28/09/2024

The Prince of Condé's Cipher with his Agent in London

The cipher used in the correspondence from 1655 between the Prince of Condé and Barriere, his agent in London, (Add MS 4200) is better than contemporary French ciphers in that single letters, syllables, other words and names, and nulls share diacritics. For example, single letters may be represented by figures with a circumflex (^) or an umlaut (¨) (or other symbols based on Roman letters), while some syllables and words are also represented with figures with a circumflex or an umlaut.
At the time, Condé was in exile in the Spanish Netherlands and was fighting the French troops. It may be speculated that he might have had his source of cipher other than the king's court.
See the new section in the updated article, "Ciphers Early in the Reign of Louis XIV".

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