V
PARIS AND LONDON AS CENTRES OF OUR REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
(a) My Beginnings in Paris
22
I had brought with me from Prague, besides important news on the whole situation, a fundamental decision arrived at by our political circles, who were represented directly or indirectly in the “Maffia,” that Masaryk and Dürich could take open action against Austria in a public manifesto, the wording of which had already been agreed upon in Prague, and thus begin officially, on behalf of the Czech nation, definite resistance to the Habsburg Empire. Accordingly, at a conference in Geneva on September 4th, it was decided that on about September 15th I should meet Masaryk in Paris, where our open action against Austria-Hungary would be prepared with the agreement and co-operation of Professor Denis and our fellow-countrymen from France, England, Russia, and America.
I left on September 16th for Paris, where I spent a little less than two weeks, completing, as had been arranged, the first preparations for systematic political activity on French soil. Masaryk, who left at the end of September for a prolonged stay in London, introduced me to Professor Denis and instructed the Czech colony in Paris to co-operate with me. He also asked me to visit on his behalf, as soon as possible, our volunteers at Lyons (which I immediately did), and entrusted to me the management of our propagandist and political activities in Paris and France generally.
My beginnings in Paris were difficult. I took up my quarters in the Rue Léopold Robert in a small room on the fifth floor, for which I paid 120 francs a month. The few acquaintances which I had made in France during my first and second stay there (1905–8 and 1911) had either forgotten me or else had disappeared in consequence of the war. I was not in touch with official circles, and in accordance with the principles which we
