In my paper, I will try to clarify different types of (mostly presumed) autonomy, on a textual, fictional and communicational level in Mateo Falcone, the story of a Corsican father who shoots his own son after the latter, in exchange for a silver watch, has betrayed a bandit that he promised to hide. The story relates to presumed autonomy on several levels. Firstly, the concrete setting displays specific spaces in which autonomy is (or is not) granted: the house of Mateo Falcone, an autonomous space in which the tacit contract of local traditions should overrule the claims of the legal institution; secondly, kinship bonds prompts Fortunato to count on a presumed autonomy for himself, considering himself untouchable as he is “the son of Mateo Falcone”; thirdly, the description of an exotic and savage Corsica creates an image of an autonomous region, governed by its own rules, outside civilization; fourthly, by means of different devices Mérimée takes an ironic stand, which detaches him from the story, thus creating an autonomous work, separated from the author, an interesting position in the late 1820’s with regard to traditional assumptions concerning the relationship between author and narrator.