Louis XIV’s Great Cipher was unique in its complexity, far far beyond the other ciphers used during the time period. Indeed at the time, by far the most popular type of cipher was the mono alphabetic substitution cipher, yet that is easily deciphered by a good cryptanalyst through the use of frequency analysis.  The Great Cipher was much more than a simple mono alphabetic substitution cipher in that it utilized numbers to represent letters, but on top of this, the numbers didn’t just stand for letters they also stood for syallables. Since there was not a 1 to 1 relationship between letters and the cipher alphabet, it was nearly impossible to perform traditional frequency analysis on the cipher text. Furthermore, the cipher was brilliantly created with cipher text indicating to ignore the previous syllable or letter, making it tricky for any decoder to figure out what was part of the cipher and what was simply nonsense.

Perhaps the deciphering of the Great Cipher is even more impressive than the creation of such a complex cipher. The amazing creativity and brilliant thinking that Bazeries had to even consider looking at syllables has to be commended. Furthermore, for him to harp on a repeated phrase and be able to figure out what it meant is incredibly impressive. This also illustrates how amazing the cipher was in that it took Bazeries over three ears to crack it even with his uncanny ability to recognize that it is comprised of syllables.