the Orthodox mainstream, included in the larger phenomenon that was Symbolist cosmopolitanism. However, Galaction, who was to end his life as an Orthodox priest, recorded that the Știrbey-Vodă circle accommodated people of very diverse backgrounds. At one time, they included, alongside Galaction himself, the Roman Catholic priest Carol Auner, the Protestant sculptor Storck, and the anarchist activist Panait Mușoiu. According to Cernat, Bogdan-Pitești's bohemian society also grouped people believed associated with the illegal activities, and was noted for its "libertine" atmosphere. Galaction backed such interpretations, writing that the salon was also home to "a dozen con artists and prostitutes." The atmosphere was colloquial and free-spirited, to the point of being demeaning: story goes that the artists and writers were sometimes told licentious jokes, or had to endure grotesque farces. A dandy, Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești himself led a life of luxury, marked by excess, and had by then become a drug addict. He was a proud homosexual (or bisexual), which did not prevent him from keeping as his concubine a younger woman, commonly referred to as Domnica ("Little Lady") or Mica ("Little One"). Born Alexandra Colanoski, she was born in 1894 to Romanian Poles from Bessarabia, and, according to memoirist Constantin Beldie, had previously been a prostitute at a nightclub. Herself a libertine, Domnica was described by researchers as an androgynous or cross-dressing presence. To other members of the Știrbey-Vodă circle, painter-designer Alexandru Brătășanu was introduced as Bogdan-Pitești's male lover. Theirs was a "degenerate" affair, according to Oscar Han; Han also quotes Bogdan-Pitești's admiration for the male body, including male genitalia, as the only physical beauties which could withstand time. Cantacuzino Conservative and Seara Around 1912, Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești's political influence was on the rise. He had begun associating with an inner faction of the Conservative Party, which had as its leader Grigore Gheorghe Cantacuzino, the Mayor of Bucharest. Afterward, Bogdan-Pitești became the publisher of Seara, but was reportedly a front for Cantacuzino, who used him to test the impact of his agenda on the Romanian public. Searas main negative campaign at the time focused on Take Ionescu and his Conservative-Democrats, who, to Cantacuzino's displeasure, had been co-opted in government by the other mainstream Conservatives. The paper published gossip columns and lampoons having Ionescu, Alexandru Bădărău and Nicolae Titulescu for their main targets. By then, like many "Germanophile" Conservatives, Bogdan-Pitești had come to support the Romanian Kingdom's alliance with the German Empire and