1902 in France

Incumbents

• President: Émile Loubet
• President of the Council of Ministers: Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau (until 3 June), Emile Combes (starting 7 June)

Events

• January - Alfred Loisy writes L'évangile et l'Eglise, which inaugurates the crisis of modernism in the Catholic Church.
• 13 April – A new land speed record of 119 km/h is set in Nice by Leon Serpollet driving a steam car.
• 27 April – Legislative Election held.
• 8 May – 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique.
• 11 May – Legislative Election held.
• 24 August – A statue of Joan of Arc is unveiled in Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier, the town which she stormed in 1429.
• 1 September – The first science fiction film, the trick film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans La Lune), is premièred at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris by actor/producer Georges Méliès, and proves an immediate success.
• 5 October – Thousands attend the funeral of the novelist Émile Zola at the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris. They include Alfred Dreyfus, given special permission by Mme Zola to attend.
• The capital of French Indochina is moved from Saigon (in Cochinchina) to Hanoi (Tonkin).
• Claude Monet begins his Water Lilies series of paintings in his garden at Giverny.

Literature

• André Gide - L'Immoraliste
• Jules Verne - Les Frères Kip

Music

• Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande
• Jules Massenet - Le jongleur de Notre-Dame
• Maurice Ravel - Jeux d'eau
• Camille Saint-Saëns - Cello Concerto No. 2
• Erik Satie
  • Poudre d'or
  • Tendrement

Births

January–June

• 11 January – Maurice Duruflé, composer and organist (died 1986)
• 13 January – Raymond Ruyer, philosopher (died 1987)
• 18 January – Émile Aillaud, architect (died 1988)
• 21 January – Agnès Souret, model, "la plus belle femme de France" (died 1928)
• 25 January – André Beaufre, colonel (died 1975)
• 29 January – Arlette Marchal, actress (died 1984)
• 8 February – André Gillois, writer and radio pioneer (died 2004)
• 26 February – Jean Bruller, writer and illustrator (died 1991)
• 9 March – Elisabeth de Rothschild, World War II heroine (died 1945)
• 13 March – Louis Ducatel, politician and businessman (died 1999)
• 14 March – Henri Barbé, communist (died 1966)
• 16 March – Louis Couffignal, mathematician and cybernetics pioneer (died 1966)
• 22 March – Madeleine Milhaud, actress (died 2008)
• 29 March – Marcel Aymé, novelist and children's writer (died 1967)
• 4 April – Louise Leveque de Vilmorin, novelist, poet and journalist (died 1969)
• 9 April – Théodore Monod, naturalist, explorer and humanist scholar (died 2000)
• 3 May – Alfred Kastler, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1984)
• 7 May – Jean-Philippe Lauer, architect and Egyptologist (died 2001)
• 8 May – André Michel Lwoff, microbiologist, awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1965 (died 1994)
• 27 May – Émile Benveniste, structural linguist (died 1976)
• 2 June – Georges Coudray, politician (died 1998)
• 15 June – Pierre Béarn, writer (died 2004)
• 28 June – Pierre Brunet, figure skater (died 1991)

July–December

• 6 July – Louis Vola, double bass player (died 1990)
• 16 July – Vincent Badie, lawyer and politician (died 1989)
• 21 July – Georges Wambst, Olympic cyclist (died 1988)
• 9 August – Zino Francescatti, violinist (died 1991)
• 11 August – Christian de Castries, military officer (died 1991)
• 16 August – Gilbert Gérintès, rugby union player (died 1968)
• 24 August – Fernand Braudel, historian (died 1985)
• 28 August – Jean Favard, mathematician (died 1965)
• 15 October – André Prudhommeaux, anarchist bookstore owner (died 1968)
• 20 October – René Floriot, lawyer (died 1975).
• 31 October – Marie-Laure de Noailles, patron of the arts (died 1970)
• 4 November – Pierre Edouard Leopold Verger, photographer and ethnographer (died 1996)
• 16 November – Paul Bontemps, athlete and Olympic medallist (died 1981)
• 20 November – Jean Painlevé, film director (died 1989)
• 25 December – Maurice Gallay, footballer (died 1982)
• 31 December – Marcel Bidot, cyclist (died 1995)

Full date unknown

• Jules Semler-Collery, composer, conductor and teacher (died 1988)

Deaths

• 26 January- Noël Ballay, explorer, colonial administrator and poet (born 1847])
• 6 February – Clémence Royer, scholar (born 1830)
• 17 February – Marie-Louise Gagneur, feminist (born 1832)
• 12 April – Marie Alfred Cornu, physicist (born 1841)
• 15 April – Jules Dalou, sculptor (born 1838)
• 4 July – Hervé Faye, astronomer (born 1814)
• 8 August – James Tissot, painter (born 1836)
• 29 September – Émile Zola, writer (born 1840)
• 7 December – Pierre Paul Dehérain, chemist and botanist (born 1830)
• Full date unknown – Alexandre Bertrand, archaeologist (born 1820)

References

References

1. (12 October 2005). "The Dreyfus Affair: A Chronological History". Springer.
2. Hammond, Paul. (1974). "Marvellous Méliès". Gordon Fraser.
3. (1902-10-06). "Thousands March At Funeral of Emile Zola: Municipal Guards Line the Route to Preserve Order. Dreyfus Attends After All, Is Unnoticed by the Crowd – Mme. Zola Gave Him Back His Promise to Stay Away – Very Little Disorder". [[The New York Times]].
4. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1965".
5. (September 2011). "Multiple Antiquities - Multiple Modernities: Ancient Histories in Nineteenth Century European Cultures". Campus Verlag.