During the formation of the United Principalities in 1859–1864, Sturdza maintained conservative principles as a member of the Central Commission, thereafter alternating between loyal opposition in the Romanian Assembly of Deputies and anti-Cuza conspiracy, while being in particular adverse to Cuza's projected land reform.

[5] In her 1901 obituary for the Société astronomique de France, Dorothea Klumpke noted that the Beizadea was a native of "Scutarie" village in Russia's Bessarabia Governorate (formerly a part of Moldavia), and gives his birth date as May 11, 1821.

However, his mother was no longer included in the princely family: in order to gain the trust of Ottoman Foreign Minister Mustafa Reşid Pasha, Mihail divorced Săftica and married Stefan Bogoridi's daughter, Smaranda.

[37] This judgement was partly replicated by the Austrian agent Stokera, who found the elder Sturdza sibling to be "rather poor with the spirit", also arguing that, at this stage, Grigore was committed to Moldavia's "Russian party".

During March of the next year, his father appointed him as junior caretaker of the Moldavian schools, assigning him the task of supervising education reform and prevent egalitarian ideas from seeping in; Grigore never showed up to be sworn in.

[57] He had returned to his activities in agriculture, employing agronomist Alecu Kulici[58] and Ion Ionescu de la Brad on the land he leased in Săbăoani, and giving them access to "the secrets of all lucrative speculation in both Principalities.

[87] Grigore's own lease on the village of Borca, part of the Slatina Monastery lands, was highly controversial after Moldavian Poles, who acted as his proxies, pushed locals into debt servitude.

[93] Sturdza fought with distinction in Wallachia, beginning with the Battle of Oltenița;[94] he was then involved in the engagements at Cetate, displaying "rather insane courage" as a mounted sniper, who took aim at enemy officers while fired upon by the Russian artillery.

"[113] Samples of diplomatic correspondence indicate that, in July 1856, the Beizadea had real chances of being appointed Caimacam (regent) of Moldavia, losing only narrowly to Teodor Balș, himself replaced in February 1857 by Bogoridi's son, Nicolae Vogoride.

[119] In November, the Journal de Constantinople retrospectively noted: "Mouhlis-Pacha (Prince Grégoire Stourdza), one of the more fidgety candidates, who thought that he had quite a few chances, has lost them all following the arrival of his father".

In September 1858, while presenting his resignation from the Ottoman army, he addressed Napoleon a letter which expressed commitment to unifying the Principalities into a French-allied polity; he also co-ordinated his efforts with Wallachia's outgoing Caimacam, Alexandru II Ghica, whom he met in the border town of Focșani.

According to Churchill, the troops Sturdza had pledged for Cuza's seizure of Bucharest were in fact mutinous and self-interested; they would have included Poles who viewed the Principalities as a stepping stone toward recovering Congress Poland.

[155] The Moldavian press published reports according to which Wierzbicki was tasked with a sweeping social reform, as well as with the mass assassination of Moldavia's political elite, in order to set the stage for Sturdza as "prince of Romania".

[156] Scholar Juliusz Demel also reports that the plot was factual, since Czajkowski intended to carve Dobruja out of the Silistra Eyalet and set it up as a "good base of training Polish insurgents", with Ottoman acquiescence.

[159] In February 1859, Mémorial Diplomatique published a letter from Bucharest, which claimed that Sturdza, whose designs for a coup resembled "mental alienation", was being held under watch by the authorities; it also alleged that the Beizadea had managed to escape.

[165] Official records for that same interval point to Sturdza as a Cuza loyalist: during January–April 1859, he rallied with the Divan deputies who voted for a property tax and an international loan in order to balance Moldavia's budget and create a unified army.

[169] As noted by historian A. D. Xenopol, the Beizadea effectively rendered into legal jargon the boyar program: "the party of the past simply did not want to extend voting rights so as to preserve its control on stately affairs".

He veered to the right more than other members: in his legal reading, Cuza was only legitimate "for as long as Europe will not send us a foreign prince"—a phrasing which appeared, almost identical, in the constitutional project submitted for approval by the commission.

As noted by Xenopol, he was the "most progressive" right-winger, endorsing public schooling, mass recruitment, and the land value tax, as well as an increased salary for the Moldavian Prime Minister, who was by then his nominal rival Kogălniceanu.

[179] Attempting to solve peasant destitution by other means, he set up his own lands in Iași County to function as model farms, introducing fallow techniques that more than doubled the expected output.

[181] As early as 1861, Sturdza had declared his astonishment that Cuza never selected Wallachia and Moldavia's still-separate cabinets from the respective majorities, noting that this habit prevented Romania from joining the ranks of "constitutional states".

[194] At around that time, a French diplomat, Pierre Baragnon, had contacted Miłkowski, prodding him to form a Polish Ottoman army that would depose Cuza and redivide the country, placing the Beizadea on the throne in Iași.

[195] The Panu group publicized a program which incorporated most of the "Red" agenda, endorsing decentralization, press freedoms, and an extension of voting rights with literacy tests; it also provided for a selective land reform with the full abolition of the corvée.

[204] In May, this job confronted Sturdza with the Iași separatist riots, which doubled as outbreaks of antisemitic violence; restoring order by military force, he issued a proclamation extending his personal guarantee of safety to the Jewish locals.

According to memoirist George Panu, at that stage Sturdza "never absented" from the literary conferences presented in Iași by Titu Maiorescu, the Junimea doyen, and "greatly enjoyed" Negruzzi's work in political satire.

[241] Responses to this message were mixed: Pressa, as the mainstream "White" newspaper, agreed with his core stances, but rejected his approach to foreign affairs; C. A. Rosetti's Românul ignored Sturdza's claim that the speech represented only himself, and ridiculed it as a sample of "operetta" conservatism.

[248] During the National-Democratic episode, Sturdza paid for a state-modeled personal bureaucracy, which included hiring a retired police captain, Gheorghe "Păpușică" Florescu, to run a private information service.

He never saw himself bound by matrimonial fidelity, and continued to keep, and brag about, his seraglio that, at any time, comprised twelve concubines;[270] commenting on this "harem", Cantacuzène noted that "customs and decency did not exist for this Sturdza prince".

[299] The Beizadea's final years were mostly dedicated to experimental science, leading him to become a founding member of the Société astronomique; as reported by Klumpke, he had since taken a degree from the École normale supérieure, studying under Louis Pasteur.

[312] Sturdza's fortune grew to immense proportions after lawyer I. C. Barozzi, working on his behalf, discovered that Prince Mihail had hidden some 45 million lei in bullion on his various estates; Grigore was owed a third of this wealth.