“The Harem Revealed” And the Islamic-French Family: Aline de Lens and a French Woman's Orient in Lyautey's Morocco

Aline Réveillaud de Lens (1881–1925) became a celebrated novelist, painter, patroness of native arts, and ethnographer during the French Protectorate in Morocco. The wife of a colonial officer, de Lens adopted Moroccan children and used them as ethnographic material for her orientalist novels. Her biography illustrates the culture of sociability between French colonials and Moroccans created by Resident General Hubert Lyautey's military …