In the depths of the economic crisis of the 1890s, the powerful lobbying that the petits commerçants organised to defend their interests did not always provoke sympathetic reactions. Many members of the public had a less than favourable view of shopkeepers. Eugen Weber explains that the era saw ‘the accentuation of age-old frictions connected with trade, the marketplace, and, increasingly, shops. Everybody cheated on weights and measures, almost everybody on quality. Eggs were hardly ever fresh. Sausage or minced meat contained almost everything but what it was supposed to. Wine, when not watered, was chemically adulterated. Milk, when it was not watered (with polluted water of course) was cut with plaster, lime, chalk, white lead, or dried ground brains. […] shopping was an adversary relationship, every act of buying a potential conflict’. The shopkeeper movement was reviled by socialists for its reactionary political stance and the small trader's demise was both predicted and devoutly wished for as one possible benefit of capitalist amalgamation. Following the movement's successes in the first round of voting in the 1902 elections, Albert Goullé, in a resounding article on the front page of L'Aurore, vigorously inveighed against