Louis-Désiré Véron

In 1829 he founded the literary magazine Revue de Paris, and from 1838 to 1852 was owner and director of Le Constitutionnel, in which he published Eugene Sue's novel based on the legend of the Wandering Jew.

It was also during Véron's direction and at his suggestion that Sainte-Beuve contributed the Causeries du lundi,[1] an early example of the regular newspaper column.

Véron saw the great potential of adapting the Opera to the bourgeois tastes of new audiences and applied for the franchise, which brought with it limited State subsidy.

By bringing together the talents of designers (such as Duponchel), composers (such as Meyerbeer, Auber and Fromental Halévy), and librettists (such as Eugène Scribe and Casimir Delavigne), and developing great singers such as Adolphe Nourrit and Cornélie Falcon, he created the genre of Grand Opera.

A contemporary, Philarete Chasles, describes him as follows: Ruddy, with a pock-marked face, barely any nose, scrofulous, his neck enfolded in cloth that protected and hid his affliction, pot-bellied; [...] mouth smiling, lips thick, hair rare, eyebrows absent, dressed like a little lackey aping his master and with the affectations and the mincing airs of the salon (quoted in Kelly, 2004 – see below).