Red Buckeye – Aesculus pavia

Events from the year 1863 in France.

• Monarch – Napoleon III

• 15 January - French forces bombard Veracruz, during the French intervention in Mexico.
• 16 March - French siege of Puebla begins.
• 14 April - Treaty of Hué is signed between Vietnam and the French Empire.
• 30 April - Battle of Camarón, between the French Foreign Legion and the Mexican army: Mexican victory, but successful French delaying action.
• 17 May - Puebla surrenders to the French.
• 7 June - French troops enter Mexico City.
• 21–22 June - Legislative election, first round.
• 5–6 July - Legislative election, second round.
• First outbreak of phylloxera on the European mainland observed in the vineyards of the southern Rhône region.
• The recipe for the herbal liqueur Bénédictine is devised by Alexandre Le Grand in Fécamp.
• The Paris Observatory begins to publish weather maps.

• 31 January - Jules Verne's scientifically inspired novel Five Weeks in a Balloon (Cinq semaines en ballon) is published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in Paris; it will be the first of Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires.
• 30 September - Georges Bizet's opera, Les pêcheurs de perles receives its première at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris.
• 4 November - Hector Berlioz's opera Les Troyens receives its première at the Théâtre Lyrique.

• 1 January - Pierre de Coubertin, historian and founder of the International Olympic Committee (died 1937)^[1]
• 16 April - Émile Friant, painter (died 1932)
• 26 May - Charles-Victor Langlois, historian and paleographer (died 1929)
• 7 July - Marguerite Audoux, novelist (died 1937)
• 12 July - Albert Calmette, physician, bacteriologist and immunologist (died 1933)
• 8 November - René Viviani, politician, Prime Minister (died 1925)

• 16 February - Pierre-Médard Diard, naturalist and explorer (born 1794)
• 21 February - Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret, painter, lithographer and designer (born 1782)
• 25 February - Laure Cinti-Damoreau, soprano (born 1801)
• 30 March - Auguste Bravais, physicist (born 1811)
• 12 July - Étienne-Jean Delécluze, painter and critic (born 1781)
• 13 August - Eugène Delacroix, painter (born 1798)
• 17 September - Alfred de Vigny, poet, playwright and novelist (born 1797)
• 13 October - Philippe Antoine d'Ornano, Marshal of France (born 1784)
• 16 November - Louis-René Villermé, doctor and economist (born 1782)
• 17 December - Émile Saisset, philosopher (born 1814)
• 30 December - Frédéric Monod, Protestant pastor (born 1794)
• Alphonse de Polignac, mathematician (born 1826)