 However, by the mid-19th century, the "Causeries du lundi", newspaper columns by the critic Sainte-Beuve, are literary essays in the original sense.Other French writers followed suit, including Théophile Gautier, Anatole France, Jules Lemaître and Émile Faguet.As with the novel, essays existed in Japan several centuries before they developed in Europe with a genre of essays known as "zuihitsu" — loosely connected essays and fragmented ideas.