TheCodeBreakers
In the swashbuckling court of that monarch, and then in the
resplendent one of Louis XIV, Rossignol served with an extraordinary
facility. The stronghold of Hesdin surrendered a week sooner than it
otherwise would have because he solved an enciphered plea for help, and
then composed a reply in the same cipher telling the townspeople how
futile their hopes were. How many other towns he compelled to
surrender, how many diplomatic coups he made possible, how many
betrayals he uncovered among the great nobles in those days of shifting
allegiances, he never discussed. This reticence caused some at the court
to charge that he never actually solved a single cipher, and that the
cardinal spread inflated rumors about his abilities to discourage would-
be conspirators. But in fact Richelieu was frequently telling his
subordinates such things as, "It is necessary to make use, in my opinion,
of the letters of the man who has been arrested by the civil authorities at
annaabi.ee 
