by Cedric Benetti
www.parisdeuxieme.com
More formally known as 'Le département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiquités de la Bibliothèque Nationale', this little museum still survives inside the old site of the national library.
The museum holds important collections of coins, engraved gems, and antiquities, with its distant origins in the treasuries of the French kings of the Middle Ages. The disruptions of the Wars of Religion inspired Charles IX to create the position of a 'garde particulier des médailles et antiques du roi' a "guardian entrusted specifically with the medals and ancient coins and antiquities of the Crown".
Thus the collection, which has been augmented and never again dispersed, passed from being the personal collection of the king to becoming a national property ('bien national') as the royal collection was declared during the Revolution.
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