PETER KROPOTKIN: TRIBUTES & APPRECIATIONS

five days, I got on the train again the next day, stopping at Ostend and saw Reclus once more on my way to Brussels where I again took the train to Paris.

Having left Clairvaux without a sou, I had found, indeed, at the house of friends who during my absence had saved what they could of my correspondence which had escaped postal confiscation, a check for 300 francs sent by friends in Argentina, which served me - in part at least - for the printing of some circulars calling a meeting of comrades.

Apart from comrade Charles-Albert who found the means of collecting a couple of hundred francs at Lyons, the results were rather poor. The subscriptions certainly did not equal the sum sent in by Charles-Albert.

That did not prevent us from renewing a lease for twenty years. This was an improvement on "Le Revolte" which had started out with 27 francs. It was Reclus who found the name "Les Temps Nouveaux", a title which he had given formerly to one of Kropotkin's brochures.

It is true, that, as a set-off, I received warm encouragements. Pity they cannot be cashed!

I asked the collaboration of most of the literary men who had so ardently approved us. Well! I could count on them all; Mirbeau, Descaves, Bernard Lazare and so many other promised their contributions. But if promises are no scarcer than encouragements, it seems this will prove no precendent. Although I made it my duty at the beginning of the appearance of "Les Temps Nouveaux" to remind them that they had promised articles, I never received anything from them.

It was at the period that I made the acquaintance of her who to become my wife.

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She and her sisters had first met Kropotkin at the Stepniaks. he had read her first book that had just been published. Greatly interested, he found therein a marked tendency towards our ideas.

Since she was going to paris she was bound to become aquainted with the anarchist movement there, and he gave her a letter for me, including her to pay me a visit. . . . . .

Again it is my wife who reminds me how he loved to divert himself with music. he was enthusiastic about Russian music from which he often played us airs - on the occasions of our rare visits. Naturally "Le Drapeau Rouge" and "Le Chant des Travailleurs" were included.

The winter prior to the war we visited him at Bordighera, the Swiss government not having desired to allow him to return to Locarno where he passed the preceding winter and where he had been welcomed even by the Municipality - if he did not humble himself to ask permission.

Kropotkin had preferred to renounce a country-sojourn from which he derived great benefit rather than submit.

In short, he was at Bordighera and we were enjoying some bits of music, when we saw two maids from the neighboring villa come up to listen, finding enough courage to approach the window for the purpose of hearing better.

Kropotkin came out to them, installed them comfortably in the salon and played them the best pieces of his repertoire. It was done simply, with an unaffected good-nature, and without ostentation. He was happy to be able to yield a little pleasure to others. How like Kropotkin! . . . . . . .

But it was not until 1916 that we were able to spend a few weeks with Kropotkin at Brighton when he was beginning to recover from an operation he had had to undergo.

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