🎾🎩0️⃣0️⃣4️⃣ JJ Jusserand
Jean-Jules Jusserand, 1909. George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: LC-DIG-ggbain-03740)
Meet JJ Jusserand, the French Ambassador to the United States who strengthened Franco-American relations as part of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s famed “Tennis Cabinet” in the early 20th century.
Born in 1855, the Lyon native obtained his PhD in history and traveled the world before entering the French diplomatic corps. Jean-Adrien-Antoine-Jules (JJ) Jusserand found that tennis was a useful tool for a diplomat as he worked his way up the Quai d’Orsay ranks. He took his first tennis lessons while posted to London as Counsellor to the French Embassy (1887-1890), and continued to play with other diplomats when posted in Paris (1890-1898) and Copenhagen (1899-1902). [1] In 1901, Jusserand wrote a three-page piece on tennis and its history, published by The Nineteenth Century and After. The following year he was appointed to serve as the Ambassador of France to the United States, a position he held until 1925.
The Context
Jusserand and his American wife, Elise, arrived in Washington, D.C. in late January 1903, where they became close with the U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt. Jusserand took pride in his understanding of the United States, its culture, and people, and tennis helped him build friendships.
Tennis, with roots in the twelfth century French sport jeu de paume, evolved during Victorian-era Britain into lawn tennis. As Jusserand wrote in 1901, “the game of tennis, nowadays one of the most silent, used to be one of the noisiest of games.” [2] By the early twentieth century, it was a sport played by the upper and middle classes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The first major tennis championships were held at Wimbledon in 1877, in New York in 1881, in Paris in 1891, and in Australia in 1905.
Jusserand found that sports strengthened his relationship with Roosevelt. As one of the few people who could keep up with the U.S. President’s notorious athleticism, Jusserand was rapidly drafted to accompany Roosevelt on brisk walks in Rock Creek Park and to play tennis on the White House courts.
“The President had only a door to open and he was on the court,” Jusserand wrote in his memoirs:
“Intimate friends were asked; on rare occasions a passing visitor...The President and I played about even, and were for that cause always put in opposite camps. We also played singles. I find in my notes: ‘October 30, 1908 -- Everybody has gone to make speeches for Taft. The President has sent all his Ministers, including [Robert] Bacon, to help in the campaigning. We remain alone and play singles, which we had not done for a long while. Fate favours me. The President wins first 7 to 5, then I win 6 to 2 and 6 to 4.’” [3]
Roosevelt used tennis to bond with his closest confidants and advisors, and formed what became known as his“Tennis Cabinet.” Jusserand was part of this group, and the two statesmen used tennis to deepen their personal and professional relationship, often discussing business during or after a match. The French Ambassador used the relations forged through the game throughout his tenure in Washington, notably during the First World War.
Of note, Jusserand was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize in history and served as president of the American Historical Association in 1921, during which he gave an AHA presidential address on “The School for Ambassadors.”
The Sports Diplomacy Connection
Jusserand’s use of tennis is an example of what today is recognized as informal sports diplomacy: the cultural, technical, and knowledge exchanges fostered through people-to-people interactions. But because he was an official representative of France and his tennis games mixed government and personal work, his on-court game was also a form of formal sports diplomacy. Jusserand, whether playing doubles or singles, helped to impart French cultural attitudes while working to foster closer Franco-American relations. In fact, Jusserand noted how Roosevelt once used a French expression, “à la lanterne!” following a match. As the ambassador noted in his memoir, the expression “was the shout of the mob during the French Revolution for the hanging of aristocrats from the lamp-posts.” [4]
Mapping the Connection
From Lyon, France to Washington, D.C., United States, 1903-1925.
Further Reading
[E] JJ Jusserand, What Me Befell: The Reminiscences of JJ Jusserand, Constable and Company, 1933.
[E] JJ Jusserand, “The School for Ambassadors,” Presidential Address, American Historical Association, 1921.
[E] JJ Jusserand, With Americans of Past and Present Days, Scribners’ Sons, 1916; winner of the 1917 Pulitzer Prize in history.
Notes
[1] What Me Befell: The Reminiscences of JJ Jusserand, Constable and Company, 1933; loc.2211
[2] Jusserand, J. J. "'TENNIS'." The Nineteenth Century and After : A Monthly Review, vol. 50, no. 295, 1901, pp. 506-509.
[3] What me Befell. Loc. 5372
[4] What me Befell. Loc. 5388.