 The Cabinet des Médailles is a museum containing internationally 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 (1560-1574) to create the position of a ("Special guardian of the King's medals and antiques").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 – a – as the royal collection was declared during the Revolution.