1826 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch - Charles X
• Prime Minister - Joseph de Villèle

Events

• 15 January - The newspaper Le Figaro begins publication in Paris, initially as a satirical weekly.
• June - Photography: Nicéphore Niépce makes a true photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras.
• 19 August - Louis Christophe François Hachette purchases the Brédif bookshop on rue Pierre-Sarrazin, Paris, origin of the Hachette publishing business.
• 3 November - The Paris Stock Exchange opens at the Palais de la Bourse.
• Unknown date - Société alsacienne de constructions mécaniques founded; becomes part of Alstom, global railway rolling stock manufacturer.

Arts and literature

• The second novel by Victor Hugo, Bug-Jargal, is published.

Births

• 6 April - Gustave Moreau, painter
• 5 May - Eugénie de Montijo, wife of Napoléon III
• 18 May - Emile-Justin Menier, pharmaceutical manufacturer, chocolatier and politician
• 29 June - Charles Ernest Beulé, archaeologist and politician
• 24 October - Léopold Victor Delisle, bibliophile and historian

Full date unknown

• Alphonse de Polignac, mathematician
• Louis-Arsène Delaunay, actor

Deaths

• 3 January
• * Marie Le Masson Le Golft, naturalist
• *Louis Gabriel Suchet, Marshal of France
• 22 January - Henri-Cardin-Jean-Baptiste d'Aguesseau, politician
• 2 February - Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, lawyer, politician, epicure and gastronome
• 1 July - Jean-Baptiste Stouf, sculptor
• 8 October - Marie-Guillemine Benoist, painter
• 5 November - Élie Halévy (Chalfan), Hebrew poet and author