Paul Meurice
Paul Meurice (5 February 1818 - 11 December 1905) was a French novelist and playwright best known for his friendship with Victor Hugo. Biography. Meurice was born and died in Paris. In 1836, aged eighteen, he was introduced to Hugo by his friend Auguste Vacquerie, and soon became a devoted follower. He had literary ambitions and embarked on a career as playwright. In 1848, Hugo made him the editor-in-chief of a journal he had just founded, called "L'Événement". (This resulted in Meurice's imprisonment in 1851, during Hugo's exile.) Their friendship was very deep: the poet  was a witness at Meurice's marriage to Palmyre Granger, daughter of the painter Jean-Pierre Granger. During the twenty years of Hugo's exile, Meurice looked after the financial and literary interests of the proscribed writer. He meanwhile continued his own literary career, publishing novels, some in collaboration with Alexandre Dumas, for whom he would also ghost-write. He adapted "Notre-Dame de Paris", "Les Misérables" and "Quatre-Vingt-Treize" for the stage. With Vacquerie, and Victor Hugo's son Charles, Meurice founded the journal "Le Rappel" in 1869. On Hugo's death in 1885, Meurice and Vacquerie were  made executors of his estate. In this capacity, Meurice compiled some posthumous collections of Hugo's poems. He established the Maison de Victor Hugo in Paris in 1902.