1748 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch: Louis XV

Events

• April - Maastricht is conquered by Maurice de Saxe.
• 24 April - War of the Austrian Succession: A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle with the intent to conclude the war.
• 18 October - War of the Austrian Succession: The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is signed to end the war. Great Britain obtains Madras, in India, from France, in exchange for the fortress of Louisbourg in Canada.
• Louis XV authorizes a 5% income tax on every individual regardless of social status; the Parlement of Paris protests.

Births

• 12 April - Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, botanist
• 27 April - Pierre-Louis Ginguené, author
• 3 May - Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, cleric and constitutional theorist
• 7 May - Olympe de Gouges, playwright and political activist
• 10 May - Louis Pierre Vieillot, ornithologist
• 30 June - Jacques Dominique, comte de Cassini, astronomer
• 30 August - Jacques-Louis David, historical painter
• 9 December - Claude Louis Berthollet, chemist
• Rosalie Duthé, courtesan and artists' model

Deaths

• 7 March - Élisabeth Thérèse de Lorraine, noblewoman, Princess of Epinoy by marriage
• 17 May - Henri, Duke of Elbeuf, member of the House of Lorraine
• 16 June - Jean Philippe d'Orléans, illegitimate son of future regent Philippe d'Orleans
• 14 August - Thomas Germain, silversmith