page_title: Goust
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Goust / History
caption_attribution_description: artists rendition of Goust
context_page_description: Goust is a French Hamlet in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department of southwestern France. At some point in the 19th century, folklore began to describe it as an independent Republic. Noted for its centenarians, one pensioner was reported to have reached the age of 123, although this is unconfirmed.
context_section_description: Jean-François Samazeuilh (1858) attributes the claims of Goust's independence to an 1827 description by the former French Minister of the Interior Joseph Lainé. Samazeuilh says that Lainé was speaking metaphorically when he labeled Goust a "republic," and that other writers took this literally ("on a pris au sérieux cette fantaisie du spirituel écrivain"). He then provides a long quotation from the Album Pyrénéen which demonstrates the fallacy of this interpretation—for example, the residents of Goust pay taxes to the government in Laruns.
  In the late 19th century however, newspapers from the United States mention Goust and goings on in the “Republic.” One of them is the story that in 1896 the authorities proclaimed a ban on publication of any newspaper without executive authorization, which led to an uprising of the citizens.
caption: Artist's rendering of Goust and its ruined "City of the Hills" (1899)
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