National Museum of the fleet is located in the Palais de Chaillot at the Trocadéro, and here is to go. France has never sought to become a great maritime power, but its fleet of centuries plied the seas and oceans - the French have something to show.

The history of the museum began in 1748, when the Marine Inspector General Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau Louis XV showed his collection of model ships and asked the monarch to put the model in the Louvre, to be able to see the cadets Naval Engineering School. King agreed - as in the Louvre came Maritime Hall.

The revolution hall was closed, but the collection survived. Under Napoleon it was some time in the Ministry of the Navy at the Place de la Concorde, then the residence of the emperor at the Grand Trianon (model frigate "Myurion" where the emperor returned from Egypt to France, Bonaparte even put in my bedroom). After the Restoration of the Bourbons returned to the collection of the Louvre in the status of the museum - with branches in Cherbourg, Brest, Lorient, Rochefort and Toulon, housed the naval base of France. At the Palais de Chaillot museum he settled in 1937.

At different times, the museum led by well-known and honored people. Since 1852 he has been the curator of marine painter Antoine Morel-Fatio Leon - thanks to him, a collection enriched by many paintings. In 1871 the Museum was headed by Admiral Francois Edmond Paris, with him here to add about 400 models of various ships.

At the entrance to the museum visitor encounters a military model of a sailing ship in two human growth height. Expert soon celebrate the amazing accuracy of detail - rigging, equipment, weapons. Exposure built in chronological order: from ancient to modern sailing ships. On the walls - pictures and graphics seascape. In the hall wooden sculpture presents bow and stern carvings combat sailboats. In the hall of weapons and marine equipment can be seen swords, sabers, pistols and astrolabes, sextants, chronometers. Some models of ships are shown in cross-section, visitors had an opportunity to consider the interior of ships. There is a room in which to recreate the interior of the submarine combat: the device works, we hear the real sounds of sonar. Here everyone can feel like a submariner.