1788 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch: Louis XVI

Events

• 7 June - Riots broke out in Grenoble, the Day of the Tiles.
• 21 July - Assembly of Vizille, the meeting of the Estates.
• 8 August - Louis XVI agreed to convene the Estates-General meeting in May 1789, for the first time since 1614.

Births

January to June

• 1 January - Étienne Cabet, philosopher and utopian socialist
• 6 January - Louis Marie de la Haye, Vicomte de Cormenin, jurist and political pamphleteer
• 18 February - Alexandre Soumet, poet
• 7 March - Antoine César Becquerel, scientist
• 12 March - Pierre Jean David, sculptor
• 22 March - Pierre Joseph Pelletier, chemist
• 13 April - Auguste François Chomel, pathologist
• 18 April - Charles de Steuben, painter
• 10 May - Augustin-Jean Fresnel, physicist

July to December

• 1 July - Jean-Victor Poncelet, engineer and mathematician
• 5 September - Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, sinologist
• 24 December - Alexandre Guiraud, poet and novelist
• 31 December - Alphonse de Cailleux, painter and arts administrator

Deaths

January to June

• 14 January - François Joseph Paul de Grasse, Admiral
• 25 January - Jean-Louis Alléon-Dulac, naturalist
• 4 February - Claude-Étienne Savary, orientalist, pioneer of Egyptology and translator of the Qur'an
• 17 February - Maurice Quentin de La Tour, painter
• 12 April - Carlo Antonio Campioni, composer
• 16 April - Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, naturalist, mathematician, biologist, cosmologist and author
• 2 May - Antoine de Montazet, theologian and Archbishop of Lyon

July to December

• 3 July - François Jacquier, Franciscan mathematician and physicist
• 15 July - Jean Germain Drouais, painter
• 8 August - Louis François Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, Marshal of France
• 19 October - Louis Antoine de Gontaut, Marshal of France
• 6 December - Nicole-Reine Lepaute, astronomer
• 8 December - Pierre André de Suffren de Saint Tropez, Admiral