25/09/2020

Another Code from the Age of Louis XIV

I added another code as item (11) in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Louis XIV".
Unlike other ciphers at the time, it employs numbers up to 100 (not 99) as well as other letter-letter or figure-letter combinations such as "aa" (Avantage), "2a" (bla), "bc" (la), "maniere" (bl).

21/09/2020

French Ciphers in Henry II's Time

I added Duke Marcantonio of Paliano's cipher in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Henry II of France".
I also found an actual letter (1556) in the cipher no.15 presented in "Duke of Guise's Ciphers (1556) in BnF fr.20974" and mentioned it accordingly.

16/09/2020

A Cipher of Henry of Navarre before Accession to the French Throne (1587)

I uploaded a new article "A Cipher of Henry of Navarre before Accession to the French Throne (1587)", which presents a cipher used in a letter of Henry of Navarre to Buzenval. This is the only cipher I know of Henry IV before his accession to the French throne. Interestingly, it is a figure cipher, consisting of two- or three-digit figures. In France, such a figure cipher was not yet common at the time, though there were other sporadic examples as I wrote in the last post.

09/09/2020

French Figure Ciphers in the 1580s

I added a figure cipher (1586) in "French ciphers during the Reign of Henry III of France" (called "Anonymous Figure Cipher (1586)"). It is similar to a cipher (1579-1584) of Paul de Foix, ambassador in Rome in use of randomly arranged two-digit figures. Ciphers mainly consisting of Arabic figures were not common in France at the time, though more examples can be found in the Nevers Collection.

08/09/2020

More Ciphers from Louis XIII's Time

I made several additions to "French Ciphers during the Reign of Louis XIII", of which one undeciphered item (Coquet's) has also been included in "Unsolved Historical Ciphers".
Apart from specific ciphers, an observation by Desenclos (2017) that the cipher (1612) of Sainte-Catherine, resident in the Palatinate, was based on a cipher (1589) for Guillaume Ancel, resident to the Emperor, was interesting for me.

05/09/2020

An Unsolved Cipher to Cardinal Mazarin? (1649)

I added an unsolved letter from Henri Brasset, a French resident in The Hague, to "Vostre Eminence" (Mazarin?), in "Unsolved Historical Ciphers". The figures with diacritics probably represent syllables alphabetically arranged and some words and names, as with other ciphers at the time (see here).
There are many interesting patterns, but my attempt has not been successful.
For example, there are many instances of "S 7:" (in my transcription). I guessed this might be "qu e". If so, "S 7: 34 S 7:" is "quelque". "n+", which appears some characters after "mesmes" in clear, might be "s". The pattern AxyA may be "de ma n de" or "re n d re" etc. All these guesses led nowhere.

02/09/2020

Another Code from Napoleon III's Time

When googling, I came across a French code from Napoleon III's time, which I added in "Codes from the time of Napoleon III" (now renamed to the plural "Codes").