Church of Rome appeal to Sainte-Beuve, that he in one of his articles addressed a public, though qualified, reproach to his friend on the subject of this defection, maintaining that a man who had so lately striven to submit other men's minds to the authority of the church had no right to figure as an anti-papal demagogue. The years 1834-37 were the most painful of Sainte-Beuve's life. In 1837 the sudden termination of his relations with Madame Hugo simultaneously severed his connection with the Romantic circle and obliterated his religious tendencies. He retired to Lausanne, where, in 1837-38, he began the course of lectures which formed the basis of his great work, _Port-Royal_. They had been planned and partly written before; the fact that they were delivered to an audience which, though Protestant, was orthodox, to a certain extent determined their tone. It was also influenced by Sainte-Beuve's intimacy with the eminent Swiss pastor, Vinet, one of the few men whom he all his life continued to revere. Vinet's character and intellect were equally interesting to Sainte-Beuve; he was a strictly and sincerely religious man, and an exceedingly acute and subtle critic of French literature. His representation and vindication of Christianity as _spirituality_ made an impression on Sainte-Beuve's mind, for which theological problems had a natural attraction! Vinet, seeing his friend such an attentive listener, thought that he had converted him, but Sainte-Beuve left Lausanne an unbeliever. After a tour in Italy he returned to Paris, where he resumed his occupation of critic, writing better than he had ever done before, and with this difference, that his criticism, instead of being as heretofore polemical, was now interpretative and instructive.