 Mussolini was always very respectful and deferential when he met him in private, which was exactly the behaviour the king expected of his prime ministers.Many Fascist "gerarchi", most notably Italo Balbo, regarded as the number two man in Fascism, remained republicans, and the king greatly appreciated Mussolini's conversion to monarchism.In private, Mussolini detested Victor Emmanuel as a tedious and tiresomely boring man, whose only interests were military history and his collections of stamps and coins, a man whom Mussolini sneered was "too diminutive for an Italy destined to greatness" (a reference to the king's height).