Events from the year 1873 in France.
Incumbents President: Adolphe Thiers (until 24 May), Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta (starting 24 May) President of the Council of Ministers: Jules Armand Dufaure (until 24 May), Albert, duc de Broglie (starting 24 May)
Events 16 September – German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity for Franco-Prussian War. 27 October - Henry, Count of Chambord, refuses to be crowned 'King Henry V of France' until France abandons its tricolour and returns to the old Bourbon flag. 21 December – Francis Garnier is attacked outside Hanoi by Black Flag mercenaries fighting for the Vietnamese.
Literature
Alphonse Daudet - Robert Helmont Jules Verne - Le Pays des fourrures Émile Zola - Le Ventre de Paris
Music
Georges Bizet - Jeux d'enfants (Petite Suite) Jules Massenet Marie-Magdeleine Les Érinnyes Jacques Offenbach Pomme d'api La jolie parfumeuse
Births 2 January – Thérèse de Lisieux, Roman Catholic Carmelite nun, canonised as a saint (died 1897) 28 January – Colette, writer (died 1954) 2 February – Maurice Tourneur, film director and screenwriter (died 1961) 19 February – Louis Feuillade, film director (died 1925) 17 May – Henri Barbusse, novelist, journalist and communist (died 1935) 28 June – Alexis Carrel, surgeon and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1944) 1 July – Alice Guy-Blaché, pioneer filmmaker, first female film director (died 1968 in the United States) 4 August – Joseph Paul-Boncour, politician (died 1972) Alice Pruvot-Fol, malacologist (died 1972) 14 August Madeleine Fournier-Sarlovèze, golfer (died 1962) Alice Jouenne educator, socialist activist, and writer (died 1954) 8 September – Alfred Jarry, playwright and novelist (died 1907) 25 November – Pierre Lacau, Egyptologist and philologist (died 1963)
Deaths 10 January – Napoleon III of France, first President of the French Republic and only emperor of the Second French Empire (born 1808) 23 January – Louis Gustave Ricard, painter (born 1823) 1 April – Marc Girardin, politician and man of letters (born 1801) 16 April – Joseph Albert Alexandre Glatigny, poet (born 1839) 4 May – Charles Rigault de Genouilly, Admiral (born 1807) 16 June – Eugène Flachat, civil engineer (born 1802) 18 July – Philarète Chasles, critic and man of letters (born 1798) 8 August – Antoine Chintreuil, painter (born 1814) 7 September – Jules Verreaux, botanist and ornithologist (born 1807) 21 September – Auguste Nélaton, physician and surgeon (born 1807) 23 September – Jean Chacornac, astronomer (born 1823)
References