But the stratagem did not seem to work on the nomadic pastoralists encountered along the way. "So we were inclined to head towards the tents when one of those huge, ferocious dogs that are always on guard around a Tibetan camp sniffed at us and started barking," she testifies.

"Immediately, other dogs answered him and a whole gang ran towards us. We defended ourselves with our sticks, calling at the same time the people of the tents to our help", she continues. When the famous masters arrive, it will not be to save them from the beasts but to shoot them.

A few days later, on June 29, 1925, the explorer recounted new "good and bad" encounters in the same newspaper. "I became cold; it was with identical words that they had barred my way eighteen months before [...] "What will I do, I thought, if my attempt fails again? - I will start a new journey". In which direction? I did not know for the moment but I would start again", she remembers, testifying to her determination.

Awarded and invited throughout Europe

In addition to the newspapers, Alexandra David-Néel recounts her travels through books, in particular Voyage d'une Parisienne à Lhassa published in 1927, which quickly made her fame grow. She is invited to many conferences in France and Europe and receives several awards and medals.

On July 2, 1926, the newspaper La Patrie documented one of them: "The Sports Academy has just awarded the Women's Athletics Grand Prix to Mrs. Alexandra David-Neel, who has achieved this feat not only to cross Tibet alone, but even to enter Lhasa, Tibetan Rome".

Six years later, in 1932, his conferences still attract the curious as evidenced by the journalist Marie Lera, under the pseudonym Marc Hélys, in the columns of Figaro. On January 12, she wrote: "Mrs. Alexandra David Néel, 'reverend lady lama' in Tibet, a scholar and orientalist of great reputation in Europe, has spent a few days in Paris lately. She has given lectures at the Sorbonne, at the Guimet museum, the "Friends of Buddhism", the Adyar room: wherever one is interested in the Orient and its mysteries".

These interventions were centered around a famous poem and myth, that of Gesar de Ling, specifies the journalist visibly inspired by the adventurer. "[...] I had the impression that she did not want to humiliate us, us poor Westerners easily amazed - and who like to be - and that for the "reverend lady lama", educated in so many secrets, these phenomena did not escape the profound and hidden laws of nature".

Tired of conferences and social events, the orientalist took to the road again in 1937 to reach India and then Tibet. She did not return to France until 1946 at the age of 78 and continued to publish her works. The last one will appear in 1964. The explorer dies in Digne five years later at almost 101 years old.

Since then, many tributes have been paid to him and many works - documentaries, films, essays, novels and even comics - have been inspired by his travels and his life.

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