1857 in France

See also: 1856 in France, other events of 1857, 1858 in France.

Events from the year 1857 in France.

Events

• 3 March - France and the United Kingdom formally declare war on China in the Second Opium War.
• 21 June - Legislative election held.
• 5 July - Legislative election held for the second legislature of the French Second Empire.

Arts and literature

• 18 April - The Spirits' Book (Le Livre des Esprits in original French), one of The Five Fundamental Works of Spiritism, is published by the French educator Allan Kardec.
• The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal in original French), an immensely influential collection of Charles Baudelaire's first poems, is published.

Births

• 4 January - Émile Cohl, caricaturist, cartoonist and animator (d.1938).
• 26 February - Émile Coué, psychologist and pharmacist (d.1926).
• 3 March - Alfred Bruneau, composer (d.1934).
• 22 March - Paul Doumer, President of France (assassinated) (d.1932).
• 30 March - Léon Charles Thévenin, telegraph engineer (d.1926).
• 29 June - Jean-François Klobb, colonial officer (d.1899).

Full date unknown

• Eugène Atget, photographer (d.1927).
• Georges Bénédite, Egyptologist (d.1926).
• Eugène Gley, physiologist and endocrinologist (d.1930).

Deaths

• 22 February - Joseph Crétin, first Roman Catholic Bishop of Saint Paul, Minnesota (b.1799).
• 2 May - Alfred de Musset, dramatist, poet and novelist (b.1810).
• 11 May - Eugène François Vidocq, criminal, later first director of Sûreté Nationale (b.1775).
• 17 May - Adolphe Dureau de la Malle, geographer, naturalist, historian and artist (b.1777).
• 23 May - Augustin Louis Cauchy, mathematician (b.1789).
• 30 June - Alcide d'Orbigny, naturalist (b.1802).
• 29 July - Charles Lucien Bonaparte, naturalist and ornithologist (b.1803).
• 3 August - Eugène Sue, novelist (b.1804).
• 5 September - Auguste Comte, philosopher (b.1798).
• 28 October - Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, General (b.1802).
• 23 December - Achille Devéria, painter and lithographer (b.1800).

References