1859 in France

Events from the year 1859 in France.

Incumbents

 * Monarch – Napoleon III

Events

 * 26 March - Attempting to explain Mercury's solar orbit, mathematician Urbain Le Verrier has proposed the existence of a hypothetical planet, Vulcan, inside its orbit and amateur astronomer Edmond Modeste Lescarbault claims to have observed it on this date.
 * 23 April - Austria issues an ultimatum seeking the complete de-militarization of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
 * 29 April - Second Italian War of Independence begins, when Austrian ultimatum is ignored.
 * 14 May - Napoleon III arrives in Alessandria, taking command of the operations.
 * 20 May - Battle of Montebello, Piedmontese cavalry and French infantry defeat Austrian troops.
 * 30 May - Battle of Palestro, French-Sardinian victory.
 * 4 June - Battle of Magenta, French-Sardinian victory under Napoleon III against the Austrians.
 * 24 June - Battle of Solferino, French-Sardinian victory.
 * 30 June - Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope for the first time.
 * 12 July - Armistice of Villafranca ends the Second Italian War of Independence.
 * 24 November - The French Navy's La Gloire ("Glory"), the first ocean-going ironclad warship in history, is launched.

Arts and literature

 * 19 March - Charles Gounod's opera Faust is first performed, at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris.
 * 30 April - English writer Charles Dickens' historical novel A Tale of Two Cities begins publication in London.
 * 19 December - César Franck inaugurates the new organ at the basilia of Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, an instrument built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.
 * Georges Bizet composes the opera buffa Don Procopio and symphonic poem Vasco de Gama while in Rome.
 * Sculptor Aimé Millet receives the Légion d'honneur.

Births

 * 15 May - Pierre Curie, physicist, shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics (died 1906)
 * 3 July – Abel Julien Pagnard, French engineer and architect (died 1913)
 * 7 August – Gustave Belot, professor and philosopher (died 1929)
 * 3 September - Jean Jaurès, socialist and pacifist (assassinated) (died 1914)
 * 9 October - Alfred Dreyfus, military officer (see: Dreyfus Affair) (died 1935)
 * 18 October - Henri Bergson, philosopher (died 1941)
 * 2 December - Georges-Pierre Seurat, painter (died 1891)
 * 17 December - Paul César Helleu, artist (died 1927)

Deaths

 * 18 March - Jean Louis Lassaigne, chemist (born 1800)
 * 16 April - Alexis de Tocqueville, political thinker and historian (born 1805)
 * 5 July - Charles Cagniard de la Tour, engineer and physicist (born 1777)
 * 23 July - Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, poet (born 1786)
 * 7 November - Auguste Hilarion, comte de Kératry, poet, novelist, historian and politician (born 1769)
 * 19 November - Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson, playwright and theatre director (born 1790)
 * Full date unknown - Pierre Boitard, botanist and geologist (born 1789)