1891 in France

Events from the year 1891 in France.

Incumbents

• President: Marie François Sadi Carnot
• President of the Council of Ministers: Charles de Freycinet

Events

• 1 May – Fusillade de Fourmies, nine killed and thirty wounded when troops fire on workers' May Day demonstration in support of eight-hour workday in Fourmies.
• 27 August – France and Russia conclude defensive alliance.
• Gustave Moreau becomes a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
• Henri Matisse begins his studies as an artist at École des Beaux-Arts

Literature

• Maurice Barrès - Le Culte du moi
• Joris-Karl Huysmans - Là-bas
• Jules Verne - Mistress Branican
• Émile Zola - L'Argent

Music

• Claude Debussy
• Ballade
• Danse
• Deux arabesques
• Rêverie
• Valse romantique
• Gabriel Fauré - 5 Mélodies, Op. 58
• Charles Gounod - Saint Francois d'Assise
• Jules Massenet - Le Mage
• Camille Saint-Saëns - Africa

Births

January to June

• 2 January – Didier Daurat, aviation pioneer (died 1969)
• 14 January – Félix Goethals, cyclist (died 1962)
• 19 April – Françoise Rosay, actress (died 1974)
• 17 May – Roger Blaizot, General (died 1981)

July to September

• 11 July
• Gabriel Benoist, writer (died 1964)
• Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, aviator (died 1944)
• 21 July – Marcel-Frédéric Lubin-Lebrère, rugby union player (died 1972)
• 1 August – Charles Ritz, hotelier and fly fisherman (died 1976)
• 6 August – Yvette Andréyor, actress (died 1962)
• 9 August – Joseph-Marie Martin, cardinal (died 1976)
• 15 August – Jean De Briac, actor (died 1970)
• 3 September – Marcel Grandjany, harpist and composer (died 1975)
• 10 September – Raymond Abescat, oldest man in France and oldest veteran in France at the time of his death (died 2001)
• 26 September – Charles Münch, conductor and violinist (died 1968)

October to December

• 10 October – Raymond Bernard, filmmaker (died 1977)
• 17 November – Jean Del Val, actor (died 1975)
• 15 December – Martial Guéroult, philosopher and historian of philosophy (died 1976)
• 23 December – Xavier Vallat, politician and Commissioner-General for Jewish Questions in Vichy France (died 1972)
• 26 December – Jean Galtier-Boissière, writer, polemist and journalist (died 1966)
• 30 December – Antoine Pinay, politician and Prime Minister of France (died 1994)

Deaths

January to June

• 14 January – Aimé Millet, sculptor (born 1819)
• 16 January – Léo Delibes, composer (born 1836)
• 21 January – Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, painter and sculptor (born 1815)
• 15 March – Théodore de Banville, poet and writer (born 1823)
• 29 March – Armand-François-Marie de Charbonnel, Bishop of Toronto (born 1802)
• 29 March – Georges-Pierre Seurat, painter (born 1859)
• 24 May – Joseph Roumanille, poet (born 1818)
• 17 June – Théophile Nicolas Noblot, politician (born 1824)

July to December

• 7 July – Célestin Joseph Félix, Jesuit (born 1810)
• 20 August – Leopold Chasseriau, planter (born 1825)
• 29 August – Pierre Lallement, bicycle inventor (b. c. 1843)
• 5 September – Elie Delaunay, painter (born 1828)
• 30 September – Georges Ernest Boulanger, general and politician (born 1837)
• 3 October – Édouard Lucas, mathematician (born 1842)
• 10 November – Arthur Rimbaud, poet (born 1854)
• 26 November – Eugène Bouchut, physician (born 1818)
• 12 December – Charles Émile Freppel, Bishop and politician (born 1827)
• December – Émile Bayard, illustrator (born 1837)

References