Prosper Mérimée

Prosper Mérimée was a French novelist and, for nearly twenty years, inspector-general of historical monuments, a post in which he saved Vézelay, Carcassonne and Notre-Dame from ruin. He wrote taut, cool novellas rather than long novels; Carmen became the source of Bizet's opera. He also learned Russian and was the first to translate Pushkin and Gogol into French.