1864 in France

Events from the year 1864 in France.

Incumbents

 * Monarch – Napoleon III

Events

 * 10 April - Second French intervention in Mexico: Treaty of Miramar.
 * 4 May - Société Générale bank established in Paris.
 * 14 May - The Orgueil meteorite falls to earth.
 * 19 June - American Civil War: Battle of Cherbourg - Confederate States Navy CSS Alabama is sunk in a single-ship action with USS Kearsarge in la Manche off the coast of Cherbourg Harbour.
 * 5–6 September - Bombardment of Shimonoseki: An international naval fleet including three French ships defeats Japanese daimyō Mōri Takachika in the Shimonoseki Straits of Japan.

Arts and literature

 * April - Charles Baudelaire leaves Paris for Belgium in the hope of resolving his financial difficulties.
 * 26 May - Alexandre Dumas, fils marries Nadejda Naryschkine. His father, Alexandre Dumas, père, returns to Paris from Italy.
 * 17 December - Jacques Offenbach's opéra bouffe La Belle Hélène receives its first performance at the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris.
 * Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (Voyage au centre de la Terre) is published.

Births

 * 24 January - Marguerite Durand, actress, journalist and suffragette (died 1936).
 * 1 March - Étienne Destot, radiologist and anatomist (died 1918).
 * 16 March - Lucien Cayeux, sedimentary petrographer (died 1944).
 * 10 May - Léon Gaumont, inventor, engineer, film pioneer and industrialist (died 1946).
 * 11 November - Maurice Leblanc, novelist and short story writer (died 1941).
 * 16 November - Stéphane Javelle, astronomer (died 1917)
 * 24 November - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, painter (died 1901).
 * 8 December - Camille Claudel, sculptor and graphic artist (died 1943).
 * 28 December - Henri de Régnier, poet (died 1936).

Deaths

 * 28 January - Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron, engineer and physicist (born 1799).
 * 1 February - Princess Louise Marie Thérèse of France, Petite-Fille de France (born 1819).
 * 2 March - Jean Alaux, painter (born 1786).
 * 4 March - John James Appleton, diplomat (born 1789)
 * 21 March - Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin, painter (born 1809).
 * 27 March - Jean-Jacques Ampère, philologist (born 1800).
 * 29 April - Charles Julien Brianchon, mathematician and chemist (born 1783).
 * 22 May - Aimable Pélissier, Marshal of France (born 1794).
 * 31 July - Louis Christophe François Hachette, publisher (born 1800).
 * 7 August - Olympe-Philippe Gerbet, Roman Catholic Bishop and writer (born 1798).
 * 1 September - Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, social reformer (born 1796).
 * Full date unknown - Joseph Déjacque, anarcho-communist poet and writer (born 1821).