Abstract: The Causeries du lundi, published in fifteen volumes between 1850 and 1861 by Garnier, gather together articles by Sainte-Beuve which first appeared in Le Constitutionnel between 1849 and 1861. Testament to the intellectual life of the Second Empire, the collection of criticism interrogates the historical and social foundations of literature. This article follows the genesis of the project, revealing the extent to which it emerges from a genuine desire to make the “causerie” a genre of its own.
