Benito Mussolini strode pompously into the Italian Chamber and sat down with folded arms last week. Il Duce did not, however, assume his celebrated frown, for this was going to be fun, and he was being carefully watched through a monocle by the French Ambassador, extremely potent M. Andre Frangois-Poncet, today the No. 1 Continental diplomat.
"TUN-E-E-E-SIA!" The elegant, bemonocled French Ambassador feigned not to understand what was meant in the Chamber when all the Deputies without exception jumped to their feet and, encouraged by two eminent Fascist scream-leaders, screamed in frenzied Italian unison : "Tunisia! Tunisia!! TUN-E-E-E-SIA!"
The scream-leaders were His Excellency Grand Councilor Achille Starace ("The Panther Man"), Secretary General of the Fascist Party since 1932, and His Excellency Roberto Farinacci ("Italian Jew Baiter No. 1"), who that very day had been promoted to Councilor of State.* The screams of all Italian Deputies meant of course that Italy was asking France to give her Tunisia as the Reich was given the Sudetenland, without a fight.
The hubbub was now indescribable, for in the gallery of the Chamber of Deputies women were screaming not only "TUN-E-E-E-SIA!!!" (the Deputies screamed nothing else), but also the names of three other French places: "Corsica!" "Nice!" "Savoy!"
M. Frangois-Poncet was kept nailed to his cushioned tribune, smiling, by the protocol which required him to remain until after the Foreign Minister " Son-in-Law Count Galeazzo Ciano had finished a chesty speech.
This speech did not ask France to give Italy anything. It just happened to get interrupted by the whole Chamber, led by the two well-chosen scream-leaders. When screaming and speech were finished, the French Ambassador put on his top hat, adjusted his elegant monocle, and, smiling, drove away.
Frowns, Roars. Wearing his best frown, the French Ambassador, 48 hours later, called upon Son-in-Law and demanded verbal explanations—but only verbal, nothing in writing. Son-in-Law roared right back for 45 minutes, then announced to the world: "The Italian Royal and Imperial Government infinitely regrets this wholly irresponsible and uncontrollable burst of enthusiasm!"
In Paris, same day, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet and the new Italian Ambassador, Raffaele Guariglia, gave each other a high twitting, nothing in writing.
Meanwhile the Italian press in effect screamed "TUN-E-E-E-SIA!" with one regimented voice; and owners of French newspapers each screamed his individualistic brand of outrage.
Optimum. There was reason to think that Italy, far from imagining that France can be bluffed into handing over Tunisia without a fight, much less into handing over Corsica, or Nice or Savoy, is trying mainly to get or keep other things. Il Duce in the past few weeks has already got France and Britain to recognize his conquest of Ethiopia. That is in the bag, and it was a big part of the original Hoare-Laval Deal (TIME, Dec. 16, 1935, et seq.). There are also the beautiful Spanish Isles, Majorca and Iviza, now effectively occupied by Mussolini's airmen. And there was also a now almost forgotten Mussolini-Laval Deal (TIME, Jan. 14, 1935).