He organized several expeditions in French Indochina, the first from 1879 to 1885, covered the areas of Cambodia and Southern Siam as far as Bangkok. The second mission, from 1886 to 1889, was in North-eastern Laos and the exploration of the Black River in Tonkin as far as Hanoi. The third mission, from 1889 to 1891, involved the exploration of the Mekong river from Saigon to Luang Prabang. The fourth mission, from 1894 to 1895, involved the areas of Laos bordering with China and Burma on the left bank of the Mekong River, as far as the Red River. His missions were accompanied by about forty topographers, soldiers, commercial agents, scientists etc. In total he surveyed more than 35,000 km of routes covering an area of 675,000 km2.

This set includes all three volumes of the ‘Etudes Diverse’ section of the Mission Pavie reports and a complete run of the ‘Geographie et Voyages’ volumes. The latter section is comprised as follows: vol. 1 and 2: Expose des Travaux de la Mission. Vol. 3: Voyages au Laos et chez les sauvages du sud-est de l’Indo-chine; vol. 4 Voyages au centre de l’Annam et du Laos et dans les regions sauvages de l’Est de l’Indo-Chine; vol. 5: Voyages dans le haut Laos et sur les frontieres de Chine et de Birmanie; vol. 6: Passage du Me-Khong au Tonkin (1887 et 1888), and vol. 8: Journal de Marche (1888-1889) Evenements du Siam (1891-1893). The final volume of the Geographie section, published in 1919, is often lacking, and complete sets of the Pavie Mission, as here, are rarely encountered. Howgego (2008) P17.