01/05/2021

Cardinal Mazarin Used Partially Two-Part Code

When I posted "Cardinal Mazarin and Ciphers", I thought Mazarin's letters in cipher would not be available online (this is why the article is not titled "Cardinal Mazarin's Ciphers") and thought his cipher might be little more than a short nomenclature, judging from a specimen printed in Ravenel (1836).
Contrary to my expectations, I found a specimen that shows Mazarin('s secretary) used two-part code in June 1651 during his exile in Germany (though the arrangement is not completely random). It is the same cipher as the one used between Le Tellier and Colbert in December 1650. At present, I think the Le Tellier-Colbert cipher was given to Mazarin, who went to exile in Germany, rather than Le Tellier and Colbert were using the cipher given by Mazarin. More specimens are necessary to make a call.
I now added a section "Mazarin's Cipher" to describe these findings.

Note (16 October 2021): The original title of this post was "Cardinal Mazarin Used Two-Part Code." Although I included a reservation "the arrangement is not completely random" in the body, I thought I should add "Partially" in the headline, too (see today's post).

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