1856 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch - Napoleon III

Events

• 30 March - Treaty of Paris is signed by Russia and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia, France, and the United Kingdom, settling the Crimean War.

Births

• 1 February - Louis-Anne-Jean Brocq, dermatologist
• 16 March - Napoléon Eugène, Prince Imperial, only child of Emperor Napoleon III of France and his Empress consort Eugénie de Montijo
• 24 April - Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France, later Chief of State of Vichy France
• 25 May - Louis Franchet d'Espérey, general during World War I
• 5 June - Gabrielle Réjane, actress
• 1 September - Louis-Ernest Dubois, Roman Catholic Cardinal and Archbishop of Paris
• 29 October - Jacques Curie, physicist

Full date unknown

• Eugène Louis Bouvier, entomologist and carcinologist
• Thérèse Humbert, fraudster

Deaths

January to June

• 4 January - Pierre Jean David, sculptor
• 6 January - Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, musician and composer
• 29 February - Auguste Chapdelaine, Christian missionary to China
• March - Louise Rosalie Allan-Despreaux, actress
• 27 April - Louis Joseph César Ducornet, painter
• 3 May - Adolphe Adam, composer and music critic
• 12 May - Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, mathematician, physicist and astronomer
• 13 May - Jean Zuléma Amussat, surgeon
• 14 May - Théodore Guérin, missionary

July to December

• 8 October - Théodore Chassériau, painter
• 12 October - Jean Bachelot La Pylaie, botanist, explorer and archaeologist
• 4 November - Hippolyte Delaroche, painter
• 9 November - Étienne Cabet, philosopher and utopian socialist
• 25 December - Princess Elisabeth of Savoy-Carignan

Full date unknown

• Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Duchesne, painter and miniaturist
• Charles de Steuben, painter