Born in Bucharest to the magistrate Adolf Cantacuzino and his wife Ecaterina (née Iarca), he was a scion of the Cantacuzino family, which had an old tradition of political and cultural activity beginning with citations from Roman Imperium, affirming in Byzantine Imperium, European countries and primarily in Romania, with almost continuous citations after 1094.
On an August morning in 1949, during the early Communist regime, he was told he had several hours to vacate his beloved, book-filled house.
Toward evening, a little suitcase in hand, the hat-wearing, cane-carrying elderly gentleman made his way to the modest basement room he had rented and lay down.
A French-language poet who wrote under the name Charles-Adolphe Cantacuzène, he published numerous volumes of poems, essays and studies of literary and art history.
[3] Attracted by the verses of Stéphane Mallarmé, who became his friend, he published his first volume, Les sourires glacés, at the age of 22 in 1896, upon the latter's recommendation.