318 CRYPTOGRAPHS AND CIPHERS [CH. XIV 



was a cipher of the first type and had the defects inherent in 

 almost every cipher of this kind: in fact Glamorgan's letter 

 was deciphered, and the system was discovered by H. Dircks*. 

 Obsolete systems of shorthand f may be thus used as ciphers. 



It is always difficult to read a very short message in cipher, 

 since necessarily the clues are few in number. When the 

 Chevalier de Rohan was sent to the Bastille, on suspicion of 

 treason, there was no evidence against him except what might 

 be extracted from Monsieur Latruaumont. The latter died 

 without making any admission. De Rohan's friends had ar- 

 ranged with him to communicate the result of Latruaumont's 

 examination, and accordingly in sending him some fresh body 

 linen they wrote on one of the shirts Mg dulhxcclgu ghj yxuj, 

 Im ct ulgc alj. For twenty-four hours de Rohan pored over 

 the message, but, failing to read it, he admitted his guilt, and 

 was executed November 27, 1674. The cipher is a simple one 

 of the first type, but the communication is so short that unless 

 the key were known it would not be easy to read it. Had 

 de Rohan suspected that the second word was prisonnier, it 

 would have given him 7 out of the 12 letters used, and as the 

 first and third words suggest the symbols used for I and t, he 

 could hardly have failed to read the message. 



Marie Antoinette used what was in effect a St Cyr cipher, 

 consisting of 11 substitution alphabets employed in succession. 

 The first alphabet was n, o,p, z, a, b, I, m; the next, 



0, p, q, m, n; the next p, q, r, n, o; and so on. An 



expert would easily read a message in this cipher. 



One of the systems in use to-day is the five digit code- 

 book cipher, to which I have already alluded. In this, a code 

 dictionary is prepared in which every word likely to be used 

 is printed, and the words are numbered consecutively 00000, 



00001, ... up, if necessary, to 99999. Thus each word is 



* Life of the Marquis of Worcester by H. Dircka, London, 1865. Worcester's 

 system of shorthand was described by him in his Century of Inventions, London, 

 1663, sections 3, 4, 5. 



+ Various systems, including those used in classical and medieval times, are 

 described in the History of Shorthand by T. Anderson, London, 1882. 



