A retired cavalry officer in the Romanian Land Forces, he began writing in his late twenties or early thirties, reaching his fame as a contributor to the Francophone daily L'Indépendence Roumaine.

He was widely respected for his verdicts on fashion, and, as an arbiter of taste, contributed to his paper's renown; however, people of his day also ridiculed him for his florid literary style, his political involvement with the Conservative Party, and his homosexuality.

Although his almanac was still published, he himself was largely forgotten in the Kingdom of Romania by the end of World War I. Traces of his memory are preserved in disguised portrayals and parodies by writers such as Ion Luca Caragiale and Petru Dumitriu.

[6] Other ancestors of the journalist had been in constant conflict with the Phanariote princes who succeeded Brâncoveanu: Ienăchiță and his brothers were most likely poisoned, while Alecu was imprisoned under false charges.

[10] Mihail's mother Ecaterina (1819–1891), also a boyaress, descended from the Cantacuzino family through a Moldavian offshoot, and claimed ownership of an estate in Pașcani.

[11] She had eight other children with Iancu, six of whom survived into adulthood: Eufrosina m. Greceanu (1837–1870), a homemaker and courtesan; Ioan (1839–1914), a career soldier and father of writer Elena Văcărescu; Maria m. Fălcoianu (1841–1912); Ecaterina m. Lahovary (1846–1917); Alexandrina m. Darvary (1851–1899); Constantin (1850–1899).

"[15] As reported by the boyar memoirist Constantin Argetoianu, all surviving Văcărescus formed a vicleim (masquerade): Alexandrina was "the only bright one" among Iancu's children, but, like them, was cradled into "vice and filth".

[16] A graduate of Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, Mihail Văcărescu always endured as a "great friend of France", according to his colleagues at Le Figaro.

[17] His first calling was the army, and he reached a Captain's rank[18] in the cavalry corps of the United Principalities, later retiring to take up work for the Bucharest daily press.

[19] According to several accounts, he was by then openly gay, or, as historian Ion Bulei writes, "a notorious pederast";[13] an 1891 piece in Budapesti Hírlap had it that he was "famous throughout Bucharest for his scandalous life".

[20] Zamfirescu portrays him as "an unbelievable type, who wore bracelets like a woman, pink nail polish, a tuft of hair which supposedly hid his bald spot, and who was rumored to be of the ticklish kind.

"[15] Writer-diplomat Gheorghe Crutzescu also notes that Claymoor "did not quite like women", although he was particularly fond of cross-dressing acts such as La Belle Otero and the Barrison Sisters.

[2] That year, in February, Claymoor had a row with the editor of L'Indépendence Roumaine, Alexandru Ciurcu, and briefly left to work for Gazette de Roumanie.

[22] More controversially, from 1888, when he became a Romanian delegate to the Paris World Fair,[30] Claymoor was depicted as a political client of the ruling Conservative Party.

[32][33] A local correspondent for Telegraphul noted, tongue-in-cheek: "High-society ladies are in favor of [his] appointment, and so is the Muslim population, especially now [in August 1888] that we are celebrating Bayram.

[15] Writer George Costescu describes L'Indépendence Roumaine as adhering to "Western journalistic norms", and notes Claymoor's role in pioneering locally the genre of "fashion reports": "the crafty Mihail Văcărescu-Claymoor chronicled all the political and diplomatic receptions, all artistic reunions and balls, concerts, fêtes and weddings involving Bucharest's elite families.

In 1912, the left-wing George Ranetti argued that Carnet du High-life would have been "more or less justified in a city like Paris", but asked: "what point could it serve in Romania?"

"[22] At times, Claymoor's contributions doubled as theater criticism, such as when, in November 1884, he chronicled O scrisoare pierdută, by the Romanian classic Ion Luca Caragiale.

"[44] Having been present at a screening of Paul Menu's "Romanian vistas" in May 1897, Claymoor prophesied that "cinema will reestablish truth and the sincerity of our lives will be transmitted over the ages, beyond ourselves.

[21] His "yellowing notebooks", Crutzescu writes, revealed a world "of bearded and mustachioed gents and ladies with malakoffs that, when stirred, will rustle the way dead leaves do.

[56] Caragiale's sketch "High-life", first published on Christmas Eve 1899,[3][57] is entirely dedicated to Claymoor, who appears as "Edgar Bostandaki" or "Turturel" ("Turtledove"), chronicler for the fictional Voice of the Aurochs.

[66] During the later stages of communism, there were also more lenient verdicts: in 1970, writer Petru Vintilă made a short note on Claymoor's life, as part of his "Bucharest Engravings" column.

The piece mentioned a "tiny, stupefying mythology" that had surrounded Claymoor, and repeated rumors about his writing having been secretly sponsored by couturiers.

This was noted in January 1990 by literary critic Dan C. Mihăilescu: "how could one propose to publish a book on, say, [...] the forms of insanity in Romanian literature, when, if one was to write about Mișu Văcărescu, he found mentions of 'pederasty' cut out of the text, and was then forced to engage in the usual euphemistic exercises!