1853 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch - Napoleon III

  Events

• 30 June - Georges-Eugène Haussmann is selected as préfect of the Seine to begin the re-planning of Paris.
• 6 December - Taiping Rebellion: French minister de Bourboulon arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the Cassini.
• 14 December - Compagnie Générale des Eaux established by imperial decree.
• Arthur de Gobineau begins publication of his An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races.

  Births

• 20 January - Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger, feminist campaigner.
• 23 April - Jules Auguste Lemire, priest and social reformer.
• 27 April - Jules Lemaître, critic and dramatist.
• 21 May - Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac, politician.
• 14 July - Henri Menier, businessman and adventurer.
• 24 July - Henri-Alexandre Deslandres, astronomer.
• 9 September - Pierre Marie, neurologist.
• 30 October - Louise Abbéma, painter and designer.
• 17 December - Pierre Paul Émile Roux, physician, bacteriologist and immunologist.
• 26 December - René Bazin, novelist.

  Deaths

• 20 February - Jean-François Bayard, playwright.
• 3 April - Louis Gustave le Doulcet, comte de Pontécoulant, politician.
• 11 April - Louis-Emmanuel Jadin, composer, pianist and harpsichordist.
• 23 April - Auguste Laurent, chemist.
• 27 May - Jean Marie Pardessus, lawyer.
• May - Henri-Bernard Dabadie, baritone.
• 3 September - Augustin Saint-Hilaire, botanist and traveller.
• 10 October - Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, architect, interior decorator and designer.