MARRAKECH- THE FRENCH SIDE

The French didn’t move into Marrakech when they assumed the protectorate. Instead, they built up their own, more European quarter to the west of the old city. This new area became known as Gueliz. Jade visited this area in her 1920 adventure, The Serpent’s Daughter, when she searched for her mother.

Jade’s next encounter with Gueliz was when she sent her mother to the French Catholic church to wait for her. This church of The Holy Martyrs is still standing, and the austere wooden benches and simple interior are quite beautiful, albeit a bit difficult to photograph in the dim light.

Edith Wharton didn’t report very much on Gueliz except to say that, in 1917, it consisted of a few shops and cafes “on avenues ending suddenly in clay pits.” (In Morocco, 1920)

C. E. Andrews visited this French suburb a few years later and wrote of it in his book, ­Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas, 1922. He said that here one could find “curious colonial types, interesting drinks, and American jazz music in an indiscreet and somewhat tawdry background.” Mr. Andrews reported that Gueliz was only 6 years old, but “neatly planned, laid out in long avenues planted with eucalyptus and palms, among which stand little scattered houses of plain stucco, very white and clean.”

Today, Gueliz is a very modern part of the city complete with art museums, four- and five-star hotels, and discos.

NEXT WEEK: SOUKS OF MOROCCO

MOROCCO’S HISTORY- THE BAHIA PALACE

Who wouldn’t want to stay in an exotic, sumptuous palace for a few days? Well Jade, for one, since she was essentially confined to one in her 1920 adventure (The Serpent’s Daughter). Jade wasn’t the first woman to be a prisoner in the Bahia Palace, for as lovely as the harem quarter was, it was still a prison of sorts where the wives and the concubines lived out there entire lives, never leaving.

As buildings go in Marrakech, Bahia Palace is relatively new. It was constructed in the late 1800’s by the Grand Vizier Ba Ahmed Ben Moussa and was the residence of his four wives, twenty-four concubines, and a very large retinue of children.

Each wife had her own room and her own courtyard, open to the sky and light. Quiet, serene, beautiful; it must have been terribly lonely. The concubines’ rooms were scattered around the outside of another courtyard (see above photo), so they at least had each other to converse with.

Then there was ‘the favorite’s’ apartment. Edith Wharton (In Morocco, 1920) stayed in this apartment in 1917 at the invitation of the French Resident General Lyautey. She described it as a “lovely prison from which all sight and sound of the outer world are excluded.” The doors are particularly ornate here and one gave me the idea for the prison room of Jade’s mother. (see above photo.)

Twenty-five foot high walls support colored glass, letting jeweled light into a paved courtyard where trickling fountains break the silence. Only indirect sunlight reaches this area. The apartment was, consequently, always cool and comfortable even in the heat of summer.

But I suspect that ‘the favorite,’ like Jade, would have gladly traded the coolness for a moment of freedom in the sun.

NEXT WEEK: THE FRENCH QUARTER OF MARRAKECH