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The aim of this study is to propose a socio-historical analysis of the first female students at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), from the first enrollments (1886) to a period of democratization (1893). At the end of the nineteenth century, higher education in France, as in many other countries, was difficult for women to access. The EPHE was a place of secularization of knowledge, its Religious Sciences section in particular. It also strove to admit women into a place of learning, though it met with some resistance. Beyond the study of institutions, this article also contributes to the everyday history of women and their capacity to participate in the transnational circulation of knowledge, despite the few traces they have left. I wanted to know more about these women: their intellectual training, their social background, their family and marital connections, their country and region of origin, the reasons for their presence at the university and their feminist commitment.