The Great Cipher, used by Louis XIV, was far more complex than any cipher used in the 17th century. It was not simply a substitution cipher nor a homophone cipher. Étienne Bazeries considered that the Great Cipher could be a digraph, which meant that each number represented a pair of letters instead of a single letter. After months of work, Bazeries came to the conclusion that the cipher was not a digraph. He stuck with the concept that each number represented multiple letters, considering that they could possibly represent syllables. After deciphering two words, les ennemis, Bazeries was able to decipher the rest of the text. Another factor that made the Great Cipher so complex was that some of the numbers did not represent single letters nor syllables. Instead these numbers simply deleted the number before them. The Great Cipher was so far beyond its time period that it took centuries for cryptanalysts to catch up and approach the cipher from a different angle.
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