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 President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, 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