7ᵉ arrondissement · Paris
Paris Foreign Missions Museum
French name: Musee des Missions Etrangeres de Paris
Free admission
- Always freeFree every day
Closed: Sat, Aug 1, 2026 – Sat, Aug 29, 2026
Address
128 rue du Bac, 75007 Paris
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Opening hours
Tue–Sat 10:00-18:00
At 128 rue du Bac, behind a discreet gateway in the 7th arrondissement, the seminary of the Paris Foreign Missions keeps the memory of three and a half centuries of French priests sent to Asia. The society, founded in the 1650s and 1660s, trained and dispatched thousands of missionaries to Vietnam, Korea, China, Japan, Thailand and India; many never came back. The museum is built around the Salle des Martyrs, an upstairs room where, from 1842 onwards - after the remains of Pierre Borie, killed in Vietnam, were brought home - relics, instruments of torture, garments and objects returned from Asia were gathered. The crypt beyond it carries the martyrs' names cut into the stone and holds reliquary urns. To these are added the Chapelle de l'Epiphanie, completed in 1697 and hung with Charles de Coubertin's large 1868 painting of missionaries departing, the Salle Dumoulin-Borie tracing the society's history, and the Salle Launay used for temporary exhibitions. Admission is free, Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm. The museum runs afternoon-only hours in mid-July and early September, and closes altogether from 1 to 29 August, so it is shut for almost the whole of August.
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