bandit d’honneur

An outlaw in hiding after avenging his family

A specifically Corsican figure, an outlaw whose crime came from defending family honour rather than greed.

Dans les montagnes corses du XIXe siècle, certains bandits d’honneur devenaient de véritables figures locales.

In the Corsican mountains of the 19th century, some honour bandits became genuine local legends.

The term itself only caught on in the 1920s, coined to separate these vendetta-driven outlaws from ordinary extortionists hiding in the same hills. It grew out of Corsica's old vendetta tradition, a kind of parallel justice system for when the official courts weren't up to the job, and later got a patriotic makeover when a book about the WWII Corsican resistance borrowed the name.

Corsica