1840 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch - Louis Philippe I

  Events

• 20 January - Dumont D'Urville discovers Adélie Land, Antarctica.
• 1 March - Adolphe Thiers becomes prime minister.
• 30 September - The frigate Belle Poule arrives in Cherbourg, returning the remains of Napoleon from Saint Helena. He is buried in Les Invalides.
• Metric system again mandatory across France.

  Arts and literature

• 11 February - Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Regiment premieres in Paris.

  Births

• 2 April - Émile Zola, writer
• 22 April - Odilon Redon, painter and printmaker
• 13 May - Alphonse Daudet, novelist
• 20 October - Désiré-Magloire Bourneville, neurologist
• 12 November - Auguste Rodin, sculptor
• 14 November - Claude Monet, painter

  Full date unknown

• Louis-Émile Bertin, naval engineer

  Deaths

• 13 February - Nicolas Joseph Maison, Marshal of France and Minister of War
• 22 March - Étienne Bobillier, mathematician
• 25 April - Siméon Denis Poisson, mathematician and physicist
• 7 June - Népomucène Lemercier, poet and dramatist
• 20 June - Pierre-Joseph Redouté, painter and botanist
• 7 September - Étienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre MacDonald, Marshal of France