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That evening at 7 o'clock the long table in Palazzo Venezia was piled with pacts and protocols. All were signed with celerity by Mussolini and Laval, after which correspondents spent a frantic evening cabling summaries. In sum France and Italy agreed: 1) that Italy will receive some 58,000 sq. mi. of French African territory, also a share in the French-controlled strategic railway which dominates Abyssinia, and an outlet providing Italy with a port on the Gulf of Aden; 2) that Italy will aid France toward bringing Germany to a reasonable stabilization of her armaments and in inducing the Fatherland to return to the League; 3) that Austrian independence shall be guaranteed by a general pact of the Danubian States, plus Italy and France, with Britain invited to adhere; 4) that Il Duce's pet Four-Power Pact, which the Little Entente once almost succeeded in quashing (TIME, May 29), will be revived and expanded as a general European Pact pledging all signatories to consult with one another when peace is threatened.
As Pierre Laval prepared to board his train for Paris most observers agreed that he and Benito Mussolini had made each other prime candidates for the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize—even if squalling Abyssinia is incidentally butchered.