Abstract EN:

Our study aims at questioning the shifts in terminology which define the woman-in-adventure from the middle of the XIXth century to the “Front Populaire” period in order to study the socio-cultural enlarging of a female leisure practice. The occurrence in the press or in the publications of learned circles of terms such as the “long-distance female traveller”, the “female explorer” and later the “sports-woman” to define the emblematic figure of the long-distance female travel reveals a process of democratization and individualization of the Adventure. Thereby we will show that the long-distance female traveller of the beginning of the XIXth century definitely stands out as a character of exception contrasting with that of the female adventurer or of the “blue-stocking of the desert”. Later, during the so-called “Belle Époque” period, the woman-explorer, often middle-class born, will crystallize the advent of the “New Eve” through her meddling in the supposed male fields of science, economics or politics and through the exposition of a more “virile” body and energy. But it is mainly during the “Années Folles” that the mythical figure of the female adventurer, a representation of the heroic and athletic ideal Frenchwoman will blossom and later be embodied by Hélène Boucher.