In partnership with the French National Library website, the 20 Minot French site features a series of stories of top thieves in France and the United States. The story of two brothers from the island of Corsica Nala is very famous through the 19th century French press.
The website says that the French press seemed passionate about the crimes and heroics of the brothers Antoine and Jacques Bellacoskia in the fifties of that century, and talked about them sometimes, not as fugitives from justice but as executors of justice and national heroes.
After a detailed description of the two brothers, one of them appears as a respected leader without his harsh gaze, and displays his picture on a postcard, commenting that his appearance on him is due to his status as "leader of the Corsican bandits."
Get into gangs
The story of the Pelakosia brothers begins in the life of their father - who lived with his 20 children from three sisters with whom he lived without marriage - when they tried in 1848 to assassinate the mayor of Bocciano, who refused to issue a certificate of exemption for them from military service, and refused to demarcate the limits of ownership of their land.
Months after the incident, Antoine was kidnapped by his beloved father, who refused to marry her to force him to accept, and then committed the first crime when he killed the man who married that girl two years later.
The brothers then carried out a series of assaults and abuses to which they deserved the death penalty in 1854, but the gendarmerie failed in 40 years to capture them and earned them fame and turned them into heroes.
After telling several stories the two gendarmes escaped from the gendarmerie after they surprised them - running away from their home after the gendarmes blocked them all outlets - the site warns that the brothers fled thanks to their guerrilla experience, as well as to help the residents of their hometown of Poconano, who alert them when authorities arrive and provide them with food.
| Antoine surrenders to French gendarmerie (Getty Images) |
Thieves of honor
According to the website, the villagers do not view the brothers as criminals, but as guardians of justice, who apply the island's code of honor, and even the daily Le Figaro detailed the fundamental difference between "honor gangs and fund-raisers."
The brothers, according to the site, have pure hands of looting. They "grab" the gendarmerie from his barracks, but they did not take a penny from the treasury, but led highway police to defeat a gang of scammers.
Some entrepreneurs resorted directly to the brothers' services to avoid potential problems. Some travel guides even suggested that tourists visiting Corsica should visit the brothers to play cards or smoke.
The strangest of all is that the two thieves benefit from their reputation to meet some of the most prominent figures of the time, such as Baron Hausmann, Duke of Saxony, and the press publishes the reception of these celebrities.
End of the term
But the end of the 19th century, when the French press was giving an increasingly important place to bandits, Antoine - tired of hiding - before he became a prisoner. At the end of his trial, he pleaded not guilty but was banned from staying, and the expulsion was quickly lifted, allowing him to remain on the island, where he died in 1907 at the age of 79.
His brother, Jacques, who the press assumed would not delay the receipt, remained hidden until his presumed death in 1895, according to Le Petit Journal, although he never found his body.