Kingdom of Gold Island

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Kingdom of Gold Island
Flag
Motto: Al nadjat fi al sadk (English: Success Through Honesty) Musical Anthem: none
Location:	Île d'Or, off Saint-Raphaël, in the Département of Var, France
Co-ordinates:	43°24’38"N 06°50’48"E
Area:	? km2
Capital:	None
Membership:	1
Date of foundation:	25 September 1913
Leadership:	Lutaud Augustus (King Augustus I)
Organisational structure:	Absolute monarchy
Language:	French, Latin and Arabic
Currency:	?

The Kingdom of Gold Island was an absurdist micronation created in the second decade of the Twentieth Century by the eccentric owner of a small island situated off the coast of southeastern France.

Gold Island (French: Île d'Or) is a small rocky islet located approximately 0.3 km south of the town of Saint-Raphaël, in the Département of Var, on the French Mediterranean coast. When the French Republic sold the then-uninhabited island at public auction in 1897 it was purchased by an architect by the name of Sargeant for 280 Francs. Sargeant later lost it in a card game to a Dr Lutaud Augustus (possibly a pseudonym of Auguste Joseph Lutaud, born 1847).

The new owner funded the construction of a large, square, multi-storey stone structure near the centre of the island - the so-called "Saracen Tower". It was completed in 1912, and has remained the island's most prominent man-made feature ever since. To celebrate the tower's completion, Augustus hosted a lavish reception there on 25 September 1913, during which he proclaimed himself, tongue-in-cheek, Augustus I, King of L’ile D’or. He thereafter humorously referred to himself as "king of the rocks pounded by waves" (French: "roi de roche battues par les flots"). When Augustus died in 1925 his ashes were buried on the island.

By the time US troops landed on Île d'Or during the liberation of southern France in 1944, however, the site was derelict, and the tower had been heavily vandalised. By the 1950s its interior had been completely gutted, with only the walls remaining.

In 1961, Île d'Or was sold to François Bureau, an officer in the French Navy. Bureau restored the tower to a habitable condition, extended the jetty to facilitate easier access, and imported a large volume of topsoil to the island for the purposes of establishing a garden. He eventually became Île d'Or's sole permanent resident, and was known for swimming a circuit around it each day. He drowned while performing one of these circumnavigations on 16 August 1994, aged 76. As far as is known, Bureau never attempted to revive Augustus' 'kingdom'.

It is popularly believed that the silhouette of Augustus' towered island provided the inspiration for the fictional setting of the Tintin comic book adventure The Black Island, published by Belgian artist Hergé (a pseudonym of Georges Prosper Remi) in 1966.

Aside from the tower, and the purported Tintin link, the chief legacy of the Kingdom of Gold Island are the two cinderella stamp issues produced by Augustus, bearing inscriptions in the Latin and Arabic languages. The consensus among philatelists is that the first of these stamps was issued in 1910, two years prior to the commencement of the tower's construction. The stamps bear the inscription Insula Aurea (Latin for "Gold Island") in the Roman alphabet, and in Arabic script Al nadjat fi al sadk, a quotation from the Qur'an which can be translated as Success through honesty. It is believed that Augustus also minted at least one Gold Island coin, but this remains unverified.

As at April 2011 Île d'Or remains the private property of the family of François Bureau. When the island is inhabited, the flag of the shipping line Denis Frères - which is owned by the family - is flown from the tower. There is no general public access to the island.

References

Insula Aurea, by Christer Brunstrom - Atalaya magazine # 60, Winter 2004, pp 6-7 [1].

External links

• L’ile d’or: The Black Island of Tin-Tin - 2010 photo story by a visitor to the island.
• Denis Frères Group of Companies website.

Gallery

View of Île d'Or from the French coast.	Aerial view of Île d'Or.	The "Saracen Tower" on Île d'Or.	Detail of an un-cancelled Gold Island stamp.
Postcard bearing a Gold Island stamp.	Silhouette of Île d'Or.	Cover of The Black Island, by Hergé.