title: how to decode an ascii string with backslash x \x codes
body: <p>I am trying to decode from a Brazilian Portogese text:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>'Demais Subfun\xc3\xa7\xc3\xb5es 12'</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>It should be </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>'Demais Subfunções 12'</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt; a.decode('unicode_escape')
  &gt;&gt; a.encode('unicode_escape')
  &gt;&gt; a.decode('ascii')
  &gt;&gt; a.encode('ascii')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>all give:</p>
  
  <pre><code>UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 13:
  ordinal not in range(128)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>on the other hand this gives:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt; print a.encode('utf-8')
  Demais Subfun├â┬º├â┬Áes 12
  
  &gt;&gt; print a
  Demais SubfunÃ§Ãµes 12
  </code></pre>