Events from the Year 1764 in France
Incumbents
Monarch: Louis XV
Significant Events
March 15 – The day after his return to Paris from a nine-year mission, French explorer and scholar Anquetil Du Perron presents a complete copy of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Zend Avesta, to the Bibliothèque Royale.
April 21 – Residents of French Louisiana are informed for the first time that they will come under Spanish rule (from 1769) as a result of a secret agreement from November 13, 1762, whereby France ceded all its North American territory west of the Mississippi River.
The government withdraws wartime taxes.
The Beast of Gévaudan first appears.
Carthusian monks at Grande Chartreuse perfect a commercial recipe for Chartreuse (liqueur).
Notable Births
- February 11 – Joseph Chénier, poet (d. 1811)
- April 13 – Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, marshal (d. 1830)
- April 26 – Claude-Laurent Bourgeois de Jessaint, aristocrat and civic administrator (d. 1853)
- May 3 – Princess Élisabeth of France, sister of Louis XVI (executed 1794)
- August 13 – Louis Baraguey d’Hilliers, general (d. 1813)
- December 7
- Pierre Prévost, panorama painter (d. 1823)
- Claude Victor-Perrin, Duc de Belluno, Marshal of France (d. 1841)
- Undated – Sophie de Condorcet, political hostess and feminist (d. 1822)
Notable Deaths
- April 15 – Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV (b. 1721)
- September 11 – Countess Dash, writer (b. 1704)
- September 12 – Jean-Philippe Rameau, composer (b. 1683)
- October 22 – Jean-Marie Leclair, composer and violinist (murdered) (b. 1697)
- October 23 – Emmanuel-Auguste de Cahideuc, Comte Dubois de la Motte, naval officer (b. 1683)