Did the educated class really speak so well in the 19th century?

[LincolnToddFan]

I am fascinated by Czarist/Imperial Russia. I have just as many books on that period in history as I have on Lincoln and the Civil War.

One of my books is an anthology of love letters between Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra who were of course the last Emperor and Empress. They spoke and wrote to one another primarily in English, not Russian or German or French as one would expect. Believe me when I tell you that their use of the English language puts many of our most lettered academics(even 19th century ones) to complete shame. They could make the most archaic phrases and words sound so intimate that I blush reading them!