• 16 May – Two weeks after police in Paris arrest six teenagers for gambling in the suburb of
Saint-Laurent, rioting breaks out when a rumor spreads that plainclothes policemen are hauling off small children between the ages of five and ten years old, in order to provide blood to an ailing aristocrat. Over the next two weeks, rioting breaks out in other sections of the city. Police are attacked, including one who is beaten to death by the mob, until order is restored and police reforms are announced. • 20 August – French astronomer
Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, by way of the Foreign Minister, the
Marquis de Puisieulx and Netherlands ambassador to
Paris Mattheus Lestevenon, sends a letter that ultimately persuades the States-General of the Dutch Republic to allow and partially finance Lacaille's stellar trigonometry mission to the
Cape of Good Hope. The expedition departs
Lorient on 21 October. • 14 October – Display of 110 paintings from the royal art collection at the
Luxembourg Palace in Paris is arranged by
Abel-François Poisson, the Marquis de Marigny, origin of both the
Louvre museum and
Musée du Luxembourg. •
École Militaire established. • The learned society
Académie de Stanislas founded. ==Births==