As a matter of fact, the original enterprise of the weekly _Causerie_ did in a manner finish with this first issue. For five years Sainte-Beuve had kept neck and neck with the enemy. His work afterwards was more intermittent, and even underwent a cessation of some years when he was lecturer at the École Normale, between 1857 and 1861. The last four volumes of the actual _Causeries_ are made up from different sources: though the bulk of the constituents are of the true breed. Among them are some of Sainte-Beuve’s most interesting studies of the past—“Ronsard” (revisited), “Saint Amant,” “Voiture,” “Vauvenargues,” “Villon”—and some of his most famous papers on contemporaries, such as those on Musset and the Guérins. The last volume of all contains two of the most valuable of those invaluable papers on criticism in general, to which we have drawn attention already, that on Nisard’s _History_ and that on _La Tradition en Littérature_. But perhaps the special appeal of these appendix-volumes is the appearance of articles on books and authors that are still in a manner modern—on _Madame Bovary_, on _Fanny_,[603] on M. de Banville, on M. Scherer. [Sidenote: _The_ Nouveaux Lundis.] And when the series began again regularly, after this interruption, with the _Nouveaux Lundis_ in 1861, he formally promised or threatened a recrudescence into criticism “truer” and “franker” and more regardless of contemporary protest. One may be sorry for this, even though the particular ashes are long cooled. Although Sainte-Beuve’s “malignity” was, as has been said, absurdly, and is still sometimes inexcusably, exaggerated, he was far from free from those _iræ_ from which the something less than celestial spirit of the critic so seldom escapes.[604] There is a sort of “rankle,” a kind of distant growl of “That’s _my_ thunder,” in his review at the time of M. Rigault’s _Querelle_, in his later obituary of the author, and even elsewhere: the first paper of the _Nouveaux Lundis_ on Laprade is openly and almost rudely hostile: while the critic proceeds later to exchange fresh broadsides with M. de Pontmartin.