1776 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch - Louis XVI

  Events

• June–July – Claude-François-Dorothée, marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans, demonstrates his steamboat Palmipède on the Doubs.
• August – The guild organisation Marchandes de modes is founded.

  Births

• 1 April - Sophie Germain, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher
• 4 August - Pierre-Simon Ballanche, writer and counterrevolutionary philosopher

  Full date unknown

• Peter Gilles, composer

  Deaths

• 4 May - Jacques Saly, sculptor
• 25 August - Germain-François Poullain de Saint-Foix, writer and playwright
• 17 October - Pierre François le Courayer, writer

  Full date unknown

• Augustin Roux, encyclopedist
• Marie Durand, Protestant martyr