In France, the opinion Hincks expounded in his second essay took immediate root. The logical instincts of the French mind clung with desperate tenacity to the conviction that a Semitic language could only be expressed by a Semitic mode of writing. Löwenstern at first (1845) thought that the signs represented some sort of mechanical union of consonant and vowel: that is to say, that there was a fixed portion of the sign to represent the consonantal sound, and a variable portion to indicate the conjunction of the vowel. ‘The signs,’ he said, ‘reproduce in part the same forms differently combined, which suggests a syllabic union in many of the signs.’ But he subsequently became the most thorough-going champion of the alphabetical theory. Botta only just found it ‘possible to conceive that the language was syllabic,’ yet he followed Longpérier in the luminous suggestion already described.[816] Even De Saulcy was haunted by dim fears that, after all, Assyrian might turn out to be syllabic, and the consistency with which he adhered to the opposite or Semitic mode of writing rendered his subsequent studies almost valueless. Rawlinson, as we shall soon see, yielded in time, and his transliteration of the Behistun inscription shows small traces of his early heresy, which he was still ready to defend in August 1850. Such was the progress already made in decipherment when Rawlinson at length gave to the world some of the results of his labours in the same field. It will be remembered that in the autumn of 1847 he succeeded in taking a copy of the third column of the Behistun inscription. Whatever leisure he could command during the year 1848 and the early part of 1849 he devoted to its study; and when he returned to England in the autumn of that year, he brought the translation home with him. The work of publication was one of great difficulty, in consequence of the multitude of strange characters in many languages that had to be reproduced and corrected; and although Rawlinson remained in England till 1851, he was obliged to leave before it was accomplished. Some Continental writers chose to make this delay a matter of complaint against Rawlinson, whom they accused of deliberately withholding his copies for personal and selfish motives. It would be difficult, however, to mention anyone who was at that time at all likely to profit by their possession. The special qualifications of a decipherer are by no means common, and M. de Saulcy at least gave decisive proof that he did not possess them. M. Oppert, on the other hand, was still absorbed in the Persian and Median versions. But these gentlemen, and those who then shared their feelings, write as though Major Rawlinson had appropriated the rock of Behistun as well as the copy of the inscription that covered it.[817] They seem to forget that if they were prepared to undergo the same sacrifice and overcome the same difficulties, they could in a few weeks procure copies for themselves.