One finds such characters in books, but never before or since have I seen the reality.
He might have been the original of the great Braggadoccio.

His conversation was like a chapter out of the autobiography of his countryman Alfieri.
He had accompanied the Italian nobleman who was killed in an affray with the Mexican robbers, some years ago, and on that occasion his defence had been most heroic.

He himself had shot several of the robbers; till at last, his friend being killed, the rest of the party yielded to the overwhelming numbers of the brigands, and he ran off to fetch assistance! Whenever he was riding along a Mexican road, and any suspicious-looking person asked him for a light, his habit was to hand him his cigar stuck in the muzzle of a pistol; "and they always take the hint," he said, "and see that it won't do to interfere with us." Alone, he had been attacked by three armed men, but with a pistol in each hand he had compelled them to retreat.

But this was not all; our champion was victorious in love as well as in arms.

Like the great Alfieri, to whom I have compared him, in every country where he travelled, the most beautiful and distinguished ladies hardly waited for him to ask before they cast themselves at his feet.