National Navy Museum located in the Palais de Chaillot at the Trocadero, and here should go. France has never sought to become a great Maritime power, but the fleet for centuries plied the seas and oceans – the French have something to show.

The history of the Museum began in 1748, when the marine inspector Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau showed to Louis XV his collection of model ships and asked the monarch to put the model in the Louvre, to see the cadets of the naval engineering school. The king agreed – so in Louvre appeared Sea hall.

In revolution hall was closed, but the collection survived. Under Napoleon it some time were in the Ministry of Navy on the place de La Concorde, then the residence of the Emperor in the Great Trianon (the model of the frigate "Marion", where the Emperor was returning from Egypt to France, Bonaparte even put in the bedroom). After the restoration of the Bourbons collection was returned to the Louvre is a Museum with branches in Cherbourg, Brest, Lorient, Rochefort and Toulon, where there was a naval base of France. The Palais de Chaillot, the Museum was established in 1937.

At different times, the Museum was headed by the famous and distinguished people. In 1852 his supervisor was marine painter Antoine Leon Morel-Fatio – thanks to him, the collection was enriched by the many paintings. In 1871, the Museum was headed by Admiral françois-Edmond Paris, with him here added about 400 models of various ships.

Upon entering the Museum, visitors are welcomed by a military model of a sailing ship in two human growth height. The scholar will at once notice the amazing accuracy of detail – rigging, rigging, armament. The exposition is organized in chronological order: from ancient to modern sailboats ships. On the walls – paintings and drawings of seascapes. In the hall of wooden sculpture presents bow and stern carvings of martial sailboats. In the hall of weapons and naval instruments can be seen broadswords, sabers, pistols, and astrolabes, sextants, chronometers. Some models of vessels shown in cross section, so that visitors had the opportunity to examine the internal structure of ships. There is a room in which all the interior combat submarine: the appliances work, one hears the actual sounds of sonar. Here everyone can feel like a submariner.