He called himself King of the Mountains, and imposed taxes upon the villagers around to keep up his state; but they were grudged by few, for the king was handsome, fascinating, and generous. His life was full of wild, bloody, and romantic incidents; but meanness was never connected with his name. He was a staunch friend, and even a forgiving foe. His companions, besides his queen, were an uncle named Angellone, and another bandit called Brusco.
Brusco and Teodoro were bound together by the ties of a tender friendship, but this friendship was the cause of secret jealousy to Angellone. One day a quarrel took place in Teodoro's absence, and the elder man murdered his nephew's friend, then escaping to the maquins.
Teodoro, heart-broken at the loss of Brusco, swore a furious oath to avenge him at the hands of his murderer. According to ancient fashion, he began to let his beard grow, as a solemn witness to this oath.
But not for long. The murderer could not long escape his pursuing hand, and ere long the King of the Mountains re-appeared with a smooth chin.
Teodoro shared the usual fate of the outlaw. He was betrayed, whilst lying ill in his mountain home, to the gendarmes, who showed little mercy to the dying man. Sick though he was, however, he fought even then to the death, and laid two of his assailants low, before his arms fell motionless and his proud spirit succumbed to the last of his foes.
It is reported that, after his death, some of the villagers came up the hill-side, and, under the influence of love or fear to the memory of the famous bandit, offered the contributions due to the King of the Mountains towards the support of his queen and her infant child.
Probably of a different stamp was a young brigand whose execution at Bastia, in the summer of 1852, is so pitifully described by Gregorovius in his book on Corsica, himself being an eye-witness of part of the scene.
He was but three and twenty, beautiful of face, strong as a lion, and brave and fierce as a wild beast; but the accusation against him was that he had murdered ten men out of "caprice"!
What an extraordinary madness must that have been which incited this poor young Corsican, probably from no reason but the insensate lust of blood, for no purposes of robbery or even adequate anger, to murder his fellow-men!
The very unnaturalness of the phenomenon arouses pity from those whose bringing-up makes such a wild-beast madness incomprehensible to them. One wonders in what atmosphere poor Bracciamozzo had been reared—whether he had been brought up in the bandit's cave, accustomed to sights of brutal ferocity and the indulgence of every fierce passion, and growing up to find his hand against every man.