19/03/2021

An Early French Cipher (Gramont) Solved from Other Materials

I mentioned three unsolved cipher letters of Gabriel de Gramont (1529 from BnF Clair.330, 1530 from BnF fr.2980) in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Francis I". Now, I found another specimen with interlined decipherment in BnF fr.3019, and the reconstruced cipher can solve the letters in BnF fr.2980. The cipher used in BnF Clair.330 seems different.
It often happens that an unidentified cipher used in one volume can be reconstructed from deciphered materials found in other volumes. Some such examples, found through systematic search of BnF Clair.312-452, are already mentioned in my article. I'm now doing a systematic search for another part of the BnF collection. Maybe I should do the same for volumes around BnF fr.2900-3020.

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