Historical Background
Antoine Rossignol's cryptographic skills became known when in 1626 an encrypted letter was taken from a messenger leaving the city of Réalmont, controlled by the Huguenots and surrounded by the French army. The letter told that the Huguenots would not be able to hold onto the city for much longer, and by the end of the day Rossignol had successfully deciphered it. The French returned the letter with the deciphered message, forcing the Huguenots to surrender. He and his son, Bonaventure Rossignol, were soon appointed to prominent roles in the court.
Together, the two devised a code so strong it baffled cryptanalysts for centuries. Commandant Étienne Bazeries managed to break the cipher around 1893 over a period of three years, realizing that each number stood for a French syllable rather than single letters as traditional codes did. He guessed that a particular sequence of repeated numbers, 124-22-125-46-345, stood for les ennemis ("the enemies") and from that information was able to unravel the entire cipher.
Read more about this topic: Great Cipher
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or background:
“The proverbial notion of historical distance consists in our having lost ninety-five of every hundred original facts, so the remaining ones can be arranged however one likes.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)