1762 in France
Events from the year 1762 in France.
Incumbents
Events
- 5 January–12 February - Invasion of Martinique by British forces
- 10 March - Jean Calas, a 68 year old merchant convicted unjustly of murdering his son because of religious differences, is brutally executed on orders of the Parlement of Toulouse: after his legs and hips are broken and crushed, he is tortured on the breaking wheel to remain "in pain and repentance for his crimes and misdeeds, for as long as it shall please God to keep him alive"
- 5 April - France issues a new ordinance requiring all black and mixed-race Frenchmen to register their identity information with the offices of the Admiralty Court, upon the advice of Guillaume Poncet de la Grave, adviser to Louis XV, requiring both free and enslaved blacks and mulattoes to list data including their age, surname, purpose for which they are residing in France, whether they have been baptized as Christians, where they emigrated from in Africa and the name of the ship upon which they arrived
- 20 June - In Paris, the Comédie-Italienne, having merged with the Opéra-Comique, performs at the Hôtel de Bourgogne
- 13 November - Treaty of Fontainebleau: Louis XV secretly cedes Louisiana (New France) to Charles III of Spain
- Courses begin at the first veterinary school, established by Claude Bourgelat in Lyon
- The Sorbonne library is founded
- The Académie française produces a new edition of its dictionary of the French language, the fourth to be published
- Louis XV orders construction of the Petit Trianon in the park of the Palace of Versailles to the design of Ange-Jacques Gabriel for his mistress Madame de Pompadour
- An equestrian statue of Louis XV in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, is completed, Edmé Bouchardon's design being finished by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle; it will be destroyed during the French Revolution.
- Tassinari et Chatel, Lyon silk weavers, established
Births
- 29 April - Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, marshal
- 20 September - Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, neoclassical architect, interior decorator and designer
- 9 October - Charles de Suremain, military officer and diplomat in Swedish service
- 30 October - André Chénier, Ottoman-born poet
- 20 November - Pierre André Latreille, zoologist
Full date unknown
- Pierre-Michel Alix, engraver
- Philippe Vannier, naval officer
Deaths
- 11 January - Louis-François Roubiliac, sculptor
- 24 January - Bernard Baron, engraver, in London
- 12 February - Laurent Belissen, composer
- 21 March - Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, astronomer
- 29 May - Edmé Bouchardon, sculptor
- 17 June - Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, poet and tragedian
- 28 August - Augustin de Boschenry de Drucour, military officer
- 30 September - Jacques Daviel, ophthalmologist
Full date unknown
- Hyacinthe Gaëtan de Lannion, politician
- Jean Barbault, painter and printmaker, in Rome