Mussolini speaks before the Chamber of Deputies, demanding it grant him the power to rule by decree through 1923. “He did not appear before the Chamber in the guise of a suppliant asking for its confidence, but rather as a conqueror imposing his will.” Boy, that’s saying it. The duck: “I am today performing in this hall what is an act of purely formal deference toward you and for which I do not seek your thanks. Italy has given herself a government outside, above and against any designation by Parliament. Now I affirm that revolution has its rights and I add that I am here in order to defend and make most of the Blackshirts’ revolution by inserting it intimately as a force tending toward development, progress and equilibrium in the history of the nation.” He says with 300,000 Blackshirts behind him he could have bivouacked them in the Chamber or punished his enemies but he didn’t because he’s magnanimous that way – “at least for the present.” He refuses to let most of the deputies who planned to respond to him do so.
Before he left for the Chamber, Mussolini got some fencing practice in, because of course he did.
By the way, I think Mussolini was using the title “duce” by this point, but the US newspapers that insist on using “fascista” and “fascisti” haven’t picked up on it yet. I will be using “the duck” until it stops being funny.
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