From Rise of Protestantism in France to Publication of the Institutes - James Aitken Wylie

tongue of France those graces of style, those felt
cities of expression, that flexibility, terseness, and
fire, which should fit it for expressing with equal
ease the most delicate shade of sentiment or the
most powerful burst of feeling.
It is remarkable surely that the two great
Reformers of Europe should have been each the
creator of the language of his native country.
Calvin was the father of the French tongue, as
Luther was the father of the German. There had
been a language in these countries, doubtless, since
the days of their first savage inhabitants, a
"French" and a "German" before there was a
Calvin and a Luther, just as there was a steamengine
before James Watt. But it is not more true
that Watt was the inventor of the steam-engine, by
making it a really useful instrument, than it is true
that Luther and Calvin were the creators of their
respective tongues as now spoken and written.
Calvin found French, as Luther had found
German, a coarse, meager speech -- of narrow
compass, of small adaptability, and the vehicle of
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