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Born in Paris, Saint-Mandé, on October 24, 1868, Alexandra David-Néel died in Digne on September 8, 1969.

Her long life was entirely devoted to exploration and study, the two overriding passions that made her unruly in her childhood, rebellious in her adolescence, anarchist in her youth, and one of the wisest "free thinkers" in the 20th century in her old age.

Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David was the only daughter of a French father of Huguenot ancestry and a Catholic mother of Scandinavian origin. Very early she displayed her most characteristic personality traits, in sharp contrast with her severe, austere, bourgeois parental environment. She was a proud, fiercely individualistic child, yearning for freedom. She ran away from home several times to flee this dour loveless home, attracted by travels to faraway initiatory lands, to satisfy the need for escape she felt to the end of her life.

Thus, at the early ageof 2, to see how far she could go on the road that passed in front of her grandparents' garden, she escaped through the open door... Of course, her frightened parents found the very unhappy toddler and brought her back home.