1849 in France

Events

• 1 January - France's first postage stamp, Ceres, is issued.
• 16 April - Giacomo Meyerbeer's grand opera Le prophète is premièred by the Paris Opera at the Salle Le Peletier with Pauline Viardot in the mezzo-soprano role, her first with the Opera. Stage effects include electric light, ballet on roller skates and the use of saxhorns. The audience includes Napoleon III, the new Emperor, Berlioz and the terminally ill Chopin.
• 27 April - Giuseppe Garibaldi enters Rome to defend it from the French troops of General Oudinot.
• 13 May - Legislative election held.
• 3 July - French troops occupy Rome. Roman Republic surrenders.

  Births

• 12 January - Jean Béraud, painter and commercial artist
• 8 February - Henri Amédée de Broglie, nobleman
• 21 February - Edouard Deville, first to perfect a practical method of photogrammetry
• 4 April - Félix Balzer, physician
• 2 June - Paul-Albert Besnard, painter
• 3 July - Prosper-René Blondlot, physicist
• 19 July
• *François Victor Alphonse Aulard, historian
• *Ferdinand Brunetière, writer and critic
• 20 July - Théobald Chartran, painter
• 3 August - Joseph Jules Dejerine, neurologist
• 18 August - Benjamin Godard, violinist and composer

  Deaths

• 13 April - Théophile Marion Dumersan, writer and numismatist
• 16 April - Philippe-Frédéric Blandin, physician and surgeon
• 28 April - René-Primevère Lesson, surgeon and naturalist
• 11 May - Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier, leader of the literary and political circles
• 10 June - Thomas Robert Bugeaud, Marshal of France and Governor-General of Algeria
• 26 August - Jacques Féréol Mazas, composer, conductor and violinist
• 12 November - Alexis-François Artaud De Montor, diplomat and historian
• 21 November - François Marius Granet, painter
• 27 December - Jacques-Laurent Agasse, painter
• 28 December - Quatremère de Quincy, archaeologist and writer on art