1819 in France
# 1819 in France

Events from the year 1819 in France.

## Incumbents

* Monarch – Louis XVIII
* Prime Minister – Jean-Joseph, Marquis Dessolles (until 19 November), then Élie, duc Decazes

## Events

* 6 April–21 June - French slave ship Le Rodeur sails from Bonny in West Africa to Guadeloupe in the West Indies; in the course of the transatlantic voyage all onboard become blind, and slaves are thrown overboard as a consequence.
* May: enactment of the Serre laws, which governed press freedom for much of the nineteenth century

## Arts and literature

* Théodore Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa (Le Radeau de la Méduse) is first exhibited at this year's Salon in Paris.

## Births

### January to June

* 10 January - Pierre Édouard Frère, painter (died 1886)
* 31 January - Jean-Augustin Barral, agronomist (died 1884)
* 7 February - Augustin Marie Morvan, physician, politician and writer (died 1897)
* 15 February - Louis Figuier, scientist and writer (died 1894)
* 1 March - François-Marie-Benjamin Richard, Archbishop of Paris (died 1908)
* 6 March - Émile Blanchard, zoologist and entomologist (died 1900)
* 4 April - Louis Gustave Vapereau, writer and lexicographer (died 1906)
* 19 April - Marie Firmin Bocourt, zoologist and artist (died 1904)
* 29 May - Louis, duc de Decazes, statesman (died 1886)
* 10 June - Gustave Courbet, painter (died 1877)
* 28 June - Henri Harpignies, painter (died 1916)

### July to September

* 2 July - Charles-Louis Hanon, piano pedagogue and composer (died 1900)
* 3 July - Théodore Gouvy, composer (died 1898)
* 22 July - Ernest Cosson, botanist (died 1889)
* 14 August - Agenor, duc de Gramont, diplomat and statesman (died 1880)
* 26 August - Louis Adolphe Cochery, politician and journalist (died 1900)
* 15 September - Jules Etienne Pasdeloup, conductor (died 1887)
* 17 September - Jeanne Sylvanie Arnould-Plessy, actress (died 1897)
* 18 September - Léon Foucault, physicist (died 1868)
* 20 September - Théodore Chassériau, painter (died 1856)
* 21 September - Princess Louise Marie Thérèse of France, Petite-Fille de France (died 1864)
* 23 September - Hippolyte Fizeau, physicist (died 1896)
* 28 September - Aimé Millet, sculptor (died 1891)

### October to December

* 19 October - Ardant du Picq, Colonel and military theorist (died 1870)
* 19 November
   * Émile Deschanel, author and politician (died 1904)
   * Auguste Vacquerie, journalist and man of letters (died 1895)
* 22 December - Pierre Ossian Bonnet, mathematician (died 1892)

### Full date unknown

* Nicolas Édouard Delabarre-Duparcq, military critic and historian (died 1893)
* Jules Eugène Lenepveu, painter (died 1898)

## Deaths

### January to June

* 10 January - Claude de Beauharnais, politician (born 1756)
* 12 January - André Morellet, economist and writer (born 1727)
* 25 January - Théodore-Pierre Bertin, writer, introduced modern shorthand to France (born 1751)
* 26 January - Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, historian and lawyer (born 1750)
* 16 February - Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, painter (born 1750)
* 17 February - Philippe Louis de Noailles, politician (born 1752)
* 11 March - Michel-Louis-Étienne Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angély, politician (born 1761)
* 18 April - Georges Antoine Chabot, jurist and statesman (born 1758)
* 29 May - Jean Jacques Étienne Lucas, Navy officer and hero of the Battle of Trafalgar (born 1764)
* 3 June - Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, Revolutionary figure (born 1756)

### July to December

* 6 July - Sophie Blanchard, balloonist, first woman killed in an aviation accident (born 1778)
* 18 July - Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, geologist and traveller (born 1741)
* 1 August - Pierre-Adrien Pâris, architect, painter and designer (born 1745)
* 29 October - François Guillaume Ducray-Duminil, novelist (born 1761)
* 24 December - Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier, Marshal of France (born 1742)

### Full date unknown

* Charles-Honoré Lannuier, cabinetmaker in America (born 1779)
