Mișu or Mihail Ion Văcărescu (Francized Michel Vacaresco; 1842 or 1843 – June 12, 1903), most commonly known as Claymoor, was a Wallachian, later Romanian fashion journalist and gossip columnist, the son of poet Iancu Văcărescu. 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'Indépendance 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.
Claymoor's period of prominence, at the height of the Belle Époque, ended with his sudden death. By that time, he had also left a mark as one of Romania's first film critics. 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.
Biography
Early life and debut Văcărescu's exact birth date remains unknown.Lucreția Angheluță, Salomeea Rotaru, Liana Miclescu, Marilena Apostolescu, Marina Vazaca, Bibliografia românească modernă (1831–1918). Vol. IV: R–Z, p. 722. Bucharest: Editura științifică și enciclopedică, 1996. Mihail Straje, Dicționar de pseudonime, anonime, anagrame, astronime, criptonime ale scriitorilor și publiciștilor români, p. 768. Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1973. However, he died at the age of 60 Ioana Pârvulescu, "O adresă high-life", in România Literară, Issue 25/2010 or 61,Ferrari, "Le Monde & La Ville. Renseignements mondains", in Le Figaro, July 26, 1899, p. 2 meaning that he was born in 1842 or 1843. It also certain that he was of aristocratic upbringing, from the Văcărescu family, and directly related to other prominent families of Wallachian boyars; unlike them, he had inherited little wealth. He was the son of the more famous Wallachian poet Iancu (Ioan) Văcărescu, and as such grandson of Alecu and grandnephew of Ienăchiță Văcărescu. His great-grandfather Ianache Văcărescu had served Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu during the Pruth River Campaign, and had been executed alongside him.Popescu-Cadem, p. 10 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.Popescu-Cadem, pp. 10–11, 15–20 Iancu was also a dissident during the Regulamentul Organic regime. Arrested for various intervals, he had his land confiscated by Prince Alexandru II Ghica.Popescu-Cadem, pp. 21, 23 After Ghica's downfall, he ran in the first princely election, winning just 21 votes from 179.Cristian Preda, Rumânii fericiți. Vot și putere de la 1831 până în prezent, pp. 52–54. Iași: Polirom, 2011. His aunt, Marițica Văcărescu-Ghica, went on to marry the winner of that race, Gheorghe Bibescu, after a years-long scandal. She was also a poet, although her work remained unpublished.Radu Crutzescu, notes to Grigore Lăcusteanu, Amintirile colonelului Lăcusteanu. Text integral, editat după manuscris, pp. 258, 260. Iași: Polirom, 2015.
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. Despite her generous dowry, the family faced bankruptcy and, during Mihail's infancy, had to go into real estate as landlords.Popescu-Cadem, pp. 21–25 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).Popescu-Cadem, pp. 25–27, 29–31. See also Cazacu, pp. 12–14 Claymoor's cousins also included Theodor C. Văcărescu, the diplomat and historian. Ion Bulei, "În epoca lui Claymoor", in Ziarul Financiar, October 18, 2002Cazacu, p. 13 The clan had acquired a bad reputation in social circles. Novelist and diplomat Duiliu Zamfirescu notes that, by 1890, the Văcărescus were "not an attractive spectacle", especially with their "collateral female relatives."Duiliu Zamfirescu, "Eșecul unui episod 'romantic'", in Magazin Istoric, November 1973, p. 14 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". Argetoianu thus notes that her Darvary home doubled as a gambling den, where cheating aristocrats and their accusers would engage in fistfights.Cazacu, pp. 13–14
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. Orphaned at age 20, when his father died "of a cold", he and his siblings split his fortune between them and Iancu's creditors.Popescu-Cadem, pp. 27–29 His first calling was the army, and he reached a Captain's rank"Svonuri", in Voința Națională, January 5 (17), 1891, p. 2 in the cavalry corps of the United Principalities, later retiring to take up work for the Bucharest daily press.Bacalbașa, pp. 60–61 According to several accounts, he was by then openly gay, or, as historian Ion Bulei writes, "a notorious pederast"; an 1891 piece in Budapesti Hírlap had it that he was "famous throughout Bucharest for his scandalous life"."Politika és szerelem", in Budapesti Hírlap, July 25, 1891, p. 9 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." 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.Crutzescu, p. 118 Around 1890, he was involved in a legal conflict with a Major Baldovici, and rumor spread in the rival press that he had tried to seduce him and other army subordinates. However, Bacalbașa disputes such "mean-spirited" rumors as "fables".Bacalbașa, p. 61
Văcărescu's first experience with Francophone journalism was at La Roumanie daily (1873–1876), where he used the pen name Velréas. He later had a stint at the left-wing paper Românul (1877–1879), where he began using his consecrated pen name. As Claymoor, he began his activity at L'Indépendance Roumaine in 1879 or 1880, taking over for the Frenchman Ulysse de Marsillac.Crutzescu, p. 135 During November 1881, he covered Sarah Bernhardt's Romanian tour, giving it an enthusiastic appraisal. He also skirted controversy by defending Bernhardt's method of using stooges for increased exposure in the press."Afacerea Balassan–Sarah Bernhardt", in Curierul. Foaea Intereselor Generale, Issue 132/1881, p. 3 Simultaneously, as Babylas, he was writing for La Roumanie Ilustrée.George Potra, Din Bucureștii de altădată, p. 244. Bucharest: Editura științifică și enciclopedică, 1981
These early chronicles coincided with the introduction of electric lighting, which, from , allowed open-air night parties to become fashionable.Crutzescu, p. 38 Claymoor's regular chronicle was the Carnet du High-life, which later spawned an Almanach du High-Life. His first almanac had been La Vie à Bucarest 1882–1883 ("Life in Bucharest 1882–1883"), published with Theil & Weiss company, followed by La Lanterne Mondaine ("Worldly Lantern") in 1884. That year, in February, Claymoor had a row with the editor of L'Indépendance Roumaine, Alexandru Ciurcu, and briefly left to work for Gazette de Roumanie. In his own words, this was a "rather burlesque incident", sparked by Ciurcu's attempt to remove from the fashion column "all those parties he was never invited to.""Informațiuni", in Telegraphul, February 16, 1884, pp. 1–2
Arbiter of fashion Claymoor soon became one of the regulars at the journalists' hangout, Casa Capșa, frequenting a society that also included Nicolae Filipescu and N. T. Orășanu.Costescu, p. 378. See also Crutzescu, p. 119 Memoirist Constantin Bacalbașa recalls him as "perfectly collegial", "a very decent man". However, he also cautions that Claymoor "was a journalist, but by no means was he one of the journalistic world; he lived inside the boyar society that had spawned and raised him". More controversially, from 1888, when he became a Romanian delegate to the Paris World Fair,Georges Bibesco, Exposition universelle 1889. La Roumanie avant-pendant-après, p. 366. Paris: Imprimerie Typographique J. Kugelmann, 1890 Claymoor was depicted as a political client of the ruling Conservative Party."O rușine națională", in Voința Națională, December 20, 1888 (January 1, 1889), p. 1 Reports of that have it that he was also considered for the Prefecture of Constanța County by the Theodor Rosetti cabinet.Dolman, "Scrisori din Dobrogea (Corespondența partic. a Telegraphuluĭ)", in Telegraphul, August 10, 1888, pp. 2–3"Informațiuni", in Lupta, April 17, 1888 (second edition), p. 2 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." Further embrassement came in the early 1890s, when Crown Prince Ferdinand announced that he intended to marry Claymoor's niece Elena. This highly unpopular move resulted in a "violent campaign [of] curses, vulgarities and lies" directed at the Văcărescu family.
Writer George Costescu describes L'Indépendance 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."Costescu, p. 238 The concept was criticized by anti-elitists. 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?" In the absence of an aristocratic culture, Claymoor only "fed the vanities" of a commercial "plutocracy".Kiriak Napadarjan, "Vorba lui Vlahuță: 'Râiea'!", in Furnica, Issue 36/1912, p. 2 Similarly, Bulei sees the Carnet as copying from Le Figaro and Le Gaulois, "but with its Dâmbovița relish." He suggests that some of the chronicles—for instance one describing Zoe Sturdza, wife of the politician D. A. Sturdza—were unintentionally amusing.