1665 in France
Events from the year 1665 in France.
Incumbents
- Monarch: Louis XIV
Events
- January 5 - The Journal des sçavans begins publication, the world's first scientific journal.
- October 21 - Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs, is established by royal letters patent issued by Jean-Baptiste Colbert in Paris.
- Colonisation of Réunion begins with the French East India Company sending twenty settlers.
Arts and literature
- February 15 - Molière's comedy Dom Juan is first presented, at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal (rue Saint-Honoré) in Paris, in its original prose version with the playwright playing Sganarelle; it is withdrawn after 15 performances following attacks on its morality.
- April-November - Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini is fêted in Paris.
- April 17 - Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy, begins a year's imprisonment in the Bastille for besmirching the reputation of the ladies of the French Court in Histoire amoureuse des Gaules.
- September 22 - Molière's L'Amour médecin is first presented, before Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully.
- December 4 - Jean Racine's tragedy Alexandre le Grand is premièred by Molière's troupe at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris. 11 days later, Racine moves it to the Comédiens du Roi at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, causing a rift with Molière.
- Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers publishes Livre d'orgue contenant cent pièces de tous les tons de l'église, the first organ collection that featured forms that became standard for the Baroque French organ school.
- Claude Perrault begins work on the eastern wing of the Louvre.
Births
- March 12 - Jean-François Foucquet, Jesuit prelate, missionary and scientist
- March 17 - Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, harpsichordist and composer
- April 19 - Jacques Lelong, bibliographer.
Deaths
- January 11 - Louise de La Fayette, courtier, friend of King Louis XIII
- January 12 - Pierre de Fermat, mathematician
- January 29 - Jeanne des Anges, Ursuline nun in Loudun
- April 21 - Jean-Joseph Surin, Jesuit writer
- July 28 - Louis Giry, lawyer and classical scholar
- October 22 - César, Duke of Vendôme, nobleman
- November 19 - Nicolas Poussin, painter
- November 24 - Simon Le Moyne, missionary
- December 2 - Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet, socialite