Observation - accents

One of his virtues has always been that he picked up accents. As a result, he speaks both a fairly elegant French (no doubt the "pure Touraine"), and Argot. When he lived in England he switched from standard American speech to more or less standard British speech to thick Fen speech with no effort. His voice aped those he spoke with.

When he came back from England he shifted away from the English accent, though he can do it on command.

Now though,his accent is more New York - more nasal, sans R-coloring. Perhaps he's around too many New Yorkers