Isabelle Eberhardt was born in Geneva on on February 17th, 1877 with the Fendt villa, located in the district of the Caves. Isabelle is the illegitimate girl of Russian refugees: Natalia de Moerder, born Eberhardt, and Alexandre Nicolaïevitch Trofimovsky, known as Vava. The legend allots sometimes the Arthur Rimbaud poet to him like father. Eager to preserve their children and not to cause the disapproval on their connection, at the time little conformist, Natalia and Vava decide to remain in Switzerland after the birth of Isabelle. The family settles in Meyrin, with the New Villa. Isabelle passes there her childhood accompanied by four of the children of Natalia: Nicole, Augustin, Nathalie and Volodia. This recomposed family, cosmopolitan and if little conformist, drew the attention. Isabelle Eberhardt was initially informed by her Vava father.

 She attended then the secondary school. The New Villa was a cosmopolitan meeting place. One intended there to speak Russian, French, German, Italian and Arabic, sometimes also the Greek and Latin. Isabelle Eberhardt thus grew in a multicultural and intellectual environment since the household abounded in books in various languages. This cultural and cosmopolitan effervescence developed at it an inexhaustible thirst for discovered and woke up, it seems, the suspicions of the Police force from abroad.

In 1883, the elder one of the children, Nicola, left the family home to engage in the Foreign legion . Isabelle intended to speak for the first time about Algeria. By measurement of economy, Isabelle wore clothing of her brothers, but took soon taste with the men's wears of which she liked to rig out herself to saunter in the streets of Geneva.

In 1888, Augustin, another second half-brother of Isabelle Eberhardt, engaged in the Foreign legion and gained in his turn Algeria. It was put at once to learn Kabylian Arabic and it as well as the drawing to be able to carry out sketches. She did not dream any more but of voyages and accounts. Thus it charged her brother with scrupulously holding up to date a newspaper on its life of legionary. Itself took the pseudonym of Nicolas Podinsky and held a correspondence with a friendly sailor of its brother.

Its dreams of adventure and voyages were concretized initially by written accounts with four hands with his/her brother and by his correspondence. In 1895, Isabelle Eberhardt is eighteen years old. Its first news is published in various newspapers. One will quote “Infernalia” appeared in the New Parisian Review then “Vision of the Maghreb”. Isabelle Eberhardt described there Algeria which she however never yet visited.

In May 1897, Isabelle Eberhardt carries out, finally, its first voyage in Algeria. It is accompanied by her mother who wishes to approach her Augustin son. The two women convert with Islam and Isabelle takes the Arab male pseudonym of Mahmoud. The mother of Isabelle, Natalia de Moerder, died a little later in November 1897, at the 59 years age. In 1898, the press agency the Athenaeum publishes the news of Isabelle. Following an argument with the director, on bottom of anti-semitism and Dreyfus affair, Isabelle Eberhardt was not any more published and was without resources.

She at that time begins the drafting from Rakhil, love story between a Moslem student and a Jewish young girl, which will accompany it everywhere but that she will not complete. In 1899, Isabelle lost her Volodia brother who put an end to his days then his Vava father. In June 1899, Isabelle and her Augustin brother gain Tunis. Isabelle continues only the road towards Algeria. Disguised as a man, she wears a white burnous and is capped with a turban. Confusion around its identity (a dressed woman as a man who is made call Mahmoud Saadi but has a Russian passport in the name of Isabelle de Moerder) sows the disorder among the authorities. Difficult indeed to imagine a woman travelling only by pleasure in these arid regions! She could however solve these administrative difficulties and continue her tour. She mixes with the military caravans and convoys and writing for a newspaper which ordered its impressions of voyage to him.

Isabelle Eberhardt met the love of her life in the person of Slimène Ehnni, a soldier of the indigenous French Army corps of cavalry in North Africa. In January 1901, it was victim of an attempted murder in Béhina. It is obvious that the lifestyle of Isabelle Eberhardt, her connection with a native, caused the disapproval of the colonists. Its marriage with Slimène was refused by the French Army.

In May 1901, the French authorities enjoin it to leave Algeria. It gained Marseilles, under a false name and dressed in overalls to travel in 4th class, not - authorized with the women. Isabelle Eberhardt was convened in Constantine in the capacity as victim and witness in the lawsuit which was to open on on June 18th, 1901, following the attempted murder of which it had been victim. She wrote a letter in a daily newspaper of Algiers which gave its version of the facts. The culprit was finally condemned and banished Isabelle of Algeria. It was estimated that its lifestyle and its disguises were factors of disorders. It ends up obtaining the authorization to marry civilly Slimène on on October 17th, 1901 in Marseilles. The couple joined Algeria on on January 14th, 1902. Isabelle Eberhardt takes again her voyages in the desert. She seems to be interested particularly in hydrology of the desert: wadis, sources, torrents.

Of return to the capital, Victor Barrucand offers to him a station of special correspondent for the newspaper “Akhbar”. She also collaborates with Luce Denaben, director of the school-sewing room of the Moslem girls of Algiers. For the first time of her life, Isabelle Eberhardt can truly live journalism. Slimene obtains to him a post of interpreter. Isabelle also approaches a group of writers publishing a literary review “ Large France ”.

The thirst for big spaces takes it again. It sets out again, more and more a long time, through the vastnesses of the Sahara. Its tours are published regularly in “Akhbar” where it holds a column. In her news, so rich in colors and atmospheres, Isabelle Eberhardt does not hesitate to defend the fellahs and to protest against colonization. In 1903, it goes to Ain Sefra where a conflict of border makes rage between Morocco and Algeria. She will officiate like “deferring war”, undoubtedly a first for a woman. Its articles and political analyzes were snuffed by many newspapers of which “Mercure de France”. She bound friendship with colonel Lyautey, future Marshal of France.

On October 21st, 1904, Slimène, in permission, joined it in Ain Safra. This day was the last of Isabelle Eberhardt. The town of Ain Safra was indeed the theater of a natural disaster. The wadi was transformed into furious torrent and the city was carried. Slimene was found alive, but Isabelle, weakened by paludism, had not been able to flee. One found it in the ruins of his house, worn a his dress of Arab rider. Isabelle was buried with the Moslem cemetery. One found then the manuscript of “Oranian South” that Barrucand made publish one year later.

Carried at the 27 years age, Isabelle Eberhardt leaves news and accounts of voyage written during her romantic life. Although it did not accept, of alive sound, the literary dedication to which it aspired, Isabelle Eberhardt launched a new kind of colonial literature, stripped of prejudices. Death, it wrote: “All the great charm coming up of the life perhaps comes from the absolute certainty of death. If the things were to last, they would seem to us unworthy of attachment. ” (In the hot shade of Islam).

Bibliography:

- EAUBONNE Francoise, Life of Isabelle Eberhardt, Flammarion, I have Lu, Paris, 1968.

- KOBAK Annette, Isabelle Eberhardt. Life and died of a rebel, Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1988.

- Geneva and refugees 500 years of history, Town of Geneva and Fondation HUNHCR-50, Geneva, 2001.