The Marine Troops Museum is a museum of history, science and techniques, art and military traditions, but also human adventures. It presents a lively evocation using highly diversified elements from its collection as well as archives or iconographical documents. The history of arms, born in 1622, that gave France its colonial empires, and are today reserved for specialists in the overseas service, provides the matrix for a broad survey of France's history overseas. The museum also proposes various cultural activities : -an annual cycle of conferences -study days and symposiums -temporary exhbitions -a painting salon To conclude, since November 1996, the museum opens its Centre d'histoire et d'études des troupes d'outre-mer (Center for the History and Study of Overseas Troops) to historians and researchers. The memory of France overseas, the CHETOM documentary unit possesses specialized archives (10 000 books and 800 boxes of documents) available for consultation on location and by appointment.