These opinions, in the final analysis, were reduced to two: that of Sapor and Lapersonne who advised abstention, and that of Phoenix and Larrivee, who wanted intervention.

Even these two contrary opinions were united in a common hatred of the heads of the army and of their justice, and in a common belief in Pyrot's innocence.

So that public opinion was hardly mistaken in regarding all the Socialist leaders as pernicious Anti-Pyrotists.
As for the vast masses in whose name they spoke and whom they represented as far as speech can express the impossible--as for the proletarians whose thought is difficult to know and who do not know it themselves, it seemed that the Pyrot affair did not interest them.

It was too literary for them, it was in too classical a style, and had an upper-middle-class and high-finance tone about it that did not please them much.
VIII.

THE COLOMBAN TRIAL When the Colomban trial began, the Pyrotists were not many more than thirty thousand, but they were every where and might be found even among the priests and millionaires.