During his brief political activity, Alexandru was repeatedly described as a Russophile or more specifically an agent of the Russian Empire, resembling in this Maria and her father, Costin Catargi.

In the 1860s, his father made a conscious attempt at establishing a Cuza dynasty—this, together with his dissolute lifestyle, helped coalesce the "monstrous coalition", which fought to have him deposed.

He settled back in Romania after his father's death, attempting to create a current of opinion against Carol, and being presented, by his partisans and adversaries alike, as a competitor for the throne.

Gravely ill and allegedly incapable of fathering children of his own, he disinherited his adoptive mother, while favoring his young wife, Maria Moruzi.

According to most accounts, Sașa Cuza and his younger brother Dimitrie were born from a liaison between the Domnitor and his mistress Maria, the Moldavian boyaress, previously married into the House of Obrenović.

[8] Memoirist and social historian Radu Rosetti, who was also a relative of Cuza's wife Elena "Doamna", claims that there was no actual blood connection between Alexandru Ioan and his purported sons.

[14] As noted by scholar Mihaela Mudure, "Elena never complained about her husband's filandering, nor about her inability to birth a child, who would have consolidated her marital relationship with Alexandru Ioan Cuza.

As noted by scholar Frederick Kellogg: "On some Romanian palates, Cuza's amorous affair smacked of a scheme to establish a native dynasty with bastards as heirs to the crown.

"[18] The fledgling Romanian state was still under tutelage by a consortium of European powers—of these, the Ottoman and Russian Empires strongly objected when the Domnitor issued documents formally addressing the newly adopted Sașa as Principe or Beizadea ("Prince").

[12] According to Roman: "Contemporaries knew about [the liaison] and did not refrain from condemning the great prince's immoral behavior, nor from turning the subject into a scandal where the mother was the main culprit.

[25] With Elena's acquiescence, Maria had been by Alexandru Ioan's side during much of his career, and was found with him when, in February 1866, a "monstrous coalition" conspiracy deposed and exiled Cuza.

[35] In August of that year, French Prime Minister Albert de Broglie reported to his ambassadors that Carol was meeting the opposition of "extreme parties", and that "hostile newspapers have no shame in publicly advancing as a candidate one of Cuza's sons, for whom a Regency seems to have been already created.

[37] During those years, her Obrenović son (married to the Romanian Natalia Keșco) had taken power in the Principality of Serbia, replacing his assassinated uncle Mihailo III; Milan himself ultimately abdicated in 1889.

Its diplomatic conclusion was helped along by Sașa's uncle, George Catargi, who persuaded Carol not to occupy the Vidin Eyalet, which was also claimed by Obrenović Serbia.

A macaronic diary note by culture critic Titu Maiorescu reads: Der ältere Cuza-Sohn hat gărgăuni im Kopf seit er hier sein Freiwilligenjahr und viel mit Măria-Ta angeredet ("The older Cuza son has had a bee in his bonnet ever since he took here [in Romania] his one-year military service as a volunteer, and they often referred to him as Your Highness").

Deputy Mihail Kogălniceanu, who had been Alexandru Ioan's long-time political associate, welcomed Sașa's resignation as a wise gesture, which "has spared this Chamber much embarrassment."

"[45] A later assessment in O Século daily noted that the young Cuza was in fact below the legal age for holding political office, and that his letters, including one he sent to Kogălniceanu, simply illustrated his "wish to abstain.

[35][47] Published by Alexandru Beldiman and Grigore Ventura, it stated as its main goal the removal of the "foreign dynasty", demanding an elective monarchy and the universal male suffrage.

[49] The Romanian republican publicist, George Panu, similarly alleged that Cuza intended to set up his own "camarilla" in lieu of Carol's, and also called out his and Beldiman's agenda as "Russian politics".

[51] One peasant rebel, who escaped into the Principality of Bulgaria, spoke about a shady connection between the Cuzas, as proponents of deeper land reform, and Russian interests in Romania.

"[52] As noted by O Século, a "small group of those whom they call 'Cuzists'" was helping Alexandru to advance his vague claim to the throne; however, any proof as to whether he was actually involved in the incidents, if it existed, was made a state secret by the intervention of government officials.

The decision was controversial, not least of all because Maria's ancestor, an 18th-century Moldavian Prince by the name of Constantine Mourousis, had put to death Sașa's own forebear, Ioniță Cuza.

Madrid's correspondent for Le XIXe Siècle newspaper reported that, by March 30, the Prince was "in mortal danger", and that Elena Cuza was traveling there to see him a final time.

[12][26][69] Although the Cuzas' agnatic line was entirely extinguished with all collateral relatives dying childless,[39][60] it was still invoked as a means to earn popularity within the anti-Carlist movement.

[71] In elections in November 1919 (the first ones to be held in Greater Romania and under universal male suffrage), A. C. Cuza ran as a Democratic Nationalist in Dorohoi County, and soundly defeated the Progressive Conservatives.

[58] Rumors leaked to the press and the affair, together with the running Cuza–Moruzi lawsuit, created a sensation: Adevărul itself began referring to the estate as Rușinoasa ("Place of Shame").

[55] The Ruginoasa buildings, part of which had been donated to Elena Cuza's Caritatea Hospital,[12][68] were heavily damaged during the World War II air raids on Romania.

[41] In 1945, financial pressures led Gheorghe Brătianu to sell the Ruginoasa domain, which eventually became an administrative complex of the Romanian Railways Company (CFR).

With a 1944 affidavit preserved in its 1994 photocopy, Frenchman Fabius Laiter claimed that he was the only surviving son of three children born to Dimitrie Cuza and Iliana Cojocariu.

[73] In the 1990s, a Chilean man, Abraham Orlando Decebal Cuza Hernández, publicized his claim to descent from the Domnitor, but failed to clarify which of the brothers was his ancestor.