Literature on continental European aristocratic diglossia

[Viktor77]

I suppose you can make an argument the following isn't diglossic, but I'm going with it for right now. I am looking for literature on the languages of the aristocratic households of continental Europe from the 18th century to the first half of the 20th century (anything pre-WWII). I'm especially interested in the Prussian aristocracy, German aristocracy post-Bismarck's unification of Germany, Austro-Hungarian aristocracy, Italian aristocracy (perhaps Spanish aristocracy), and the Russian Empire aristocracy (Scandinavian and Low Country aristocracy would be a bonus, too, but here the high language might've been German). I'd be interested in this for the British but I know their aristocracy spoke English since something like the Tudor period.

I've read biographies that present a diglossic situation, arguably, in these households where the first language of the aristocrats was French, the high language. They then learned the vernacular of the land they controlled or so it may be, I've read accounts of the royalty and upper nobility having no concrete knowledge of the vernacular, but I question this. What I am interested in is how prevalent was this concept of French native-speaking aristocrats? And what language was used among the family in the household for daily matters? If it is indeed true that many aristocrats learned French before the vernacular or never learned the vernacular, then how can this truly be if the vernacular was used among the estate staff and according to some evidence even among the family? Here is the point of most confusion, did the family use the vernacular and if so, did they use it around the children? Clearly their governess didn't, but their nannies and the staff who saw them more than their parents most likely did. Or did they all have French nannies to ween them? I read one biography by Marion Dönhoff who said among the East Prussian nobility of the interwar period she recited the German Lord's Prayer everyday even though she did not understand what she was saying in German (but she had no problem arguing with her brothers in French).

And then the question becomes, if the above is true, if these were households where the high and low language were used together, and not just the high language, could we consider the aristocratic children to be simultaneous or near-simultaneous bilinguals? Or perhaps late bilinguals, acquiring somehow the vernacular later despite their surroundings (the estate staff, their family perhaps using the vernacular, etc.)?

Essentially I am very interested in the linguistic landscape of the aristocratic household and am looking for literature on it. My search so far hasn't turned up too much about the actual languages of the household in daily life.

[Junes]

I don't know much about this subject, but the prestige language in the Low Countries was French too. As far as I know, it's never been German. The nobility of the Dutch Republic used to speak French, but I don't know to what extent they spoke it as a primary language.

As for Flanders: not just the nobility, but some Flemish bourgeoisie used to speak French among themselves too, wanting to emulate the aristocracy (a French speaker was pejoratively called a "Franskiljon"). Since the emancipation of Dutch speakers that's almost disappeared, but apparently some posh Flemish families still speak French.

Here is an article with a short section on "Alamode"