1673 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch - Louis XIV

  Events

• 17 May - Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette joins Louis Jolliet on his expedition to explore the northern Mississippi River.
• 7 June - First Battle of Schooneveld: In a sea battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, fought off the Netherlands coast, the Dutch Republic fleet defeats the allied Anglo-French fleet, commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
• 14 June - The Dutch fleet again defeats the combined Anglo-French fleet in the Second Battle of Schooneveld.
• 6 July - French troops conquer Maastricht.
• 21 August - Battle of Texel: The Dutch fleet again defeats the combined Anglo-French fleet.
• 30 August - Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, Spain, Netherlands and the Lutherans form an anti-French covenant.
• France begins its expedition against Ceylon.

  Arts and literature

• 10 February - The première of Molière's comédie-ballet The Imaginary Invalid takes place in Paris. During the fourth performance, the playwright, playing the title rôle, collapses on stage, dying soon after.
• 27 April? - Jean-Baptiste Lully's first opera, Cadmus et Hermione, is premièred.

  Births

• Marquise de Caylus, noblewoman

  Deaths

• 17 February - Molière, playwright and actor
• 10 March - Henriette de Coligny de La Suze, writer
• 18 June - Jeanne Mance, nurse
• 29 November - Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche, nobleman
• 6 December - Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan, cartographer