He was born from an affair between his mother, María del Carmen Solo de Zaldívar Rivera, and young César Vicuña Toro-Zambrano while her husband, the Argentine military officer Estanislao Lynch Roo, was absent.

He was also welcomed by his maternal half-siblings, the Lynch Solo de Zaldívar (Martina, Estanislao, Patricio, Luis Alfredo, and Julio Ángel).

That same year, he became a member of the Conservative Party and served as an alternate deputy for Parral in 1870 (replacing Cesáreo Valdés Ortúzar on June 4) and again in 1873.

In 1873, he was commissioned by the Chilean government to research archival materials in Spain regarding the southernmost regions of South America, remaining in Europe until 1885.

His wife, Luisa, became a close friend of the patron Eugenia Huici de Errázuriz, and the couple mingled with Chilean expatriate elites and French intellectuals.