It is hardly disputed today that the globalized present had its prehistory in colonialism. However, since colonial history is still mostly written as national history, we still understand too little of how and why colonialism produced not separate pasts between European colonies and metropolises, but a cross-border, trans-imperial modernity. One important reason for this is that, alongside nations and empires, various organizations developed that specialized in cross-border connections between multiple empires. These included Protestant missionary societies. This article uses the example of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society to explain how radical evangelists in early 19th-century France permanently linked the predominantly Catholic country to the colonial projects of Protestant powers such as Great Britain and the United States.