From the pre-colonial period and through the colonial period to the present, the Moroccan state has continually reverted to violence to impose its authority. The continuous use and justification of violence stands in parallel and in contrast to the long term religious and cultural legitimacy that has often been raised by historians, anthropologists and political scientists in order to explain the legitimacy and continuity of monarchical rule in Morocco. From its inception the Moroccan state, known otherwise as the makhzen, has been bound up with the use of violence and force not just by the appropriation of cultural means and religious rituals to impose its authority. Violence is conceived here not only in its physical but also in its symbolic meaning. By focusing on 19th century writings by Moroccan and French contemporaries, this paper will attempt to look at the interaction between physical violence and its symbolic and cultural manifestation in the cultural realm of Moroccans. It is argued that the makhzen in 19th century Morocco not only used physical violence in all sorts of ways to get rid of its social and political adversaries, it also made use of the public space to perform violence in different symbolic ways. It is also argued that in order to better understand the makhzen as a potent cultural construct, we cannot detach it from its material and concrete manifestation of physical violence.